Around 1495 -1520 · Sacred child, family of the Virgin and resurgent observation

In Albrecht Dürer, the child stands at the meeting point between faith and observation: Jesus, the newborn Mary and the holy families take on a precise bodily presence in the drawing, the oil and the print.

Albrecht Dürer renews the image of childhood by associating Christian tradition with an acute observation of the body and domestic life. In his Virgins with the Child, Jesus is not only a symbol: weight, movement, hand and gaze give the small body an immediate presence. The theme of Saint Anne brings together three generations and transforms sacred genealogy into a readable family relationship. In the engraved series of The Life of the Virgin, the birth of Mary takes up the gestures of a contemporary bedroom, with women, linen and bath of the newborn. Oil, drawing, engraving and wood widely disseminate these images, while the precision of fabrics, faces and spaces connects devotion, humanism and daily experience. The "Children at Albrecht Dürer" selection notably compares The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and The Virgin, the Child Jesus and Saint Anne. His reading favors color.

Dürer makes sacred childhood credible through the concrete: the weight of a body, the grip of a hand and the calm of a face give flesh to the mystery.