Virgin Sitting by a Wall by Albrecht Durer

Virgin Sitting by a Wall by Albrecht Durer, 1514, is a copper engraving depicted the seated Virgin with Christ child in a detailed landscape with city walls. The fine lines and intricately modeled, classical forms create both the sculptural solidity of the subject as well as textures, details, and atmosphere. Albrecht Dürer (1471 - 1528) was a German painter of the Northern Renaissance and also an engraver, printmaker, mathematician and theorist whose woodcut prints and theoretical treatises secured his reputation as one of the greatest artists of Europe. His many paintings, portraits, altarpieces, watercolors, and engravings were the first in the Northern Renaissance to use classical motifs from antiquity and the Italian Renaissance. The art of landscape painting began with his watercolors. Durer’s unparalleled skill in drawing and engraving as well as mastery of perspective allowed him rapid execution of a range of motifs which elicit universal admiration to this day.