The durable Dürer

In the Reformation era, Albrecht Dürer used new technology to advance excellent art the way Luther used it to advance biblical theology. Five centuries later, Dürer’s art is in a traveling exhibition, and it still soars | Marvin Olasky

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As the Internet is changing communication now, so the printing press did half a millennium ago, and not only for writers. Artists until then could paint or sculpt and hope their creation would last in one public place. But soon after Gutenberg's mid-15th-century innovation, artists who devoted themselves to print media could produce multiple copies for private homes.

One artist in particular specialized and excelled in intricate woodcuts, engravings, and etchings: Abrecht Dürer (1471-1528). Art historians view him as the greatest master of the printed image besides Rembrandt, the leading melder of northern European and Renaissance styles, and a true graphic entrepreneur during the first century of the printing press. But he's also interesting theologically, as he became a fan of Martin Luther during the last decade of his life.