Albrecht Durer: 101 Figure Drawings & Paintings

Durer's study of human proportions and the use of transformations to a coordinate grid to demonstrate facial variation inspired similar work by D'Arcy Thompson in his book On Growth and Form. He exerted a huge influence on the artists of succeeding generations, especially in printmaking, the medium through which his contemporaries mostly experienced his art, as his paintings were predominantly in private collections located in only a few cities. His success in spreading his reputation across Europe through prints was undoubtedly an inspiration for major artists such as Raphael, Titian, and Parmigianino, all of whom collaborated with printmakers in order to promote and distribute their work.His work in engraving seems to have had an intimidating effect upon his German successors, the "Little Masters" who attempted few large engravings but continued Durer's themes in small, rather cramped compositions. Lucas van Leyden was the only Northern European engraver to successfully continue to produce large engravings in the first third of the 16th century. The generation of Italian engravers who trained in the shadow of Durer all either directly copied parts of his landscape backgrounds (Giulio Campagnola, Giovanni Battista Palumba, Benedetto Montagna and Cristofano Robetta), or whole prints (Marcantonio Raimondi and Agostino Veneziano).