ALBRECHT DÜRER

A BOOK FOR ARTISANS AND ARTISTS

Dürer's work is dedicated to the proportions of the human body in order to enable artists to  draw features that are as close as possible to nature. It is comprised of four books: Book I teaches the reader how the entire length of a human body can be divided into proportions and then drawn on the basis of the "divider". Book II explains the use of a measuring stick which measures a sixth of the entire length and likewise enables the human figure to be drawn as realistically as possible. Book III demonstrates how the previously determined proportions can be changed to create variations, and Book IV looks at the illustration of movements. Dürer distinguishes between the body masses of men, women and children. 

The work includes around 150 illustrations, including vignettes. The illustrations were created on flat woodcut profiles that Dürer otherwise did not use for artistic work.

Dürer chose the German language and focused on goldsmiths and stone engravers, painters and carpenters. He spent two decades polishing the words as the German language was hardly ever used for publications. Dürer was not able to refer to known terminology for the geometric and anatomical figures and invented a lot of new terms.

The cover page and first pages of the introduction were lost in this copy and were presumably updated by hand in the 18th century under consideration of a second copy.