Europe in Dürer's time was very different from the Europe we know today.
Dürer was born in Nuremberg, which was a city in what's now Germany.
The German lands were part of a political entity called the Holy Roman Empire.
And it was called that because it really saw itself as a successor to the mighty
Roman Empire and it reached from Bohemia, Switzerland, to the Netherlands.
There were many changes going on and some
huge upheavals to society and to systems of belief.
One of the most startling things that happened in Dürer's lifetime
and to which he certainly responded, was the rise of Martin Luther's challenge
to the Roman Catholic Church, which began in 1517.
Martin Luther was one of those people
who felt that the church in those times had really got disconnected
from the teachings of Jesus Christ.
And that ended up dismantling
the structures of the Orthodox Catholic Church.
We know that Dürer was extremely
interested in reading for himself what Luther wrote, and we actually have a list
in Dürer's own handwriting of pamphlets by Luther written in German that Dürer
must himself had bought in order to read.
The impact of Luther's ideas was felt
on a lot of artists and the art that they were producing in early 16th century
Germany and Dürer himself, I think really felt this.
And he wanted to get back in a very close way to what the New Testament was saying
about the life of Christ, about the suffering of Christ.
And there's one particular drawing in which Dürer
shows a really unusual moment of the story in which Christ's body
is actually being laid out to be embalmed and one of the people in the foreground
of the drawing is carrying an absolutely enormous jar.
And that seems to be a reference to the very precise information that's
given in the New Testament about how large this jar of embalming ointment was.
There was clearly tremendous and growing intellectual curiosity.
Universities were flourishing and Dürer was
very plugged in to the intellectuals in Nuremberg.
One of the most exciting intellectual movements at the time was humanism.
And that sounds quite dusty to us as a term.
But it was very exciting at the time because it was all about rediscovering
classical knowledge and geography and topography and zoology.
And we can see his interests in humanist ideas, in particular
when we look at how he renders places and plants and animals
For example, the famous hare.
It's really a portrait, a very vivid portrait of this animal
somewhat sitting on this piece of paper in Dürer's workshop.
But the glance on his fur, on his hair.
With the reflection of a window,
the window of Dürer's workshop, in his eye.
With a soft light over the body of this animal.
He also painted the piece of turf outside his house,
painting birds' wings,
taking an interest in the everyday and the miniscule details that make up
our world and make our world such a fascinating place.
He does capture in those moments something
which is fundamentally true every single time.
And this is the case whether it's an animal, a plant, a human being.
There's a kind of humility in front of the image.
The image of the world changed in the late
15th century when Dürer was around in his mid twenties,
America has been discovered.
Connections began to be made with parts of the world beyond Europe.
We know in this period that there were
many people of African origin living in Europe before the slave trade began.
They may now be things that look, quote unquote, lifelike, that look real
as drawings of people of colour, but these were the first ones.
There is literally nothing like them.
Something about the character
and personality of this young woman is absolutely caught.
And that's a remarkable facility.
To be able to capture a human being
without judgement, without preconditions.
They're just two ordinary people who happen
to be black and living in the 16th century.
Dürer's father originally came from Hungary.
So he travelled westwards and settled in Nuremberg.
And because Nuremberg was an open, outward facing city,
it was much easier to settle there and establish himself as a goldsmith.
And in 1471, Dürer was born there.