In the days when the great artist was growing up, Nuremberg was the centre of all intellectuality and art in the North. The city of Augsburg also followed art fashions, but it was far less important than Nuremberg, because in the latter city every sort of art-craft was followed in sincerity and with great originality.
In those days, the craft of the goldsmith was closely allied with the profession of the painter, because the smith had to create his own designs, and that called for much talent. Thus it was but a step from designing in precious metals to the use of colour, and to engraving. In making wood engravings, however, the drudgery of it was left almost entirely to workmen, not artists. Nuremberg was also the seat of musical learning. Wagner makes this fact pathetic, comical, and altogether charming in his "Mastersingers of Nuremberg."
Till Dürer's time, however, there had been little painting that could be regarded as art, and when he came to study it there was but little opportunity in his own land, but Dürer was destined to bring art to Nuremberg. If he went elsewhere to study, it was only for a little time, because he was above all things patriotic and dearly loved his home.
With seventeen brothers and sisters, young Dürer's problem was a serious one. His father not only meant him to become a goldsmith like himself--a craft in which there was much money to be made at a time when people dressed with great ornamentation and used gold to decorate with--it was highly necessary with so large a family that he should learn to do that which could make him helpful to his father. Hence the young boy entered his father's shop. If he had not been handicapped with so many to help to maintain, he would have laid up a considerable fortune, because from the very beginning he was master of all that he undertook; doing the least thing better than any other did it, putting conscience and painstaking into all.
"My father took special delight in me," the son said, "seeing that I was industrious in working and learning, he put me to school; and when I had learned to read and write, he took me home from my school and taught me the goldsmith's trade."
The family were good and kind; excellent neighbours, deeply religious, and little Albrecht certainly was comely. He was beautiful as a little child, and as a man was very handsome, with long light hair sweeping his shoulders, and gentle eyes. He was very tall, stately, and full of dignity.