Documenting Durer's
Landscape 's
Durer travelled to Italy on 2 occasions. First in 1494 and then again in 1505. My film considers his first journey from Nuremburg to Venice.
During this journey, it is believed that Durer made small paintings which are regarded as the first modern, topographically accurate representations of landscape. I propose that he may also have made close observational drawings of flora and fauna from these landscapes, before or after time spent with Giovanni Bellini.
I use my photographic survey of Dolomite landscapes between Trento, where Durer made his famous ‘View of Trento’ in 1495, and Venice. Through my film work I bring together my photographs of Northern Italian landscapes and their flora, with botanical drawings by Durer which match the species I found. I make the argument that Durer was looking closely at landscape when he travelled and recorded the morphology and botanical details of landscapes in a new way in Renaissance Painting. This was to contribute to the emergence of the landscape an independent, subjective genre, separate from religious painting.