When art wed science
Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), considered the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance, is admired as much for his versatility and range as for his profound mastery of his materials. Portrait painter, draftsman, watercolorist, and, most famously, printmaker, he is perhaps best known for his treatment of biblical and allegorical themes. But the brilliant, tirelessly inquisitive German artist also altered the world’s vision of the heavens. On the fourth floor of Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum hang Dürer’s intricate 1515 woodcut prints depicting the constellations of the northern and southern hemispheres with a combination of scientific scrutiny and artistic flair. Made in collaboration with 16th-century mathematician and astronomer Conrad Heinfogel and cartographer Johannes Stabius, and drawing on his own interest in and knowledge of astronomy, the artist carefully created his celestial charts. Never before had the heavens’ constellations been so vividly, accurately, and widely reproduced. The scholarly work changed the history of astronomy. Dürer’s...