JAN BIAŁOSTOCKI: ALBRECHT DURER AS WRITER AND ART THEORIST [1956].

Description

This is the first edition of the fundamental work of the eminent art historian Professor Jan Bialostocki (1921-1988) – one of the most eminent Polish humanists of the 20th century, long-time director of the National Museum in Warsaw and professor at Warsaw University. The publication was published in 1956 in Wroclaw by the Ossoliński National Institute, as volume V of the prestigious series “Source Texts to the History of Art Theory.”

The book is the first in the Polish scientific literature such a comprehensive monograph devoted to the writings of Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) – a brilliant painter, draughtsman and printmaker who was also one of the first theorists of modern art. Bialostocki analyzes all of Dürer’s treatises: “A Course in the Art of Measuring” (1525), “Science of Strengthening Cities, Castles and Towns” (1527) and “Four Books on the Proportions of Man” (1528). The author portrays Dürer not only as a practitioner, but above all as a thinker who, on German soil at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, created a modern theory of art, combining empiricism with reflection on the nature of beauty and the role of the artist.

Bialostocki’s work, based on a meticulous analysis of sources and abounding in quotations from original texts, remains to this day an essential work in the field. The publication is enriched with 80 illustrations (including reproductions of Dürer drawings and engravings, facsimiles of manuscripts). A clean copy, bound in an exclusive, hand-made binding of natural leather by the Polish Antiquarian Bookbindery.

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