Durer shines at Milan's Palazzo Reale

(by Bianca Maria Manfredi) (ANSA) - Milan, February 20 - It took three years to prepare a new show on Albrecht Durer and the German Renaissance opening Wednesday at Milan's Palazzo Reale through June 24.
    Featuring a selection including 12 paintings, three watercolors and 60 engravings, graphic works and books, the exhibition will show the mutual impact of Italian and German art in the 16th century. It will display the works by the Nuremberg master alongside those of contemporaries such as Lucas Cranach, Albrecht Altdorfer and Hans Baldung Grien in Germany; and Giorgione, Andrea Mantegna, Leonardo da Vinci, Andrea Solario, Giovanni Bellini and Titian in Italy. The painting chosen by curators as the symbol of the exhibit 'Durer and the Renaissance between Germany and Italy' is the Portrait of a Young Venetian Woman on loan from Vienna's Kunsthistoriches Museum - a masterwork highlighting the strong bond connecting German and northern Italian art.
    The exhibit will be opening at Palazzo Reale after a hugely successful show on Caravaggio, which was extended until February 4 and visited by 420,000 people.
    Curated by Bernard Aikema with Andrew John Martin's cooperation, the Durer show includes six sections.
    The first is dedicated to 'Durer, German art, Venice, Italy' with two 'Venetian' masterworks - Feast of the Rosary and Christ among the Doctors.
    Another room focuses on 'Geometry, measure, architecture' as Durer was not only a painter and engraver bur also a scholar.
    The third part focuses on Nature with a selection of landscapes and the fourth on portraits.
    A separate area showcases parts of his Apocalypse, a famous series of scenes from the Book of Revelation, likely the first book that was illustrated and published by an artist, and the series on the Large Passion, exhibited together with Melancholia, Durer's most famous engraving, on loan from the National Gallery.
    The last section is on Classicism and its alternatives.
    Milan's culture councilor, Filippo Del Corno, said the city is hosting a retrospective dedicated to Durer "for the first time".
    Promoted and produced by Milan city council's culture department, Palazzo Reale and 24 Ore Cultura, the exhibit will also be open on Easter Sunday and Monday, April 25 and May 1.