Okay, so this is the second time I've heard this story in sacrament meeting and I'd like to put a stop to it because however sentimental a story, it's not true. There is a story that's apparently going around about Albrecht Durer and a work of his. The first time I heard this story was in a talk in sacrament meeting about a year ago, I perked up because Albrecht Durer is one of my favorite artists, but as the speaker went on I realized that the story couldn't be true because it contradicted most of what I've read about him.
The story goes that Albrect Durer the Senior and his wife had 18 children and Albrecht Durer (the artist) and his brother Albert both wanted to be artists but their father couldn't or wouldn't pay for them to go to art school so they flipped a coin or something to that effect to determine who would go to school first and who would work to support the brother in school, they would switch later. Albrecht won the coin toss and went to school and became the talented famous artist. When the time came for him to support his brother in school, his brother's hands were too messed up from working in a coal mine or similarly unpleasant occupation. To honor his brother Durer drew his brother's hands in the piece called "Praying Hands"
That is the story. Now to get to the many reasons why this story isn't true. First and foremost, "Praying Hands" was a sketch for another piece, it was not a tribute to a brother but a study of hands, also those hands do not look like the hands of someone who has supposedly had every bone in the hands broken to me, please remember that someone working in a coal mine (etc.) in the 1500s would not be going to the emergency room and getting modern treatment. Next, I haven't ever heard of anything like this in any of my studies of Durer and frankly it's something that I think art historians would have picked up on. Yet another problem was that I don't know if there even was an art academy in Durer's time, Durer learned by being an apprentice in the workshop of another artist, traveling to Italy etc. Another problem, I don't know that most people even worry about Durer's siblings, they're not as important as him histoicly, he might not have even had a brother Albert. I hope at this point I have sufficiently convinced anyone reading that while this story is very nice and touching, it's not true. If you've just got to have this story you could change it to some fictional artist and then you'd be fine. If you hear it, perhaps you could pass it on to the teller that it's not true. Thank you.
Incidently you really should look into Durer because he was an absolutly amazing artist.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
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