Dürer, Renaissance master

Some 70 old master prints by German Renaissance master Albrecht Dürer are on display in Barcelona in an exhibition that spans three spaces in the Barri Gòtic. The works help you discover the artist, a great illustrator and printer who took on a wide range of themes: religious scenes, mythology, portraits, and social and political commentary. They also give you a sense of the time he was working in and show the importance of bankers such as Jakob Fugger, the Medici of Augsburg, and the role of the church in the building of Europe.

Highlights among the pieces, which are on loan from an Italian collector, are the 20 sheets of engravings that depict Maximilian's 'Great Triumphal Car', and also 'Malencolia I', a piece created by burin and referenced in the work of Josep Maria Subirachs on the Passion Façade of the Sagrada Família. From the series dedicated to the Life of the Virgin, don't miss the image of the Virgin over the crescent moon. Dürer traded with these prints where he demonstrated an absolute mastery of the drawing, and we still enjoy his anatomies and clothing, and the architecture and landscapes he re-created.

The exhibition is on simultaenously at the Reial Cercle Artístic (10am-10pm) and at the Cathedral and the Museu Diocesa (both Jan, Feb, 10am-7pm; Mar-May, 10am-7.45pm).