featured throwback

pillow studies by Albrecht Dürer

Kopfkissen, 1493

There’s something grounding and cathartic about the way in which Albrecht Dürer studied a pillow, as if softness itself was worth recording in granular, painstaking detail. These sketches are a reminder that even quiet things ask to be seen, and artistic care is an act of devotion.

Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) was a German painter, printmaker, and theorist whose meticulous studies of nature and form helped define the Northern Renaissance. Known for his engravings, self-portraits, and devotional works, Dürer approached art as both craftsmanship and inquiry, treating even the smallest subjects with reverence and precision.

“Therefore, if he [the artist] were to live many hundreds of years, and labor to the best of his abilities, if he so wished, through the power of God he would daily spill out and make new forms of men and other creatures that nobody had ever seen or thought of before.” -Albrecht Dürer

The sketches below represent the front (left) and back (right) of the same piece of ancient paper.