Albrecht Dürer was a German Renaissance artist who excelled in a variety of disciplines, including painting, drawing, printmaking, and theoretical research.

Dürer was a multifaceted man who mastered a range of techniques and resources that made him one of the most genuine and brilliant figures in the history of the German Renaissance of the 15th and 16th centuries.

His art crossed borders and fertilized foreign cultures. Both for its quality and quantity, it deserves a place of honor in the artistic firmament.

He was influenced by the Lutheran Reformation, which began in 1517, and was consolidated in Germany when he died in 1528. He was also a prototype of the Renaissance man, adorned with the qualities inherent to this category: interested in culture, admirer of Greco-Roman antiquity, theorist of the Fine Arts, enthusiastic about geometry, the proportions of the human body, and a multifaceted artist.

His production is not too evident in painting, but it is in engravings. Only one oil painting of mythological inspiration, Hercules Slaying the Stymphalian Birds, is preserved. It was commissioned by Frederick of Saxony to decorate a room in his castle. It shows the influence of the Florentine Antonio Pollaiuolo, author of scenes featuring the Greek hero, whose prints were admired, imitated, and sometimes copied by Dürer. It has also been pointed out that it recalls Dante's Divine Comedy and imitates the Italian landscape. Equally exceptional are those of historical themes related to myths of the Latin past.