Albrecht Durer,familiar with metal from his early training as a goldsmith,begins engraving copper plates in
his twenties and rapidly develops a mastery of the technique.He is more unusual in tackling at the same
period,the 1490s, the much more mechanical craft of the woodcut (where each area of white in the image has
to be scooped from the block of wood) But Durer's large and completely assuredwoodcutsimmediantely
demonstrate this too can be an artist's medium.