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His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Renaissance in Northern Europe ever since.
== Return to Nuremberg (1495 - 1505) ==
[[किपा:Dürer_Melancholia_I.jpg|thumb|right|''[[Melencolia I]]'', 1514, Albrecht Dürer engraving]]
On his return to Nuremberg in 1495, Dürer opened his own workshop (being married was a requirement for this). Over the next five years his style increasingly integrated Italian influences into underlying Northern forms. Dürer lost both of his parents during the next decade: his father died in 1502 and his mother died in 1513.<ref name=Allen>Allen, L. Jessie. (1903) ''Albrecht Dürer'', Methuen & co.</ref> His best works in the first years of the workshop were his [[woodcut]] prints, mostly religious, but including secular scenes such as ''The Mens' Bath-house'' (ca. 1496). These were larger than the great majority of German woodcuts hitherto, and far more complex and balanced in composition.
It is now thought unlikely that Dürer cut any of the woodblocks himself; this task would have been left for a specialist craftsman. However, his training in Wolgemut's studio, which made many carved and painted altarpieces and both designed and cut woodblocks for woodcut, evidently gave him great understanding of what the technique could be made to produce, and how to work with block cutters. Dürer either drew his design directly onto the woodblock itself, or glued a paper drawing to the block. Either way, his drawings were destroyed during the cutting of the block.
His famous series of sixteen great designs for the ''Apocalypse<ref>[http://www.payer.de/christentum/apokalypse.htm Johannesapokalypse in klassischen Comics<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>'' are dated 1498. He made the first seven scenes of the ''Great Passion'' in the same year, and a little later, a series of eleven on the [[Holy Family]] and saints. Around 1503–1505 he produced the first seventeen of a set illustrating the ''[[Life of the Virgin]]'', which he did not finish for some years. Neither these, nor the ''Great Passion,'' were published as sets until several years later, but prints were sold individually in considerable numbers.<ref name="Bartrum"/>
[[किपा:Albrecht Duerer- Lamentation for Christ.JPG|thumb|left|''[[Lamentation for Christ]]'', oil, 1500-3]]
During the same period Dürer trained himself in the difficult art of using the [[Burin (tool)|burin]] to make [[engraving]]s. It is possible he had begun learning this skill during his early training with his father, as it was also an essential skill of the goldsmith. The first few were relatively unambitious, but by 1496 he was able to produce the masterpiece, the ''Prodigal Son,'' which [[Vasari]] singled out for praise some decades later, noting its Germanic quality. He was soon producing some spectacular and original images, notably ''Nemesis'' (1502), ''The Sea Monster'' (1498), and ''[[:Image:Dürer10.jpg|Saint Eustace]]'' (ca.1501), with a highly detailed landscape background and beautiful animals. He made a number of [[Madonna (art)|Madonnas]], single religious figures, and small scenes with comic peasant figures. Prints are highly portable and these works made Dürer famous throughout the main artistic centres of Europe within a very few years.<ref name="Bartrum"/>
[[किपा:Duerer-Prayer.jpg|100px|thumb|right|''The Praying Hands'']]
The Venetian artist [[Jacopo de' Barbari]], whom Dürer had met in Venice, visited Nuremberg in 1500, and Dürer said that he learned much about the new developments in [[perspective (graphical)|perspective]], [[anatomy]], and [[Body proportions|proportion]] from him. He was unwilling to explain everything he knew, so Dürer began his own studies, which would become a lifelong preoccupation. A series of extant drawings show Dürer's experiments in human proportion, leading to the famous engraving of ''[[Adam and Eve]]'' (1504), which shows his subtlety while using the [[Burin (tool)|burin]] in the texturing of flesh surfaces.<ref name="Bartrum"/> This is the only existing engraving signed with his full name. At this time Dürer also made an engraving of [[Philosophy|Philosophia]] as mother of the [[liberal arts]] for the humanist [[Conrad Celtis]].
Dürer made large numbers of preparatory drawings, especially for his paintings and engravings, and many survive, most famously the ''Praying Hands'' (1508 [[Albertina, Vienna]]), a study for an apostle in the Heller altarpiece. He also continued to make images in [[watercolour]] and [[bodycolour]] (usually combined), including a number of exquisite still lifes of meadow sections or animals, including his "[[Hare]]" (1502, [[Albertina, Vienna]]).
== Second journey to Italy (1505-07) ==
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