Though often grouped with esteemed sixteenth-century contemporaries Leonardo, Raphael and Michelangelo, German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer created works more distinct and personally revealing than any of his Italian colleagues.

Albrecht Dürer: Master Drawings, Watercolors, and Prints from the Albertina, an exhibition now on view at The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. featuring 118 pieces from the Albertina Museum in Vienna, complemented by 27 artworks from the National Gallery’s own collection, sheds light on an unparalleled creative vision.

While fellow artists in Italy depended on commissions from church officials and aristocratic patrons for their livelihood, making biblical illustrations and portraits, Dürer used the printing press to disseminate unique, highly personal images that struck a chord with the public. Sold by agents throughout Europe, this business model afforded Dürer a level of individuality and creative freedom that set the artist apart from his Italian peers. The works on view here, impressive formally and technically, also reveal the creative soul of a Renaissance master.

A highlight of the exhibition is a suite of loosely connected etchings from 1513-1514. In the first piece of the series, Knight, Death and the Devil, an armour-clad knight trots through a grove on horseback, his dog keeping pace, passing a horned devil and a snake-covered corpse holding an hourglass. Steely gazes fixed straight ahead, the group ignores the ghoulish figures on the embankment. With death ever present on the path from cradle to grave, this allegory suggests that, rather than submit to existential anxiety, there is heroism in remaining steadfastly focused on the way forward.

A counterpart to Knight, Death and the Devil, Saint Jerome in his Study celebrates the monastic life of quiet, plodding work. The etching, praised by Vasari for its naturalism, depicts the biblical scholar contentedly writing in an ordered room, daylight streaming softly through windows. Perhaps a metaphor for Dürer’s own artistic practice, this print is a marvel of tonal control, perspective and scale.

In Melencolia I, the last piece in the suite, a downcast angel is surrounded by symbols of intellectual pursuits, including an enormous polyhedron, the mysterious etching connecting a cerebral approach to life with despondency. Above the seated angel, a puzzle pays tribute to the artist’s recently deceased mother through coded clues. According to the exhibition catalog, Albrecht Dürer “came to terms with his loss by spending the months following his mother’s death immersed in work.”

Other notable pieces in the show include the celebrated drawing Praying Hands; a prismatic watercolor of a bird’s wing; and The Great Piece of Turf, an exquisite nature study of a patch of grass that appears to have been painted from the point of view of a field mouse.

This exhibition will not travel and the masterworks gathered here will likely not be exhibited together again for years to come. Albrecht Dürer: Master Drawings, Watercolors, and Prints from the Albertina merits a special trip to Washington D.C.

Albrecht Dürer: Master Drawings, Watercolors, and Prints from the Albertina , on view through June 9, 2013 at the National Gallery of Art, 4th and Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC, 202-737-4215, www.nga.gov

More information about Xico Greenwald’s work can be found at xicogreenwald.com