Albrecht Dürer
One of a small number of Germans with the means to travel internationally, Nuremberg born Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) helped bring the artistic styles of the Renaissance north of the Italian Alps after his visits to the Italian peninsula in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Like the Italian artists Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarotti, Dürer was a Renaissance Man, adept in multiple disciplines such as painting, printmaking, and mathematical theorizing. Dürer's introduction of classical motifs into Northern art has secured his reputation as one of the most important figures of the Northern Renaissance. This is reinforced by his theoretical treatises, which involve principles of mathematics, perspective, and ideal proportions.
One of Dürer's paintings that display a clearly classical rendering of the body is Adam and Eve (1507), the first full-scale nude subjects in German painting. A clear departure from flat and stylized representations of the Romanesque and Gothic periods, the bodies appear naturalistic and dynamic, with each figure posed in an engaging contrapposto pose. Although they stand against a black background, the ground on which both figures stand and the tree that flanks Eve comprise naturalistic landscape elements. Likely the first landscape painter in Early Modern Europe, Dürer honed his landscape painting skills working en plein air at home and during his travels.
Albrecht Dürer, Adam and Eve
Oil on panel. 1507. Two panels, each 209 cm × 81 cm (82 in × 32 in) Museo del Prado, Madrid.
Matthias Grünewald
Lying somewhat outside these developments is Matthias Grünewald, whose birthplace is located in eastern France and who left very few works. However, his Isenheim Altarpiece (1512–1516), produced in collaboration with Niclaus of Haguenau, has been widely regarded as the greatest German Renaissance painting since it was restored to critical attention in the 19th century. It is an intensely emotional work that continues the German Gothic tradition of unrestrained gesture and expression, using Renaissance compositional principles while maintaining the Gothic format of the multi-winged polyptych.
Matthias Grünewald, Isenheim Altarpiece (closed)
Oil on panel (exterior). Wooden relief sculptures (interior). 1512–16. Unterlinden Museum, Colmar, Alsace.
In its closed form, the Isenheim Altarpiece depicts an emaciated Christ whose skin bears many dark spots. Its lower panel, which houses relief sculptures displayed on certain feast days, opens in a manner that makes the legs of Christ, being entombed, appear amputated. Not surprisingly, Grünewald produced the altarpiece for a chapel in an infirmary that treated patients with a variety of diseases, including ergotism and isolated remaining strains of the plague. A primary symptom of both diseases was painful sores on the skin. In some cases of ergotism, limbs developed gangrene and had to be amputated. Through the skin sores and seemingly amputated legs, Grünewald informs the viewer that Christ understands and feels the suffering of the sick. Such "humanization" of Biblical figures became common throughout Europe during the Renaissance in an effort to make them more relatable to worshippers.
The Danube School
Albrecht Altdorfer's (c.1480–1538) Danube Landscape near Regensburg (c. 1528) is one of the earliest Western pure landscapes. The Danube School is the name of a circle of artists from the southern German-speaking states active during the first third of the 16th century in Bavaria and Austria, including Albrecht Altdorfer, Wolf Huber, and Augustin Hirschvogel. With Altdorfer in the lead, the school produced the first examples of independent landscape art in the West (nearly 1,000 years after China), in both paintings and prints. Their religious paintings had an expressionist style somewhat similar to Grünewald's. Dürer's pupils Hans Burgkmair and Hans Baldung Grien worked largely in prints, with Baldung developing the topical subject matter of witches in a number of enigmatic prints.
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Albrecht Altdorfer (c.1480–1538), Danube landscape near Regensburg (c. 1528)
One of the earliest Western pure landscapes, from the Danube School in southern Germany.
Hans Holbein the Elder
Hans Holbein the Elder and his brother Sigismund Holbein painted richly colored religious works. His later paintings show how he pioneered and led the transformation of German art from the (Late) International Gothic to the Renaissance style. Holbein the Elder was a pioneer and leader in the transformation of German art from the Gothic to the Renaissance style. His son, Hans Holbein the Younger, was an important painter of portraits and a few religious works, working mainly in England and Switzerland.
Hans Holbein the Elder, Dormition of the Virgin
Oil on panel. c. 1491. Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.
The outstanding achievements of the first half of the 16th century were followed by a remarkable absence of noteworthy German art. The next significant German artists worked in the rather artificial style of Northern Mannerism, which they had to learn in Italy or Flanders. Hans von Aachen and the Netherlandish Bartholomeus Spranger were the leading painters at the Imperial courts in Vienna and Prague, and the productive Netherlandish Sadeler family of engravers spread out across Germany, among other counties.