Albrecht Altdorfer

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(b c. 1480; d Regensburg, 12 Feb 1538). He was one of Germany's most innovative artists in an era spanning late medieval piety, the Renaissance and the Reformation, and his work reveals many facets of a changing society. It is especially noteworthy for an expressive use of nature and for introducing landscape as a theme of its own in art. In this respect Altdorfer is the central figure of the DANUBE SCHOOL.

Part of the Altdorfer family

See the Abbreviations for further details.

The German painter, draftsman, printmaker, and architect Albrecht Altdorfer (ca. 1480-1538) contributed to the evolution of landscape painting. He was a major figure of the so-called Danube school, whose artists created a fantastic, picturesque style of land scape painting.

The son of the engraver Ulrich Altdorfer, Albrecht Altdorfer was probably born at Regensburg. In 1505 Albrecht was listed as a painter from Amberg when he became a citizen of Regensburg. By 1513 he was married and purchased a house at Regensburg.

Throughout his life Altdorfer was active in the affairs of his city. In 1519 he is mentioned as a member of the City Council for External Affairs, and in 1526 he was elected to the City Council for Internal Affairs. That year he was appointed city architect, in which capacity he supervised the building of the city wine cellars and slaughterhouse (1527). In 1528 he declined to allow the city to elect him mayor. His wife died in 1532, leaving him a childless widower. Altdorfer was a member of the council which, in 1533, decided to adopt Lutheranism at Regensburg. In 1535 he traveled to the imperial court in Vienna on an official visit for the city of Regensburg. He died on Feb. 14, 1538, and was buried in the church of the Augustine Cloister, of which he had been named overseer in 1534. A prosperous citizen, at his death he owned several houses and had numerous other possessions.

The Paintings

Altdorfer's earliest preserved works are chiefly engravings and drawings, which show a marked interest in Italian prints, noticeable also in his first signed painting, the Satyr Family (1507). This panel, a St. George in a Wood (1510), and a Holy Night (1510-1515) are small and reveal a characteristically poetic feeling for the minutiae and light of landscape. In St. George in a Wood the landscape elements are so fused in color and detail with the figures as to render the latter almost indistinct, and in the Holy Night the mysterious moonlight shining on the bricks and wood relegates the figures to a secondary role.

After 1510 Altdorfer's paintings became larger, and he employed a more monumental and heroic language with vivid coloring. Particularly indicative is the altar (ca. 1518) for the monastery of Sankt Florian, near Linz, Austria. Consisting of scenes from the Passion and from the legend of St. Sebastian, the work is striking for its dynamic movements, bold spatial effects with strong foreshortenings and emphatic perspective schemes influenced by the painting of Michael Pacher, and dramatic lighting effects. These characteristics are also present, though more subdued, in the panels of the Finding of the Body of St. Florian (ca. 1520) and the Birth of the Virgin (ca. 1521). During this period, which lasted until about 1526, Altdorfer produced his first pure landscape paintings, of which the Danube Landscape near Regensburg (ca. 1521) is an outstanding example.

In the work of his last period, from about 1526, Altdorfer became increasingly interested in color and in architectural constructions of Renaissance inspiration. This may be observed especially in Susanna at the Bath (1526) and the Allegory of Riches and Poverty (1531). In Lot and His Daughters (1537) and the 22 surviving fragments of fresco decoration that he executed for the Emperor's Bath in the Bishop's Palace, Regensburg, about 1530, Altdorfer adopted Italian Renaissance figure forms but with a flavor that was distinctly German. His most important painting of the period, the Battle of Alexander (1529), commissioned by Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria, illustrates Altdorfer's ability to organize a multitude of detail of miniaturistic scale in a cosmological vision that embraces both sky and terrain. The personal fate of the protagonists, Alexander and Darius, is subordinated to the agitated action of the armies in the vast panorama.

Drawings and Graphic Work

Among Altdorfer's many drawings, the marginal illustrations he did for the Prayer Book of Emperor Maximilian I in 1515 hold an important place. Altdorfer's engravings share the general characteristics of the Nuremberg school, whose direction was determined by the graphic art of Albrecht Dürer. The earliest ones date between 1506 and 1511, and a larger group belongs to the later years of Altdorfer's life. His graphic work also includes several etchings of landscapes, about 1520, and woodcuts executed mostly between 1511 and 1522 by skilled woodcut artists after his designs.

Further Reading

There is an extensive literature on Altdorfer in German. In English see Emil Waldmann, ed., Albrecht Altdorfer: Catalogue of Engravings and Etchings (1923), and F. W. H. Hollstein, German Engravings, Etchings, and Woodcuts ca. 1400-1700 (1954). For background information see Otto Benesch, The Art of the Renaissance in Northern Europe (1945; rev. ed. 1965).

Additional Sources

Wood, Christopher S., Albrecht Altdorfer and the origins of landscape, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.

Altdorfer, Albrecht (Regensburg, c.1480-1538, Regensburg), German painter; he composed fantastic landscapes with a pronounced sense of atmosphere as background for religious or historical scenes. Among his most notable works are the Alexanderschlacht in Munich (Alte Pinakothek) and the series of religious pictures in the Abbey of St Florian near Linz (Austria).

Resurrection by Altdorfer, 1518

Albrecht Altdorfer (c. 1480 near Regensburg – 12 February 1538 in Regensburg) was a German painter, printmaker and architect of the Renaissance era, the leader of the Danube School in southern Germany, and a near-contemporary of Albrecht Dürer. He is best known as a significant pioneer of landscape in art.

Contents 1 Painting 2 Paintings in Munich 3 Printmaking 4 Public life 5 See also 6 References 7 External links

Painting

He most often painted religious scenes, but is mainly famous as the first frequent painter of pure landscape, and also compositions dominated by their landscape. Taking and developing the landscape style of Lucas Cranach the Elder, he shows the hilly landscape of the Danube valley with thick forests of drooping and crumbling firs and larches hung with moss, and often dramatic colouring from a rising or setting sun. His Landscape with footbridge (National Gallery, London) of 1518-20 is claimed to be the first pure landscape in oil. [1] He also made many fine finished drawings, mostly landscapes, in pen and watercolour. His best religious scenes are intense, sometimes verging on the expressionistic, and often depict moments of intimacy between Christ and his mother, or others. His most famous religious artwork is the The Legend of St. Sebastian and the Passion of Christ that decorated the altar in the St. Florian monastery in Linz, Austria. He often distorts perspective to subtle effect. His donor figures are often painted completely out of scale with the main scene, as in paintings of the previous centuries. He also painted some portraits; overall his painted oeuvre was not large.

Paintings in Munich

The Battle of Issus/Alexander, 1529,
Wood, 158,4 x 120,3 cm Alte Pinakothek, Munich.

His rather atypical Battle of Issus (or of Alexander) of 1529 was commissioned by William IV, Duke of Bavaria as one of a suite by various artists. It is his most famous, and certainly one of his best works. He renounced the office of Major of Regensburg to accept the commission. Few of his other paintings resemble this apocalyptic scene of two huge armies dominated by an extravagant landscape seen from a very high viewpoint, which looks south over the whole Mediterranean from modern Turkey to include the island of Cyprus and the mouths of the Nile and the Red Sea (behind the isthmus to the left) on the other side. However his style here is a development of that of a number of miniatures of battle-scenes he had done much earlier for Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor in his illuminated manuscript Triumphal Procession in 1512-14. [2] It is thought to be the earliest painting to show the curvature of the Earth from a great height.

The Battle is now in the Alte Pinakothek, which has the best collection of Altdorfer's paintings, including also his small St George and the Dragon,(1510) in oil on parchment, where the saint and the dragon are small figures almost submerged in the dense forest that towers over them. A Susanna and the Elders (1526) set outside an Italianate skyscraper of a palace shows his interest in architecture.[3] Another small oil on parchment, Danube Landscape with Castle Wörth (c 1520) is one of the earliest accurate topographical paintings of a particular building in its setting, of a type that was to become a cliché in later centuries. [4]

Printmaking

St George and the Dragon, 1510, Alte Pinakothek, oil on parchment, 28 x 23 cm

He was a significant printmaker with numerous engravings and about ninety-three woodcuts. These included some for the Triumphs of Maximilian, where he followed the overall style presumably set by Hans Burgkmair, although he was able to escape somewhat from this in his depictions of the more disorderly baggage-train, still coming through a mountain landscape. However most of his best prints are etchings, many of landscapes; in these he was able most easily to use his drawing style.[5] He was one of the most successful early etchers, and was unusual for his generation of German printmakers in doing no book illustrations. He often combined etching and engraving techniques in a single plate, and produced about 122 intaglio prints altogether.

Public life

He was a member of the ruling town council in Regensburg for many years, as well as the city architect and worked on improving the city walls. He presumably participated in the Council's decision to expel the city's Jewish community in 1519 , as well as making two famous etchings of the synagogue just before it was destroyed after the expulsion, to be replaced with a church, which Altdorfer designed, at least in part.[6] [7] Later he became a Protestant, and helped to steer Regensburg to Lutheranism.

Albrecht's brother, Erhard Altdorfer, was also a painter and printmaker in woodcut and engraving, and a pupil of Lucas Cranach the Elder.

Crucifixion (a scene rarely set on the banks of a large river) by Altdorfer, c. 1520

See also

• Early Renaissance painting

References

• Alte Pinakotek, Munich; (Summary Catalogue -various authors),1986, Edition Lipp,ISBN 3874907015
• CS Wood, Albrecht Altdorfer and the Origins of Landscape, 1993, Reaktion Books, London, ISBN 0948462469

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Albrecht Altdorfer

• Works by Albrecht Altdofer at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
• Works by Altdorfer at Zeno.org
• Albrecht Altdorfer in the "History of Art"
• Albrecht Altdorfer Wallpapers
• Page at artcyclopedia.com
• Page at ibiblio.org
• Page at gallery.euroweb.hu

Persondata
NAME	Altdorfer, Albrecht
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	German renaissance painter
DATE OF BIRTH	about 1480
PLACE OF BIRTH	Regensburg
DATE OF DEATH	12 February 1538
PLACE OF DEATH	Regensburg

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