Albrecht Altdorfer
Born – Regensburg, Germany c.1480
Died – Regensburg, Germany c.1538
Albrecht Altdorfer held important social positions as architect and councillor in his native city of Regensburg, Bavaria. As a painter he developed a series of works in which landscape predominated. Almost unheard if in its time, he painted scenes that rarely contained human figures. His earliest paintings show the influence of Cranach and Dürer. A trip to the Danube and the Austrian Alps in 1511 produced oil paintings as well as drawings and etchings in which the dramatic possibilities of the landscape were acutely observed by the artist. Landscape at Regensburg is a typical work, with its sweeping vista swamped by a mass of forest foliage. A luminous sky with gathering clouds helps to create an atmosphere of unease. This is not the tamed and domesticated landscape scene observed by most artists prior to the fifteenth century. Altdorfer has given us a glimpse of the wilder side of nature, and as the critic Kenneth Clark observed, in some of Altdorfer’s landscapes we have the feeling “that the world has been newly created”.
Masterpieces:
- St George, 1511
- Battle of Arbela
Text: The A-Z of Art, Nicola Hodge and Libby Anson.
Books About albrecht altdorfer
Albrecht Altdorfer and the Origins of Landscape
Christopher S. Wood
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Albrecht Altdorfer: The St. Florian Passion Alter
Edwin Maria Landau
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Albrecht Altdorfer; a book of 71 woodcuts photographically reproduced in facsimile
Albrecht Altdorfer
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