1. The development of German painting
German painting of the XVI century was the main direction of art in the country, masters painted in almost all directions, drawings could be applied to wood, etching, copper - each work was truly unique.
Painting was also the governing art of this period in Germany, and it was here that included in its field the “graphics” of the drawing, woodcut, copper and etching. It was in the area of these drawing works that German art gave everything that it wanted and that could: its seriousness and its humor, its closeness to popular life and its scholarship, its convincing realism and its fiery fantasy, its inner cordial warmth and its technical mastery. It was the draftsmen, engravers on copper and on the tree who expanded the usual plot area to the secular side. In drawings and watercolors, landscape painting and home life awakened for independent existence. In engravings on copper and etchings, pagan mythology in its romantic attire received a German character. In woodcut, for which major painters, for the most part, only paid drawing, together with a series of strong and deep idyllistic religious pictures, were primarily a series of symbolic and genre images from court and folk life. In all branches of graphics the religious images became deeper, which, as Pelzer and Haupt showed, were in many ways fruitful for medieval mysticism. The Passion of the Lord became the favorite theme of German art in drawings, wood engravings and copper. In Germany, where conditions of climate and life habits did not favor the emergence of large public art, the reproduction of sheets in many hundreds of prints passed from hand to hand, from house to house to join two or three others in a quiet room, became a necessary condition exposure artwork.
For all that, works of painting of the XVI century, what are the murals of the hall in the town halls, of which, unfortunately, only a few survived, played a greater role in Germany than one might think from their remnants. Decorative facade painting developed more noticeably in Augsburg, on the Upper Rhine and in Switzerland, covering, without worrying about the actual architectural dismemberment of houses, their facades with their decorative architectural paintings, which were mixed with individual figures and historical or symbolic images. Augsburg facade painting studied Buff.
German painting on glass during the XVI century went to decline. The old flat painting with the help of colored glass has long been turned into a perspective painting with a brush. On the later, successful, even the windows of the cathedrals in Cologne and Xanten mentioned earlier. In Upper Germany, in addition to the few poorly preserved windows of the parish church in Zaubern described by Brooke, this includes especially the 1515 windows designed by Baldung in the Freiburg Cathedral, the maximilian window (1514) and decorated by the drawings of Hans von Kulmbach with saints and portrait figures on white background margrave window (1527) of the church of sv. Zebald in Nuremberg, the best work of glass painter Feith Hirsfogel the elder (1466-1525). New painting on glass has received, only serving to decorate rooms. In Switzerland, in front of clean windows, colored circles were removed, painted on a light background with family crests with limited use of colored glass. Some of the greatest artists of the 16th century southwestern Germany, even Holbein, made designs for window panes of this kind. On the contrary, the book miniature, as we know it in the XVI century, even in Upper Germany, according to the study of von der Gabelenz, though not dying, but deprived of any independence, diminishes from imitation of the great masters. Even the most famous Nuremberg miniaturists of this time, Albrecht (died about 1547), Nikolai (died in 1560) and the younger Georg Glokendon (died in 1553) were completely influenced by Dürer.
Fig. 63. Large carved altar (1515–1521) in the Cathedral in Schleswig
2. The first work of Dürer
Already on the threshold of the new century, the strong artistic personality of Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528), a glorious German master, towers as early as the 16th century in Germany and abroad who was known to be great even among the greatest. He himself proudly called himself German or Nuremberg in some of his best works; despite the strong impression that he received from the works of Italian art, he remained a true, deeply sensitive, but at the same time simple German, searching for everything. His entire artistic life journey was development and growth, struggle with himself, nature and beauty, which he, dissatisfied with his first studies from models and drawing a naked body from Italian engravings, hoped to achieve by measuring and studying proportions. His own writings, of which, for example, The Measurement Guide, appeared in print during his lifetime, and The Four Books on Human Proportions, translated into many languages soon after his death, were recently published by Lange and Fuse; a compilation of all the essays about Dürer was composed in 1903 by Singer. A talented book of Wolflin has joined the writings on Dürer Tausing, Springer and Zucker. For Dürer’s drawings, Ephrussi and Lippmann rendered unforgettable merit. In addition, Gendke, Ludwig Justi, Lorenz, Scherer, Suida, Warburg, Paul Weber, Weisbach and Winterberg took part in newer research on Dürer after Vikgoff, Tod and Lange. Oil and tempera paintings by Durer, except for the “Hercules” of the German Museum and “Lucretia” in Munich, are only portraits or religious images. All of its versatility affects small in size, but important in the internal content of the sheets of its graphics. And there, and here he remained, however, for all the changes of style by himself. The power of life that he knew how to impart to each of his strokes is already in the bud in Self-portrait with silver pencil (1484) in Albertina in Vienna, made when he was thirteen years old, and fills the drawing with the pen of the Annunciation (1526) in Chantilly, made in the age of fifty-six. In his sometimes a few more cuddly-looking but clear-conceived and gifted with a strong life images in front of us stands the strongest artistic individual, possessing the power of direct conviction.
From the gold affairs of his father’s workshop in Nuremberg, Dürer entered in 1486 as a student of Wolgemut. His years of wandering, begun as early as 1490, he spent most of his time on the Upper Rhine, where he was attracted by the Schongauer School. In 1494, he married in Nuremberg. His first trip to Venice, on which we insist, he undertook in 1495 a second - in 1505–1506, and his Netherlands journey - only in 1520–1521. With the exception of this, he received, from 1515, content from Emperor Maximilian, he worked, almost without interruption, in his hometown, with whose circles of humanists he entered into close relations.
Dürer's youth work actually falls on the last decade of the 15th century. How much more inspired and steadier the stroke of the aforementioned self-portrait was in 1484, opened by Seidlitz, striking in drawing the self-portrait of the Erlangen University collection, however, it could have appeared not earlier than 1490. What advances did he make compared to the earliest genre drawings with a feather, like Walking Ahead 1489 The city of Bremen and three Landsknechts of Berlin show similar drawings of the nineties, for example, a couple riding a horse in Berlin and a horseman (Lippmann number 209) in the British Museum. From his drawings of nude figures made from Italian engravings on copper, the Death of Orpheus (1494) of the Hamburg Art Gallery, Bacchanalia and the battle of the sea centauri of Mantegna in Albertine should be noted. In the early drawings painted with water paints, Dürer is an innovator and landscape painter: Tyrol’s views and the Venetian prison in the Louvre, Trient’s views in Bremen, Innsbruck in Albertine, for the wholeness of perception of the depicted landscape, are revelations of the new view of nature. The late landscapes of Durer were, of course, written with a wider brush, but not with a great wholeness of perception. The earliest genre drawings by Durer include the Bathing of Women in Bremen, which is peculiar to the multitude of naked bodies, which in general is by no means a picture taken from real life.
Fig. 64. The martyrdom of ten thousand Christians
Durer's engravings on copper dating back to this decade also take possession of all the subject areas. Moreover, what progress in calm poses and mastery can be seen between the Madonna and the Grasshopper is still Shongauer's character and the Madonna with the Monkey of the British Museum, for the landscape of which Durer used his own watercolor with a house by the pond. Engravings such as The Love Proposal and The Promenade show Dürer standing also at the head of the German genreists. His desire to depict the female body shows an engraving with four witches, and one of them is borrowed from Barbary's “Victory and Glory”. Now they have returned to the view that Barbary influenced Dürer, and not vice versa, as Ludwig Justy believed. Dürer believed that Barbary owns the secret of proportions, in which he does not dedicate it, this prompted him to delve into the study of proportions that no longer left him. The most powerful works of Durer nineties are woodcuts. If such sheets as "Bathing men" and "Madonna with a hare" in comparison with his Basel St. 1492 showed complete success in the physicality of individual figures and in colorful combinations of black and white, achieved by Durer after the first Italian journey, then in 15 large woodcuts to the Apocalypse in 1498, he is already a great master before us. Some visions are based on earlier compositions, such as the Cologne Bible from 1480, but this still shows in a more favorable light the great strength and greatness of Dürer. We will not condemn these mighty sheets for their German clutter with details, for the rigidity and angularity found in the language of forms, and for some improbability of their design. We are captivated and captured by the passionate, full of movement, expressiveness of these visions. Majestic and solemn John, who sees the seven lamps! Four riders are irresistible in their oppressive might, rushing along the bodies of the mortal race! How magnificent and at the same time striking are four angels, commanding the winds! The battle of the angels, the wife clothed with the sun, the Babylonian harlot, the beast with lamb horns, how physical these images created by fantasy! At the same time, Durer worked on the seven earliest woodcuts of his great Passions of the Lord. What immediacy in the emotional experience of the tragic events! What a passion of dramatic narration with such a severe rudeness of the language of forms.
Of the paintings of Durer oil paints of the nineties have to consider mainly portraits, for the most part half-quarter, but with his hands. A portrait of his old father in 1490 in the Uffizi shows still carefully marked individual features, a portrait of 1497 in the Munich Pinakothek, no doubt an old copy, conveys the similarity as a whole. Durer's own portraits of 1493 infused with self-awareness by the heirs of Leopold Goldschmidt in Paris and 1498 in the Madrid Museum are picturesquely painted; his portrait with the tempera of Friedrich the Wise (circa 1496) in the Berlin Gallery is more dry and still. His portraits of the family members of the Tuherov in Kassel and Weimar, a portrait of Oswald Krell in 1499 in Munich, instead of landscape backgrounds, again give those landscape openings that began in Dutch art.
We can also see the technique of the Berliner portrait of the Elector, made in tempera, in the Nuremberg painting by Dürer depicting Hercules killing Stimfalian birds, and also in the main big picture of this time, his three-part Wittenberger altar in Dresden, which, after defending Ludwig Yusti, was even recognized Wölflin: in the middle part, Mary in her room at the window sill worships the Infant, angels hold a crown over her head, or hustle behind her, in the depths of the picture — Joseph in her workshop; on the side flaps are belt images of Saints Anthony and Sebastian. The dry modeling of the main figures of the middle picture was inspired by Upper Italian mantien'ev painting; The side flaps, written very vividly and warmly according to German samples, in the manner most characteristic of Dürer, hardly appeared later than the average picture. The round dance of angels stretches equally on all three boards. The whole thing remains a treasure of restrained, but intimate early German art.
3. Changing the art of Durer
Soon after 1500, a decisive turn in the art of Dürer took place. From his drawings in Albertina, a nude reclining woman of 1501 already reveals the study of proportions; The hare of 1502, painted with water colors, is marvelous in its subtlety of painting, and the twelve sheets of Green Passions (that is, in green tones) are the most spectacular of the series he painted. The events are calmer here, the architecture, which reveals the forms of the Renaissance here, is introduced with greater clarity than in the previously mentioned large series of woodcuts on the Passion of the Lord tree. But the powerful passion of the previous series gives way to a more bourgeois expression. Durer's engraving art, retaining the metallic luster of a copper plate and also possessing all the means to transfer the material side of the image, now reaches an unprecedented degree of technical perfection, reaching the highest limit in the romantically antique sheets of the Sea Monster. “Jealousy”, in the big “Nemesis”, in the “Emblem of Death” and in the idyllic “Christmas of Christ” (1504). If the naked body of a large “Nemesis” is painted according to the German model, and in “Apollo and Diane” there is still an affinity for Barbary, then the main engraving of Dürer 1504 “Adam and Eve” applies already independently studied proportions.
Fig. 65. "Christmas of Christ" (1504).
From engravings on a tree of this time, the life of the Virgin Mary, whose 16 main sheets appeared between 1503 and 1505, shows success in depicting space with attractive architectural and landscape backgrounds, in a picturesque performance of light and shadow, and in the human expression of what is happening, animated by German intimacy .
After 1500, at the latest, in Dürer's workshop, with the help of his students, some also composed of pictorial paintings of altars, of which the altar of Baumgärtner of the Munich Pinakothek, freed from late painting, is one of the most precious youthful works of the master. Brown made the probable assumption that it was written as early as 1498. More perfect in all respects, however, is the Adoration of the Magi written by Dürer in 1504 for Frederick the Wise in Uffizi. Its neighborhoods are richer and give an impression of depth; individual figures breathe plastic life, radiant colors pleasantly harmonize with each other. As a work of Italian style, in his somewhat sharp magnificence, he gives the impression of creating a quattrocento and, as such, stands alongside the best Italian works surrounding it.
When Dürer in 1505 arrived for the second time in Venice, the birthplace of pictoriality in painting, he finally shifted the center of gravity of his work from graphics to painting. If only he was influenced by the art of some foreign master, then this work by Giovanni Bellini, reflected in Dürer's main Venetian work, “The Feast of Pink Wreaths” (1506), is now, unfortunately, in a spoiled form hanging in the Rudolfinum in Prague. The main group of Mary on the throne - with the Pope and the emperor, bending the knees in this picture, built pyramidally, otherwise it may be somewhat cluttered with details compared to Bellini’s paintings and somewhat variegated in color, but in every part of this strongly written, solemnly the joyful picture shows the power of the finished great master. At the same time, Dürer wrote the magnificent “Madonna with Chizhik” of the Berlin Gallery and a very expressive, full of mood in the landscape, a small Crucifix of the Dresden Gallery, on the authenticity of which we insist. Next to these works are a portrait of a young man in Hempton Court and a portrait of a young woman in Berlin. Not earlier than these pictures, in spite of his (fake) date of 1500, his magnificent ideal self-portrait appeared in Munich; the expressive head of the Messiah with the features of a German painter, reflecting his most intimate self.
Следующее десятилетие показывает Дюрера в Нюрнберге в полном обладании своей силой, очистившейся итальянским огнем, но не уклонившейся в сторону.
Его акварельные пейзажи, например виды городов в Бремене и Берлине, мельница-толчея в Национальной библиотеке в Париже, замок на скале в Бремене, поразительный этюд восхода солнца в Британском музее и картинки этого времени с изображениями животных, как, например, молодой сыч, куропатка и разная пернатая дичь в Альбертине в Вене, своей свободной красочностью производят впечатление почти современных.
From the series of wooden engravings, in addition to the inspirational small series of Passions, Dürer finished in 1511 the “three great books” already mentioned (Apocalypse, the Passion of the Lord, and the Life of the Virgin Mary), adding to them pictures on the output sheets and several new sheets inside, most clearly others allow us to determine the change in style that did not always happen in favor of him in Italy, when he was striving for a more calm and perfect language of forms. Technique engravings on copper Durer has now reached the highest degree of pictorial completeness. For some time he replaced grabstikheel with a needle, copper plates with iron ones and resorted to the help of etching. The needle is executed, for example, gentle in the tone of the Holy. Jerome near the willow, Christ on the Mount of Olives in 1515 should be considered etchings on iron boards, as if Becklin's “Abduction on the Unicorn” of 1516, ingeniously introduced into the vast landscape “Canons” of 1518. Durer's main work in the field of engraving was his last the Passion of the Lord series (1509–1512), which once again gave a new, startling expression to the favorite tragic ideas of the German fantasy. For technical excellence and spiritual mood, three famous large copper engravings represent the knight-Christian who despises death and the devil (1513), of St. Peter the Great. Jerome, writing in his sunlit cell his inspired writings (1514), "Melancholy" (1514), winged figure with a wreath on his head, sitting in serious thought among all kinds of auxiliary tools of secular science. At the same time, funny engravings taken right from the life of the people, like a dancing peasant couple and bagpiper (1514), peasants in the bazaar (1519), show the freshness of the master’s observation.
The first decade after Durer's return home also includes his large oil paintings, with his balanced composition and mature extract of individual figures, reaching perfection of the XVI century. The large, chaste figures of Adam and Eve (1507) in the Madrid Museum and their repetitions in the Palazzo Pitti, which undoubtedly arose before the master's eyes, show that his study of proportions and the naked body touched German-classical beauty. In The Torment of Ten Thousands (1508) in Vienna, written also for Frederick the Wise, he could not give complete unity to his superbly observable details. His large Frankfurt altar (1509), the middle part of which, unfortunately burnt, represented the wedding ceremony of Mary, seemed to represent a more complete and complete piece. The adoration of the Most Holy Trinity of the beautifully arranged assemblies of saints, the Vienna Gallery, is perfect, although somewhat deliberately finished, and the action takes place in the sky covered with light clouds. Finally, to the most vital portraits of Dürer of this time belong the expressive head of the old Volgemut (1516) in the Munich Pinakothek.
4. Durer's work for Maximilian
Since 1512 Dürer worked without much interest for the emperor Maximilian. The idea of the emperor's advisers to build paper triumphal gates from 92 separate woodcuts and arrange a corresponding triumphal procession over 100 woodcuts suffered from the very beginning with pallor of thought. For the triumphal gate, the project of which was probably compiled by the court painter Kolderer, Dürer based on Gilov's research, besides the middle span, drew only very little. Dürer participated in the project of triumph from the very beginning; it is doubtful, however, that the 24 sheets of this series refer to Durer's engravings on wood. Durer especially diligently performed in 1522 only the triumphal chariot on eight wood engravings, imbued with a classic revival. But his drawings for the riders in Albertine breathe magnificent life. The most artistic work of Durer for Maximilian was his participation in the curtains of the famous emperor's prayer book, printed in 1514, most of which is in the Munich city library. On 45 sheets, to which other masters, indicated by Gilov, added a few more, Dürer gave direction for similar ornamental frames. These drawings, easily drawn in with a pen, contain an infinite number of serious and cheerful, sometimes profound and whimsical thoughts, expressed in forms of apparent renaissance only. Separate motifs taken from the Bible, the lives of the saints, the fairy-tale and fabulous world, from the folk life, the life of animals and plants, surrounded by a light pattern of ramifications, are surprisingly opposed or intertwined with each other.
During his Dutch journey (1520–1521), Dürer sketched many portraits, but only occasionally began to write. The portraits of 1520 in the Louvre, 1521 in Madrid are written wider and more picturesque than his Bernhard van Orley (1521) in Dresden. A new outlook on nature, with equal force on both the whole and on details, is noticeable especially in his magnificent drawing of an old man (1521) in Albergine in Vienna, which is a sketch for his St. Jerome of the Lisbon Gallery.
In the last years of Dürer's life in Nuremberg, besides the majestic drawings to the unexecuted paintings, such woodcuts as the fragrant Holy Family at the Soddy Bench (1526), such copper engravings as the calm and majestic Maria at the Gates of the Courtyard (1526) belong to 1522) and expressive portraits of Cardinal Albrecht of Brandeburg (1523), Friedrich the Wise (1524), Pirkheimer (1524, Melanchthon (1526) and Erasmus of Rotterdam (1526). This is followed by portraits in oil paints, extremely carefully painted in details and striking about the general idea, such as the portrait of Kleeberger of the Vienna Gallery and Muffel and Goltsshuera Berlin. Amazing technique of them, which develops every single hair, retains its charm even with a wide pictorial manner, which, starting with Titian, quickly conquered European painting. The last important work of Durer - two high boards of the Munich Pinakothek, one with the image of the apostles John and Peter, the other apostles Mark and Paul - are distinguished by true grandeur and simplicity. Life-sized images of the apostles, dressed in calmly falling clothes, have certain characters, expressive poses and an inspired look. They represent the religious and artistic testament left by Durer to his hometown and his people. Let nature and the “secret treasure of the heart,” which, in his own words, were the guiding star of his art, will unite their light again when they need to renew German art!
5. Dürer - influence on art
The influence exerted by the art of Durer in Germany and far beyond the borders of Germany, was very great. Indeed, we have seen that even Marcantonio, the famous Italian engraver on copper, was brought up on the engravings of Durer. In Germany, under his banner naturally became primarily Nuremberg art. The real students of Durer were, in any case, wood engravers Hans Springinkle, who took part in some series of wood engravings for Emperor Maximilian, Albrecht’s brother Hans Dürer (born in 1490), which is known to be in 1526–1538. he was a Polish court painter in Krakow, and Wolf Trout (c. 1478–1520; Rauch's monograph on him), the son of one of Wolgemut's pupils, Hans Trout of Speyer. Trout's main works, the altar of the Nuremberg John's Chapel (1511) and the Artelshofen Altar (1541) in the Munich National Museum, however, give the impression of dry works by a minor master. Hans Züs of Kulmba (about 1476–1522) and Hans Leonhard Sheifelin (about 1485–1540), who are closest in their internal significance to Dürer, spent their years of training with Volgemut, as indicated by their biographers Kelitz and Tim. Hans from Kulmbach then went over to Barbary, whose student Naderfer calls him. In any case, his close relations with Dürer are proved by the fact that the latter sketched to him in 1511 his project, which was kept in the Berlin office of prints, for the church of Sts. Sebald in Nuremberg with the Virgin crowned with angels. Both this picture and the Adoration of the Magi in Berlin, his portraits from Weber to Hamburg and St. George in the German Museum reveals a pleasant tenderness in the transfer of characters and the warm transparency of Barbary paints. From 1514 to 1518, Hans Züs belonged to the Nuremberg art colony in Kraków, where he still has thirteen paintings of his work in various places, compared with Sokolovsky, taken from various altars. In terms of vitality and hidden power, he is nowhere in line with Durer, but in the maturity of drawing and writing, he takes first place among the followers of Durer. Hans Scheifelin, a versatile and prolific artist who moved to Nördlingen in 1515, reworked the motifs of Dürer's workshop in a more craft-like spirit. His male heads are characterized by high, smooth foreheads, fluffy, curly hair and prominent forward beards. His first uneven letter received in Nördlingen, Swabian softness and warmth, under the influence of a return to the golden background. The most important works of Nuremberg are his uniquely located Last Supper in 1511 of the Berlin Gallery and the luxurious altar with the Wedding of Our Lady in the parish church in Angausen. Large altars of the Nördlingen time, of which the altar with an expressive Crucifix in the church of St. George in Tübingen, part were broken and distributed in parts. Pictures in the town hall collection in Nördlingen, in the Pinakothek in Munich and in the German Museum reveal his best powers. Lashitser established his participation in decorating with wood engravings “Teyrdank”, i.e., a poetic description of his honeymoon trip, made by order of Maximilian. It was his craft conscientiousness that gave him numerous orders, but he was not an independent artistic person.
Fig. 66. St. John's Gate
Kulmbach and Sheifelin are followed by three “godless” painters, Pentz and two Begams, trapped in the history of copper engraving under the name of “small German masters” for the small size of their sheets. To the undoubted influence of Durer, they are joined by a reappeared desire for purity of form, independently acquired by them in Italy. Georg Pents (approximately 1500–1550), studied by Styasny and Kurtzvelli, participated in 1521 in painting the walls of the hall of the Nuremberg town hall according to Dürer’s sketches, unfortunately remaining in the underpainting. The sketch for the average picture depicting the Nuremberg "chair of the flutists", i.e., a balcony with musicians, was probably made by Pentz himself. Fresh, developed on Dürer early style of the master show fragments of his Adoration of the Magi in Dresden. On the contrary, his muse Urania (1545) in Pommersfelden is an example of his cold Italianized style. The most direct impression is made by his portraits, ranging from the breast portrait of Ferdinand I (1531) in the Stockholm Gallery to the pictorially free portraits of the spouses Schwetzer (1544 and 1545) in the Berlin Gallery and some goldsmiths (1545) in the Karlsruhe gallery. But the main fame of Penz are his small prints, along with the heritage of Dürer showing the influence of Marcantonio. His 125 biblical and mythological sheets, of which the “Works of Mercy” and the history of the Old Testament should be noted, despite the growing Roman language of forms, are vividly narrated and gently engraved.
6. The Art of Hans-Zebald Begam
Hans-Sebald Begam (1500–1550), thoroughly studied by Seidlitz and Pauli, is almost unknown as a painter, but is famous as a performer of drawings for wood engravings due to the legend on the Prodigal Son, Hike and Consecration of the Church printed on eight boards 1535, and as an engraver is the real head of the lesser masters. At first, under the influence of Dürer, after 1525 he developed into an independent, simple and healthy master, and after 1531, having moved to Frankfurt, he began to join the “antique direction” more resolutely. Feeling at home in all areas, he proved himself to be the conqueror of new ways in engravings from popular life, for example, in the “Peasant Holiday” and in the “Wedding Procession”, and in the engravings with ornaments that served for practical use, the favorite industry of lesser craftsmen, he is the main representative of the ornaments in Germany.
His brother Bartel Begam (1502–1540) transferred Nuremberg art to Bavaria, where he worked for the ducal court in Munich and Landsgut. As an engraver on copper, Bartel joined first his brother, and then especially Marcantonio. His engravings with children, geniuses and ornaments also turn the Italian Renaissance into German. His oil painting depicting the miracle of the Holy Cross (1530) in Pinakothek is a ceremonial image with a completely Italian era of Renaissance in the language of forms. Numerous portraits of the sovereigns in Steisheim, Augsburg, etc., are made superficially. Other paintings, previously attributed to him, Ketshau rightly considered for the work of a special "master from Meskirch."
The neighboring Bavarian or “Danube school” in Regensburg, whose connection with the older Verkhneynesky, Verkhnyeshvabsky, Austrian, Bavarian and Tyrolean art was studied in detail by Hermann Foss, developed under the smaller influence of Durer and Nuremberg than was previously accepted. When coarse or superficial writing of individual human forms, with the richness and luxury of colors, strong imagination and romantic sensitivity, she, as in the early miniatures, was distinguished by a clearly expressed sense of space and a clear designation of the landscape; The general impression of this school, due not only to the harmonious smoothness of the lines, but also to strong, often unusual lighting effects, is remembered longer than the picturesque particulars.
Her chief master Albrecht Altdorfer (c. 1480–1538), whom Wilhelm Schmidt and Friedländer introduced us, although not a very distinguished figure, belongs, however, in its German originality to the most attractive masters of this time. Already in a small landscape with the Satyr family of 1507 in Berlin and in St. Georgia 1510 in Munich dominated landscape mood. They are followed by a series of poetically conceived, but somewhat crudely executed, painterly pictures rather than solid patterns in the picture, which, according to Friedlander, depict events as states, not as occurrences. Between 1511 and 1521 Altdorfer tried to get closer to a more plastic design and a more specific narrative manner of Durer, with which he, according to Schmidt and Rettinger. participated not only in the production of drawings for the borders of the prayer book of Maximilian (precisely in the part that belongs to the city library in Besançon), but also in large series of woodcuts. His oil paintings dating back to this time, however, do not at all resemble Dürer, but are completely independent works. In five paintings with the legend of St.. Kvirine, of which three belong to the German Museum, and two of the Siena Academy, the action is enhanced by the formidable effects of light. Between 1521 and 1528 Altdorfer is quieter and more prosaic. By 1521, the nobility "Annunciation" of the Weber Gallery in Hamburg, by 1526 the graceful "Susanna" of the Munich Pinakothek belongs. More original are still such paintings as the spectacularly arranged Battle of Alexander (1529) with many figures in Munich and the elegant and fantastic “Nativity of the Virgin” (1530) in Augsburg, carrying this event into a sun-drenched room like a church with a height around it dance of angels. The simple small forest landscape of the Munich Pinakothek, overlooking the lake and the blue mountains, is the first true landscape painting in German art. In the field of wood engraving, Altdorfer in the same large sheet with Madonna is the main master of colored wooden engraving using printing with the help of several boards, and as an engraver on copper he belongs to the “lesser masters”. It should be noted engravings with such folk types as the drummer, flutist, denominator, and ten landscapes made with etching, in which he again acts as a pioneer in the independent isolation of this industry.
The most significant follower of Altdorfer was Wolf Guber from Feldkirch (he worked between 1510 and 1545), whose identity was even clearer in the works of Foss and Riggenbach than in the work of Wilhelm Schmidt. Previously, he was known only for his intimate and majestic drawings of landscapes that come across in all major German collections, and for some woodcuts, of which the Crucifixion with Christ in the suffering movement with John at His feet and Mary at some distance is an example the harmony of the landscape and the human figures moving in it, with full of magical lighting effects.Since Schmidt recognized him as the author of the beautiful Crying over Christ in the parish church in Feldkirch, it has become possible to attribute to him some other paintings, such as the installation of the Cross marked by the roughness of national life and the vastness of the Allegory of the Cross in the Vienna Court Museum. Michael Ostendorfer (d. In 1554) is drier; The Munich Pinakothek owns the apocalyptic picture of his work, Schleisheim - Nailing the Cross, Budapest - Judith.
7 Melchior Fezelein
A related master, who died in 1538 in Ingolstadt, was Melchior Fezelein (a monograph about him by George M. Richter), who in accordance with the “Battle” of Alexander Altdorfer two less thin
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