Albrecht Altdorfer, also Albrecht Altdorffer (* around 1480 perhaps in Altdorf near Landshut or in Regensburg; † February 12, 1538 in Regensburg), was a German painter, engraver, woodcutter and master builder of the Renaissance. Along with Wolf Huber, he is considered an important representative of the so-called Danube School, a style movement along the Danube in Bavaria and Austria.
The artists of this art movement are also known as the "wild painters of the Danube". Together with Albrecht Dürer, as whose pupil he is considered, he is seen as the founder of the Nuremberg minor masters.
Albrecht Altdorfer's Life
Little is known about the life of the artist. His father was probably the Regensburg painter Ulrich Altdorfer. It is secured by documents that Altdorfer acquired the Regensburg citizenship on March 13, 1505.
Despite the lack of written records of a stay in the province of Salzburg, a clear connection to Hallein, Golling and Mondsee could be proven in paintings and prints by the artist. A view of Hallein can be seen in the painting "The Bath of Susanne" and on the right wing of the altar in the Minorite Church in Regensburg.
In the picture "Landscape with Footbridge", the painting is in the National Gallery in Londen, the town of Golling with the Schwarzerberg can be discovered. Another connection with the city of Hallein comes from the ancestral seat of Bishop Georg Altdorfer of Chiemsee, probably the artist's uncle, Altdorf Castle, it was later called Paur Castle and is located east of the city of Hallein.
In 1517, the respected citizen, who worked for Emperor Maximilian I, among others, was elected a member of the Outer Council of the city of Regensburg. Albrecht Altdorfer was among the delegation of councilors who ordered the expulsion of Regensburg's Jews on February 21, 1519.
For the pilgrimage church "Zur Schönen Maria", which was built at this place, he later made several woodcuts, painted the church flag and illuminated the indulgence bull.
In 1526 the artist became a member of the Inner Council and city architect of Regensburg. In this capacity he built, among other things, a slaughterhouse (1527) and revised the city's fortifications (1529/30). On September 15, 1528, he declined election as mayor in order to complete an important work, probably the Battle of Alexander, for Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria.
In 1533 his signature is found as one of 15 council members under a tender for a Protestant preacher. As an envoy of the city of Regensburg, Altdorfer traveled to Vienna in 1535 to deliver a letter of apology to Ferdinand I, who had fallen out of favor with the city because of those same political and religious machinations.
Appreciation
The city of Wörth an der Donau honored his work by dedicating the street name "Altdorferstraße". In Regensburg, in addition to a street in the Innerer Westen district, part of the eastern cathedral square is named after him.
Albrecht Altdorfer created, among other portraits of Wörth, the painting Donaulandschaft mit Schloss Wörth (Danube Landscape with Wörth Castle) and, as the city architect of Regensburg, had a significant role in the reconstruction of Wörth Castle on the Danube. In Vienna in the 10th district, there is also an Altdorferstrasse on the Wienerberg near the Spinnerin am Kreuz. The writer Hans Watzlik pays tribute to him with the biographical poem 'Der Meister von Regensburg'.
In 1999 the asteroid (8121) Altdorfer was named after him. Furthermore, the linguistic-humanistic as well as scientific-technological Albrecht-Altdorfer-Gymnasium in Regensburg is named after him.
Albrecht Altdorfer's Work
1506 is the earliest year that appears on Altdorfer's drawings and paintings. Of his paintings, two works in particular are known today: the Altarpiece of St. Sebastian at St. Florian Abbey near Linz, painted from 1509 to 1518, with its dramatic Mannerist scene paintings, and Die Alexanderschlacht (1528-1529), commissioned by Duke William IV of Bavaria.
On a size of 158 × 120 cm, it shows the battle of Alexander the Great against the Persian king Darius at the Battle of Issos in 333 BC.
Around 1522 he created his first pure landscape paintings and drawings. In 1513, his woodcut sequence Fall of Man and Redemption of the Human Race was the model for the exterior of the wings of the altar of the former Barbara Chapel in the Cathedral Zur Schönen Unserer Lieben Frau (Ingolstadt), whose paintings are counted among the so-called Danube School.
For the first time in European painting, Altdorfer made landscape an actual and independent pictorial theme. Even in his religious paintings and altarpieces, people were only accessories to landscape painting. He captured the light in glowing colors and painted landscapes without figures for the first time in German art.
Of his 55 panel paintings, some are in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. 124 drawings and sketches (including the Triumphal Procession of Emperor Maximilian I) have survived.
His graphic work includes about 200 sheets, mostly woodcuts and copper engravings, but also some etchings. In addition, a room painting by him in the Bishop's Court of Regensburg is known, but it was destroyed in a fire and subsequent reconstruction in 1887/88 and is now preserved only in museum fragments.
In the painting "Geburt Mariae" (Birth of the Virgin Mary), 140.7 × 130 cm on limewood, painted around 1520 and now on view in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, a couple enters the scene, which could be the artist himself and his wife Anna.
Albrecht Altdorfer's Exhibition and research
From May to October 1938, the Munich State Gallery hosted the commemorative exhibition Albrecht Altdorfer and his Circle, curated by Ernst Buchner, to mark the 400th anniversary of his death. The official catalog lists 56 paintings and about 270 drawings, engravings, etchings, and woodcuts, as well as a dozen fresco pieces by Altdorfer.
As a recently rediscovered sensation of the so-called Old German panel painting, Altdorfer's Beautiful Mary was presented at that time, which was exhibited in an altar frame. The latter was specially made according to a corresponding Altdorfer print. In this frame, the Beautiful Mary is currently on display in the permanent exhibition of the Diözesanmuseum Regensburg.
On the occasion of the 450th anniversary of his death, drawings, opaque color paintings and prints by Altdorfer were exhibited in Berlin and Regensburg. In February 2011, the University of Regensburg hosted an art history symposium entitled Albrecht Altdorfer. Art as Second Nature.
The exhibition Fantastic Worlds. Albrecht Altdorfer and the Expressive in Art around 1500 was held at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt from November 2014 to February 2015 and at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna from March to June.
In 2017, the Salzburg Museum dedicated a special exhibition to Albrecht Altdorfer, which focused on the assignability of Altdorfer's landscape depictions to the concrete topography of Salzburg. The former Salzburg regional archaeologist and Salzburg Museum director Fritz Moosleitner reconstructed a multiple stay of Altdorfer in Salzburg, which is not verifiable in the artist's biography so far.