Albrecht Altdorfer
Albrecht Altdorfer was a German artist of the Northern Renaissance art movement who lived from 1482 to 1538. Like many artists of this period, Altdorfer was a true Renaissance man as he was a painter, architect, woodcut artist, and engraver.
His father was also an artist, and from an early age, Altdorfer, and his brother, Erhard, were interested in pursuing art. In 1505, when Altdorfer was 23 years old, he became a citizen of Regensburg, Germany. Today Regensburg is a city at the confluence of the Danube, Regen, and Naab Rivers in Germany. In Altdorfer’s time, Regensburg was a Free Imperial City, and was until 1803. He lived and worked in Regensburg for most of his career and was the city’s official architect and one of the city’s councilors. He also officially served as a court artist for Maximilian I, the Holy Roman Emperor.
Albrecht Altdorfer is mostly remembered for his association with the Danube School of Art, which he is regarded of as the leader and main representative. The Danube School was an art movement that spread through Bavaria and Austria. The artists of this school were the first to depict pure landscape art, with no human figures in them at all. If there were humans within their landscapes, they were much more expressive than how they were regularly depicted than in other schools of art.
Albrecht Altdorfer is regarded as the first artist to paint a true landscape. He took a trip in the year 1511 to the Alps and was inspired by the scenery to paint just that without any sign of human tough. Altdorfer loved painting nature and one of his favorite subjects was the dense forests of Germany and Austria. Those areas are the setting for most of his art. If there were human figures in his work, they usually had to share the canvas with the beautiful and detailed landscapes which were a dominant feature.
Altdorfer is also the first artist to depict more picturesque scenes using sunset, twilight, and nighttime torch lighting. Most artists of his day concerned themselves solely with biblical works. Altdorfer did, however, paint his fair share of biblical pieces.
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