Today on the Episcopal Church’s calendar of commemorations we find remembrance of three German Renaissance artists: Albrecht Dürer, Matthias Grünewald, and Lucas Cranach the Elder.
Albrecht Dürer (1471 – 1528) was a German painter, printmaker and theorist from Nuremberg. His still-famous works include the Apocalypse woodcuts, Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513), Saint Jerome in his Study (1514) and Melencolia I (1514), which has been the subject of extensive analysis and interpretation. His watercolours mark him as one of the first European landscape artists, while his ambitious woodcuts revolutionized the potential of that medium. Dürer’s introduction of classical motifs into Northern art, through his knowledge of Italian artists and German humanists, have secured his reputation as one of the most important figures of the Northern Renaissance. This is reinforced by his theoretical treatise which involve principles of mathematics, perspective and ideal proportions. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Renaissance in Northern Europe ever since. (From Albrecth-durer.org)
Matthias Grünewald (c.1475-1528), whose real name was Mathis Gothart, called Nithart or Neithardt, was a major figure in a generation of great northern German Renaissance painters. He remained relatively unknown until the 20th century; only about 13 of his paintings and some drawings survive. His present worldwide reputation, however, is based chiefly on his greatest masterpiece, the Isenheim Altarpiece (c.1513-15), which was long believed to have been painted by Dürer. Grünewald grew up in Würzburg near Nuremberg, and from 1501 until 1521 he was proprietor of a workshop in Seligenstadt. He traveled to Halle for commissions, and, although he was apparently a Protestant and a supporter of Martin Luther, he executed several commissions for two bishops of the Mainz diocese. Grünewald’s earliest datable work is the Mocking of Christ (1503; Alte Pinakothek, Munich), a colorful, vehemently expressive painting demonstrating his ability to create dazzling light effects. The painting depicts Christ blindfolded and being beaten by a band of grotesque men. The figures are thick-bodied, soft, and fleshy, done in a manner suggestive of the Italian High Renaissance. Elements of the work also show Grünewald’s assimilation of Dürer, specifically his Apocalypse series. Different from High Renaissance idealism and humanism, however, are Grünewald’s uses of figural distortion to portray violence and tragedy, thin fluttering drapery, highly contrasting areas of light and shadow, and unusually stark and iridescent color. It is these elements, already in evidence in this early work, that Grünewald was to develop into the masterful, individualistic style most fully realized in his Isenheim Altarpiece. (From webmuseum.org)
Lucas Cranach the Elder (c. 1472 – 1553) took his name from the town of his birth. Little is known about his early life or training. In Vienna (c. 1501 – 04) he painted some notable portraits and landscapes characteristic of the Danube school. From 1505 to 1550 he was court painter in Wittenberg, where he achieved great success and wealth painting portraits, mythological subjects, and altarpieces for Protestant and Catholic churches. He attracted so many young artists to Wittenberg that the town became an art centre. A friend of Martin Luther, Cranach became known as the chief pictorial propagandist of the Protestant cause in Germany. He produced numerous engravings and more than 100 woodcuts, notably for the first German edition of the New Testament (1522). After his death, his style was perpetuated by his son, Lucas the Younger (1515 – 86). (From Answers.com)