15th century
The independent character of German painting emerged. Production was extensive, particularly of carved and painted altarpieces. In certain regions up to about 1500 paintings were on a gold background, sometimes embossed. After Lucas Moser, who was a product of the International Gothic style (Altarpiece of the Magdalen at Tiefenbronn, 1431), strong personalities came to the fore who were devoted to realism in the manner of Sluter or Campin. Among them were: Konrad Witz (Basle, d. c. 1445; the Miraculous Draught of Fishes). The Master of the Tucher Altarpiece (Nuremberg) and Konrad Laib (Salzburg) illustrate a taste for sculptural effects, with which the Master of the Tegernsee Altarpiece (Bavaria), the Master of the Altarpiece of the Regulars, in the Canons' Church at Erfurt, and Hans Hirtz (Strasbourg) combined the growing preoccupation with expression. The Master of the Darmstadt Passion (Middle Rhine) and the major master of the Cologne International Gothic style, Stephan Lochner (d. 1451; Adoration of the Magi), show the finest sense of colour. The German schools, under Flemish influence from the middle of the century (the Master of the Life of Mary, Cologne; Kaspar Isenmann, Colmar; Hans Pleydenwurff, Nuremberg; Friedrich Herlin and Hans Schüchlin, Swabia), regained artistic independence at the end of the century - except for Cologne, which still adhered to the Flemish style.
The best representatives of expressive German art were: two painter engravers, Martin Schongauer (Colmar, Madonna of the Rosehedge, the prints of which assured a very wide sphere of influence) and the enigmatic Master of the Housebook (Middle Rhine, c. 1480); Michael Pacher (Tyrol, d. 1498), as great a sculptor as he was a painter (St Wolfgang Altarpiece, c. 1481); Jan Polack (Bavaria); finally, Rueland Frueauf the Younger (Salzburg). With Michael Wolgemut (Nuremberg) and B. Zeitblom the production of carved and painted altarpieces became an industry. In Cologne the Master of the St Bartholomew Altarpiece, the Master of the Legend of St Ursula and the Master of St Severin reflect the manneristic tendencies of the last Gothic painters of the Low Countries.
16th century
In the first third of the century German painting went through its most glorious period. Dürer, Grünewald and Holbein raised it to the level of the greatest schools.
Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), born in Nuremberg, son of a goldsmith and a pupil of Wolgemut, was the main channel through which Renaissance forms and ideas were introduced into the north. 1490-1494, travels in Germany (Colmar, Strasbourg, Basle): self-portrait (Louvre, 1493). 1494-1495, Venice (landscape watercolours, British Museum, London; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford). 1495-1506, reputation at Nuremberg as painter and engraver. Self-portraits (Prado, 1498; Munich, 1500). Oswolt Krel (1499, Munich). Paumgartner Altarpiece (Munich, 1502-1504). 1505-1507, second visit to Venice: Feast of the Rosegarlands (Prague, 1506); Portrait of a Lady (Berlin); after return intensified humanistic studies in mathematics, perspective, treatises on measurements (1525), fortifications (1527), artistic theory (1528). 1512, court painter to Emperor Maximilian: portrait (Vienna, 1519). 1520-1521, journey to the Netherlands (Antwerp, Brussels, Cologne, Bruges, Ghent). In last years deeply affected by spiritual conflicts of the Reformation: Four Holy Men (presented to city 1526, Munich). Hieronymus Holzschuher (Berlin, 1526). Dürer's greatest achievement lay in his graphic work, in woodcut series such as the Apocalypse (1498); the Large Passion (1498-1510); the Small Passion (1509-1511); the Life of the Virgin (1501-1511), and in engravings such as the Sea Monster (c. 1498); St Eustace (1501); Nemesis (1501-02); Adam and Eve (1504); Knight, Death and the Devil (1513); St Jerome (1514); Melencolia I (1514); Pirckheimer (1524); Melanchthon (1526). From Nuremberg, where he trained Hans von Kulmbach and Hans Leonard Schaufelein, Dürer's influence extended throughout Germany and Europe in the course of the century.
Matthias Grünewald (about 1470/80-1528) whose real name was Matthias Gothardt-Neithardt of Würzburg (Franconia), worked at Seligenstadt (about 1503-1519), at Aschaffenburg (Lower Main), in Alsace, and as painter to Archbishop Albert of Brandenburg at Mainz until 1525, then at Frankfurt and Halle (Saxony), where he died. His principal work was the large folding altarpiece (central panel dated 1515) for the monastery of the Antonites of Isenheim (Alsace): Crucifixion, the Nativity, Resurrection, two scenes from the life of St Anthony (Unterlinden Museum at Colmar). Other paintings: Crucifixions at Basle, Washington, Karlsruhe; the Mocking of Christ, Munich; Madonna, 1519, Stuppach church, near Mergenthenn, Bavaria, Sts Erasmus and Maurice, about 1520-1522, Munich. Grünewald had no artistic followers; but echoes of his art are nevertheless found in the work of Jörg Ratgeb of Stuttgart (d. 1526), in that of Dürer's pupil from Alsace, Hans Baldung Grien (d. 1545; altarpiece in the cathedral of Freiburg im Breisgau); with these are connected the Swiss painters, Urs Graf, Niklaus Manuel Deutsch (d. 1530) and Hans Leu.
Augsburg, the native town of the Holbein family (Hans Holbein the Elder, d. 1524), was, with Nuremberg, the true home of the Renaissance in Germany. Hans Burgkmair (1473-1531) was one of the first to adopt the new aesthetic but he had no more success than his contemporaries in assimilating its fundamental conceptions: triptych of the Crucifixion, Munich. Ulrich Apt, Jörg Breu and Leonhard Beck were similarly inspired by the examples of Venice and Antwerp. To the Swabian school were also attached Bernhard Strigel (d. 1528) of Memmingen, Hans Maler and M. Schaffner of Ulm, able portrait painters. Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553), court painter to the Electors of Saxony at Wittenberg and close friend of Luther: Henry the Pious (Dresden, 1514); evolved new type of erotic female nude: Sleeping Nymph (Leipzig, 1518). Judgment of Paris (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1529). Large workshop with sons Hans (d. 1537) and Lucas the Younger (1515-1586). Early religious works in Vienna (1500-1503), in which landscape played a great part, linked with the ideals of the Danube school, fusing emotional sympathy, landscape and human action. Chief exponents were Wolf Huber (c. 1490-1553) at Passau and Albrecht Altdorfer (c. 1480-1538) at Regensburg; his paintings and etchings of the Danube valley make him one of the principal landscape painters of the early 16th century: St George (Munich, 1510). Other works include the St Florian altar (1518); Alexander's Battle (Munich, 1529).
Hans Holbein the Younger (Augsburg, 1497/98 - London, 1543), son and pupil of Hans Holbein the Elder, settled in Basle about 1515-1516: Burgomaster Meyer and his wife (Basle, 1516). In 1517-1519, he was in Lucerne (and possibly in northern Italy). 1519, portrait of Bonifacius Amerbach; 1519, Dead Christ, Basle; 1521, portrait of Erasmus, Louvre. 1523, journey to France. 1526, Madonna of the Burgomaster Meyer, at Darmstadt. 1526-1528 he was in England, stayed with Sir Thomas More: series of drawings in black and coloured chalks for the portrait of the More family, Windsor; 1527., Nikolaus Kratzer, Louvre. In the summer of 1528, he was in Basle (1528-1529, the Family of the Painter, Basle); in 1532, in London (Georg Gisze, Berlin; 1533, the Ambassadors, London). In 1536, he was appointed painter to Henry VIII: Jane Seymour, Vienna; 1539, the Duke of Norfolk, Windsor; fresco, Whitehall palace; portraits of Henry VIII, his parents Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, and wife Jane Seymour (burnt 1698; part of cartoon in National Portrait Gallery, London). In 1538-1539, he was on an official mission to the continent; portraits of the Duchess of Milan, Anne of Cleves (National Gallery, London, and Louvre). Numerous drawings for portraits (important series at Windsor), designs for decorative works, stained glass windows, gold and silver work, etc., woodcut illustrations: series from the Old Testament, the Dance of Death were evidence of his enormous activity. He was the last great representative of the German school.
After 1530, this school started to decline. A member of the Cologne school, closely attached to Flemish art, was Barthel Bruyn (1493-1555) who emulated the Dutch Romanists. The Italian influence imposed itself at Nuremberg on the pupils of Dürer, Barthel Beham and Georg Pencz; at Augsburg where Titian, Bordone and Sustris stayed in 1548, Christoph Amberger (d. 1561) modelled himself on the Venetians. The Swiss, Tobias Stimmer (1539-1584), also dependent on Italy, preserved more successfully his native characteristics (double portrait, 1564, Basle). In the second half of the century and the beginning of the 17th, the patronage of the Fuggers and the dukes of Bavaria at Augsburg, Landshut and Munich (Antiquarium) favoured production by international teams of decorators, led by Friedrich Sustris and Pieter Candido, pupils of Vasari.
About 1575-1610, the Prague court was also the rallying point of the last Mannerists; under the aegis of Bartholomeus Spranger of Antwerp, working with the Flemish landscape painter Roelandt Savery, Germanic painters trained in Italy were to be found: Hans von Aachen (d. 1615), Joseph Heintz (d. 1609).