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Matthias Grünewald
(his real name was Mathis Neithart, otherwise Gothart, 1470/80-1528)
TIMELINE:
Late Gothic Painting
This page thanks to
Michael Shephard.
Biography
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 that also included
Albrecht Dürer, Lucas
Cranach, and
Albrecht Altdorfer.
Grünewald 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 (CHIAROSCURO), 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.
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