Albrecht Altdorfer, Regensburg ca. 1480 - 1538
Die Ruhe auf der Flucht nach Ägypten - The rest during the flight into Egypt (1510)
Gemäldegalerie Berlin
The Virgin is shown resting in a throne-like chair by a richly ornate Renaissance fountain, while Joseph proffers a basket of cherries. Several angels are playing in and around the basin of the fountain, and the child Jesus tries to reach into the water. The fountain-pillar is lavishly decorated with sculpture. The significance of the group of figures at the top - a bearded man with a boy shooting an arrow - is not clear, but appears to relate to ancient mythology. Beyond the fountain the wooded shores of a lake stretch far into the distance. The rocks are crowded with gateways, fortified roads and towers, houses with pointed gables, ruins and decaying roofs - all so intricately interwoven with trees and foliage that it is difficult to detect the relationship of any one building to the other.
The element of fantasy, which so dominates the landscape, is also apparent in the fountain, in which the figures seem to be drawn both from reality and from the artist's imagination. There is no prototype or parallel in Altdorfer's time for the bizarre appearance of the fountain. The painter's artistic invention was sin this case at least a generation ahead of his time.
At the foot of the fountain is a stone tablet bearing the Latin inscription: 'Albertus Aldorfer pictor Ratisponensis in salutem animae hoc tibi munus diva maria sacravit corde fideli 1510 AA' ('Albrecht Altdorfer, painter from Regensburg, for the salvation of his soul dedicated this gift to thee, divine Mary, with a faithful heart');.this indicates a very personal confession on the part of the painter, his appeal to the Virgin Mary. The dedication must also be taken as an explanation of the central feature of the picture, the fountain, which - though symbolic of a heathen place - is nonetheless the water of life for the Holy Family. The motif recalls the legend, according to which a spring appeared from the earth when the Holy Family in its flight sought a place to rest. A few years earlier Cranach had treated the same theme;this fact establishes a singular bond between the two paintings.
It is assumed that the landscape reproduces impressions from the country near Regensburg, and in particular the hamlets of Scheuchenberg, Lerchenhaube and Wörth, which are also recognizable in Altdorfer's Crucifixion in the gallery at Cassel. The painter settled in Regensburg in 1505 and twenty years later was appointed the city's master-builder. Most of his pictures point to a predilection for architecture and architectural décor. An example of this is the highly imaginitive construction of the fountain and - on another panel in Berlin painted somewhat later - the ruin in the darkness which serves as the setting for the birth of Christ.
Source: Web Gallery of Art
Tags: Berlin Gemäldegalerie Berlin Albrecht Altdorfer Ruhe auf der Flucht nach Ägypten rest during the flight into Egypt Deutschland Germany
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Albrecht Altdorfer, Regensburg ca. 1480 - 1538
Die Ruhe auf der Flucht nach Ägypten - The rest during the flight into Egypt (1510)
Gemäldegalerie Berlin
The Virgin is shown resting in a throne-like chair by a richly ornate Renaissance fountain, while Joseph proffers a basket of cherries. Several angels are playing in and around the basin of the fountain, and the child Jesus tries to reach into the water. The fountain-pillar is lavishly decorated with sculpture. The significance of the group of figures at the top - a bearded man with a boy shooting an arrow - is not clear, but appears to relate to ancient mythology. Beyond the fountain the wooded shores of a lake stretch far into the distance. The rocks are crowded with gateways, fortified roads and towers, houses with pointed gables, ruins and decaying roofs - all so intricately interwoven with trees and foliage that it is difficult to detect the relationship of any one building to the other.
The element of fantasy, which so dominates the landscape, is also apparent in the fountain, in which the figures seem to be drawn both from reality and from the artist's imagination. There is no prototype or parallel in Altdorfer's time for the bizarre appearance of the fountain. The painter's artistic invention was sin this case at least a generation ahead of his time.
At the foot of the fountain is a stone tablet bearing the Latin inscription: 'Albertus Aldorfer pictor Ratisponensis in salutem animae hoc tibi munus diva maria sacravit corde fideli 1510 AA' ('Albrecht Altdorfer, painter from Regensburg, for the salvation of his soul dedicated this gift to thee, divine Mary, with a faithful heart');.this indicates a very personal confession on the part of the painter, his appeal to the Virgin Mary. The dedication must also be taken as an explanation of the central feature of the picture, the fountain, which - though symbolic of a heathen place - is nonetheless the water of life for the Holy Family. The motif recalls the legend, according to which a spring appeared from the earth when the Holy Family in its flight sought a place to rest. A few years earlier Cranach had treated the same theme;this fact establishes a singular bond between the two paintings.
It is assumed that the landscape reproduces impressions from the country near Regensburg, and in particular the hamlets of Scheuchenberg, Lerchenhaube and Wörth, which are also recognizable in Altdorfer's Crucifixion in the gallery at Cassel. The painter settled in Regensburg in 1505 and twenty years later was appointed the city's master-builder. Most of his pictures point to a predilection for architecture and architectural décor. An example of this is the highly imaginitive construction of the fountain and - on another panel in Berlin painted somewhat later - the ruin in the darkness which serves as the setting for the birth of Christ.
Source: Web Gallery of Art
Tags: Berlin Gemäldegalerie Berlin Albrecht Altdorfer Ruhe auf der Flucht nach Ägypten rest during the flight into Egypt Deutschland Germany
© All Rights Reserved
Albrecht Dürer, Nürnberg 1471 - 1528
Betende Maria - Mary praying (1518)
Gemäldegalerie Berlin
This painting depicts a monumental figure in a tightly cropped space, broad areas of bold colour, and highly refined enamel like treatment of the skin surfaces.
Wilhem von Bode acquired the panel in Venice in 1894 in an auction of the Morosini-Gatterburg collection, and then donated it to the Berlin art gallery. The Virgin Mary in Prayer was part of a diptych whose matching pair was probably a representation of an Ecce Homo.
Source: Web Gallery of Art
Tags: Berlin Gemäldegalerie Berlin Albrecht Dürer betende Maria Mary praying Virgin Mary Madonna Deutschland Germany
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Albrecht Dürer, Nürnberg 1471 - 1528
Bildnis einer jungen Frau mit offenem Haar - Portrait of a young woman with her hair down (1497)
Städel, Frankfurt
Obwohl heute nachträgliche Übermalungen und Firnisse den Eindruck verfälschen, handelt es sich bei diesem Porträt einer jungen Beterin um ein sog. „Tüchlein“, eine Wasserfarbenmalerei auf feinster Leinwand. Dürer hat diese Technik des Öfteren für Bildnisse benutzt. Zu dem Frankfurter Bild existiert ein Pendant in der Berliner Gemäldegalerie, das eine zweite junge Frau mit geflochtenem und hochgestecktem Haar zeigt, die Pflanzen mit erotischer Symbolbedeutung in der Hand hält. Das ursprünglich zusammengehörige Bildnispaar diente vermutlich der Erinnerung an zwei Töchter, von denen die auf dem Bild im Städel dargestellte für die geistliche Laufbahn bestimmt war, die andere ihrer Heirat entgegensah.
Quelle: Städel
Tags: Frankfurt Städel Albrecht Dürer Bildnis einer jungen Frau mit offenem Haar Portrait of a young woman with her hair down Hessen Hesse Deutschland Germany Frankfurt am Main
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Albrecht Dürer (Nürnberg 1471 - 1528)
Hieronymus Holzschuher (1526)
Gemäldegalerie Berlin
Dürer painted this portrait in Nuremberg in 1526, when the sitter was 57 years old. Hieronymus Holzschuher (1469-1529) came from an old Nuremberg patrician family. In 1500 he was elected junior, and nine years later senior burgomaster. In 1514 he ranked as one of the seven Elders of the city government, and on his death in 1529 a commemorative medal bearing his profile was struck. Holzschuher was a fearless champion of the reformation movement in Nuremberg. In Dürer, who was only slightly younger, he found both a sympathizer and a friend. When the painter visited the Netherlands in 1521, he bought presents for Holzschuher, a fact which he noted in his diary.
The artist has filled almost the whole of the upper half of the panel with his subject's powerful head, for which the upper part of the body, clad in heavy fur, seems merely to serve as a plinth, attention being focused on the features. In this portrait Dürer has reproduced details with incredible fidelity. The fine brush has rendered the thick, wavy hair, which has receded somewhat over the forehead, with all the delicacy of a pen-and-ink drawing. At the same time, the face and the full lips are strongly modelled and determine the full-blooded vitality of the man. Reflected in the sitter's eyes are the window-bars of the room in which Dürer worked. Dürer himself fitted to the frame a sliding cover bearing Holzschuher's coat of arms; frame and cover are still extant in their original state and have served for centuries to protect the picture.
Dürer was renowned for his ability to paint details, such as hair, realistically and it was pictures like this which are said to have led to his famous conversation with Giovanni Bellini in 1505 or 1506. The elderly Venetian painter had asked Dürer for one of the brushes which he used to execute his painstaking portraits. Dürer then handed Bellini a brush identical to ones the Venetian artist already used. `I do not mean this, I mean the brushes you use to paint several hairs with one touch,' Bellini responded. Dürer picked up the brush and demonstrated how he painted.
In 1651 when the painter and art-historian Joachim von Sandrart was commissioned by some distinguished personality, possibly the Elector Maximilian I of Bavaria, to purchase the panel, his offer was turned down on the ground that it was intended to remain in the subject's family as a permanent memorial to him. During the eighteenth century the picture remained, well looked-after, in a groundfloor room of the family residence. Then, with the growth of romanticism in the early nineteenth century, there was a revival of interest in German painting and this famous portrait was brought out into the light of day. The new-found enthusiasm for Dürer's art made this particular portrait more popular than almost any other work of his. When it was publicly exhibited for the first time in Munich in 1869, it had already been accepted as epitomizing the old German patrician class. The portrait remained in the possession of Holzschuher's descendants in Nuremberg until it was purchased for the Berlin Gallery in 1884.
Source: Web Gallery of Art
Tags: Berlin Gemäldegalerie Berlin Albrecht Dürer Hieronymus Holzschuher Deutschland Germany
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