Matthias Grünewald
The painter of suffering.
Matthias Grünewald painted the Isenheim Altarpiece for the Antonite monastery’s hospital, where people suffering from St Anthony’s fire (ergot poisoning) were cared for. His crucified Christ is grievously wounded and shows suffering without embellishment.
Matthias Grünewald is a name he never used himself. His name was probably Mathis Gothart Nithart, and he was given the name Grünewald by a German art historian in the 17th century, probably by mistake. He was born around 1470–80, probably in Würzburg. Almost nothing is known about his training.
For several years he worked for the Archbishops of Mainz, both as a painter and as an engineer responsible for water supply and building works, among other things. His principal work is the Isenheim Altarpiece, painted around 1512–16 for the Antonite monastery at Isenheim in Alsace. The monks cared for sufferers of St Anthony’s fire, a severe poisoning caused by a mould on grain that brought convulsions and gangrene. The altarpiece is now in the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar in France.
The Isenheim Altarpiece is a cabinet with wings that could be opened in different ways during the church year. When closed, it shows the Crucifixion. Christ’s body is covered with sores and thorns, his hands are contorted with pain and his skin is greenish with decay. For the sick, the image could show that Christ shared their suffering. When the wings are opened, the Resurrection appears instead, with Christ rising heavenwards in a glowing light. The contrasts are violent in both colour and feeling.
Grünewald lived through the turbulent years of the Reformation and the Peasants’ War. He seems to have been close to the new Protestant ideas, and Lutheran writings were among the possessions he left behind. He died in Halle in 1528. Only about ten paintings and some thirty drawings survive.
After his death he was almost entirely forgotten. He was rediscovered in the early 20th century, when the German Expressionists saw him as a kindred spirit. The composer Paul Hindemith wrote the opera Mathis der Maler about him. Today he is regarded as one of the most moving painters in German art history.