The age of Dürer – Renaissance and Reformation
Albrecht Dürer, Matthias Grünewald and Lucas Cranach made the German lands one of Europe’s artistic centres – just as the Reformation turned the world of images upside down.
Around 1500 German art enjoyed a golden age. Albrecht Dürer of Nuremberg travelled to Venice and brought back Renaissance ideas about perspective, proportion and the dignity of the artist. Through his woodcuts and engravings he became famous throughout Europe within his own lifetime. At the same time Matthias Grünewald painted the Isenheim Altarpiece, one of the most harrowing works in the history of art, and Tilman Riemenschneider carved altarpieces in unpainted limewood with a quiet, inward expression.
In 1517 Martin Luther published his theses in Wittenberg, and the Reformation spread rapidly through the German lands. Lucas Cranach, court painter in Wittenberg, became the image-maker of the Reformation. He painted Luther and his circle and illustrated the new Bibles. But in many places images of saints were torn down and altarpieces burned. Artists lost their most important patrons, and many had to turn to new kinds of work such as portraits, prints and secular subjects. It was a time of both renewal and loss.
Hans Holbein the Younger therefore left Basel for London and became portrait painter to Henry VIII. Albrecht Altdorfer in Regensburg painted some of the first pure landscape paintings in Western art. In the second half of the century the princely courts grew more important. In Munich, Heidelberg and Innsbruck palaces and collections were created in the Renaissance style, and in Prague Emperor Rudolf II gathered artists and curiosities from all over Europe. German art was now learned, international and divided by religion.