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Home , Albrecht Altdorfer, Danube school, Hans Burgkmair, Wolf Huber

MARCH 17 - REALMS OF IMAGINATION JUNE 14, 2015 AND THE EXPRESSIVITY OF ART AROUND 1500

PICTURE GALLERY The exhibition focuses on one of the most remarkable phenomena in art north of the Alps: the increasingly strong wave of expressive elements in art produced around 1500. Although this movement culminates in the work of Albrecht Altdorfer (c. 1480 – 1538) and other representatives of the so-called “ school”, among them (c. 1485 – 1553) and the Master IP (c. 1490 – after 1530), we also find similar phenomena outside the Danube region in other parts of Central Europe.

Around one hundred and forty artworks, among them masterpieces by Lucas Cranach, Matthias Grünewald and Hans Leinberger, document how landscapes, history and portraits were re-invented with the help of a powerful novel interplay of light, colour and pose, creating an antithesis to Dürer’s art based on the study of nature and a classical canon. Instead, these compositions are dominated by poetry and drama, and in them man and nature become one.

MAIN THEMES OF THE EXHIBITION The show’s introductory section focuses on the image of man in the work of the leading protagonists of this expressive style, who were active in the Danube region: we showcase panel paintings by Albrecht Altdorfer and Wolf Huber from different periods of their stylistic development, as well as carved altarpieces and small sculptures by Hans Leinberger and the Master IP. Almost -like in their agitation, the figures of the Apostles from the central shrine of the altarpiece that once decorated the high altar at Zwettl form the focal point of this group of works, which is confronted in the exhibition with Dürer’s canonical of Adam and Eve.

Just how dramatic the novel versions of long-established subject matters engendered by these spectacular stylistic innovations could be is the subject of the second section of the exhibition, which features different depictions of the Crucifixion. The first of these is Cranach’s early Crucifixion, painted around 1500 in . Altdorfer is generally regarded as the first artist to have produced autonomous painted or printed landscapes; his bizarre-romantic creations form the focal point of the third section of the exhibition, which looks at the artists’ new approach to Nature, bringing together both autonomous landscapes and narrative compositions in which nature plays a prominent role. Selected depictions of Saint Christopher by Altdorfer and other artists from southern again document the possibilities of this expressive formal idiom before visitors reach the core section of the exhibition.

Here we showcase both different subject matters and the pictorial means of expressivity. Soon after 1500 artists increasingly favoured dynamic distortions, ornamentalization, light reflexes, and gaudy colours to imbue their compositions with a new vitality. In these works the dramatic exaggerations of the shapes of both bodies and draperies also affects settings and surroundings. The final section of the exhibition looks at artists and patrons, among them Emperor Maximilian I but also noblemen like the Prince-Bishops of , members of the urban middle-class and humanists. In Gallery XV of the Picture Gallery we showcase portraits as well as epitaphs and votive paintings, confronting them with compositions by Dürer and other German artists from the holdings of the .

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE EXHIBITION Among the highlights of the exhibition are numerous panel paintings by Albrecht Altdorfer, among them two of the first-ever autonomous landscapes, the Prayer Book of Emperor Maximilian I featuring highly imaginative drawings, Wolf Huber’s wings of the Saint Anne-Altarpiece from Feldkirch, and spectacular sculptures like Leinberger’s bronze Madonna from Berlin, the group of Apostles from the central shrine of the altarpiece initially commissioned for the high altar at Zwettl, and the

complete huge altarpiece carved by the Master IP for the Church of Our Lady before Tyn in Prague, which measures over six metres in height. In addition, a comprehensive selection of important drawings by Altdorfer and Huber – an extremely fragile medium rarely on public display – are on show in the exhibition. We also present a sensational new discovery, the back of a by the Master of Pulkau now in Chicago, which was long believed lost; now in Belgrade, the Presentation of the Virgin Mary has been restored for the exhibition in Vienna and will be presented to the public in its original artistic context for the first time.

PRESS PHOTOGRAPHS These images may be used free of charge when writing about the exhibition; to download them go to press.khm.at.

Albrecht Altdorfer The Resurrection 1518 panel, 70,5 x 37 cm Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Picture Gallery © KHM-Museumsverband

Albrecht Altdorfer The Entombment of Christ 1518 panel 70,5 cm x 37,3 cm Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Picture Gallery © KHM-Museumsverband

Albrecht Altdorfer The Three Magi c. 1530/35 panel, 108,9 x 77 cm Frankfurt am Main, Städelmuseum © Städelmuseum Frankfurt am Main

Albrecht Altdorfer Landscape with Castle c. 1520/30 vellum mounted on beech, 30,5 x 22,5 cm loaned by the Wittelsbacher Ausgleichsfonds to the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, – © bpk | Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen

Albrecht Altdorfer The Holy Family with Saint Agapitus dated 1515 panel, 22,5 x 20,5 cm Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Picture Gallery © KHM-Museumsverband

Wolf Huber Wing of the Saint Anne-Altarpiece: The Three Magi 1521 panel, 74 x 47,7 cm Feldkirch, cathedral and parish church St. Nikolaus (private loan) © Photograph Bundesdenkmalamt, Vienna

Wolf Huber Wing of the Saint Anne-Altarpiece: The Presentation in the Temple 1521 panel, 72,1 x 47,6 cm Feldkirch, cathedral and parish church St. Nikolaus (private loan) © Photograph Bundesdenkmalamt, Vienna

Wolf Huber Wing of the Saint Anne-Altarpiece: The Birth of the Virgin Mary 1521 panel, 74 x 47,7 cm Feldkirch, cathedral and parish church St. Nikolaus (private loan) © Photograph Bundesdenkmalamt, Vienna

Wolf Huber The Raising of the Cross c. 1525 panel cut off in semi-circular shape at the top 115 x 153,5 cm Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Picture Gallery © KHM-Museumsverband

Georg Lemberger The Fall of Man and the Salvation 1535 panel, 66,9 x 80,3 cm Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum © Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg

Master of Messkirch The Crucifixion 1st half of the 16th century panel, 98 x 73 cm Schwäbisch Hall, Würth Collection © Würth Collection

Niklaus Manuel, called Deutsch The Beheading of John the Baptist c. 1517 fir 32,5 x 26 cm Kunstmuseum Basel © Kunstmuseum Basel, Photograph Martin P. Bühler

Meister von Pulkau Presentation of the Virgin c. 1507/10 panel 111,7 x 74,5 cm Belgrad, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in den königlichen Palastanlagen © Photograph: KHM-Museumsverband

Albrecht Altdorfer The Crucifixion 1512 black ink, white highlights, on olive, brown ground paper Brunswick, Anton Ulrich‐Museum © Herzog Anton Ulrich‐Museum Brunswick, Kunstmuseum des Landes Niedersachsen

Albrecht Altdorfer Mountain Landscape with Pollard Willows c. 1511 Pen and two shades of black ink drawing on slightly-browned paper 14,1 x 19,6 cm Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Dept. of Prints © Kupferstichkabinett der Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna

Wolf Huber Pollard Willows near a Stream 1514 Pen and brown ink, 152 x 207 mm Budapest, Szépmüvészti Múzeum © Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Andreas Lackner Saint Blaise Enthroned 1518 limewood, remnants of original polychromy, gilt 134 x 65,5 x 23 cm Vienna, Belvedere © Vienna Belvedere Photograph: Bettina Sidonie Neubauer

Master of the Zwettl Altarpiece and members of his workshop Central shrine of the retable commissioned for the high altar of the church of the Cistercian abbey at Zwettl 1516‐25 limewood, fir wood back of the central shrine, varnished, partially polychromed, the original retable measured c. 19 metres in height; the central shrine 6,5 x 3 x 0,6 m, Adamsthal near Brno, Saint Barbara © Parish of St. Barbara

Hans Lemberger The Virgin Mary and Child c. 1515/20 Bronze, hollow cast, 45,5 x 21 x 17,5 cm Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Collection of Sculpture and Museum of © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst Photograph: Antje Voigt, Berlin

Master I. P. The Mocking of Job Passau, c. 1525 h. 49,5 cm, w. 113 cm, diam. max. 10 cm Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Kunstkammer © KHM-Museumsverband

Master IP Retable of St John 1520s Wood c. 5.90 m Prague, Kostel Panny Marie před Týnem © Photograph: KHM-Museumsverband

Jörg Breu the Elder, the Elder and others Prayer-Book of Emperor Maximilian I (Diurnale seu lieber precum) 1514‐1515 Pen and ink drawings in different colours in the margins of a copy of the Emperor’s prayer book printed in 1513 on vellum by Hans Schönsperger the Elder at 28 x 40 cm (measurements of the book when opened) Besançon, Bibliothèque Municipale © Bibliothèque municipale de Besançon

CATALOGUE An exhibition catalogue will be published in German.

Realms of Imagination Edited by Sabine Haag and Guido Messling paperback, size 24 x 28 cm, 288 pages price: € 35 ISBN: 978-3-99020-081-0

PARTNERS AND CURATORS The exhibition is organized by the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna and the Städel Museum und Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung Frankfurt/Main, in collaboration with the Geisteswissenschaftliches Zentrum Geschichte und Kultur Ostmitteleuropas e.V. of the University of Leipzig.

Exhibition Curators: Dr. Guido Messling (Vienna, KHM), in collaboration with Professor Dr. Jochen Sander, Dr. Stefan Roller (Frankfurt, Städel Museum und Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung) and Dr. habil. Jiří Fajt (Leipzig, GWZO)

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