Matthias Grunewald (Art & Design) [Hardcover]

Horst Ziermann (Author)

Book Description

Series: Art & Design | Publication Date: May 2001

Famous, above all, for his awe-inspiring Isenheimer Altarpiece, Matthias Grunewald was one of the great Renaissance visionaries and has exerted a lasting influence on European painting. This book presents Grunewald's oeuvre from the early paintings and drawings through his major masterpieces, the altarpieces in Frankfurt, Isenheim, Aschaffenburg and Mainz up to his last works, and also includes an up-to-date catalogue of paintings and drawings definitively attributed to the artist. Generally regarded as the greatest painter of the German Renaissance and certainly its greatest colourist, Grunewald produced paintings of extraordinary beauty and expressive force. A man of profound religious beliefs, his vision transcended the visible world and led him to paint some of the most moving and memorable images of Christ's Passion in Western art. The Isenheimer Altarpiece, which is now housed in the Musee d'Unterlinden in Colmar, France, is widely held to be the single most important work of German Renaissance painting.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Among the stellar artists of the German Renaissance, none surpasses the inadequately esteemed painter Matthias Grvnewald (d. 1528). Known principally for his hauntingly intense Isenheim altarpiece, he is so poorly documented that even his name is apparently incorrect. Ziermann, a former newspaper editor and correspondent, not only synthesizes the relatively little that is known about the artist but also provides a handsomely illustrated compendium of the modest oeuvre of surviving paintings and drawings. Though the text includes effective analyses of the works, it is marred by scholarly disputations better relegated to footnotes. Equally disconcerting are occasional irrelevant excursuses, awkward biblical citations, editorial gaffes, and irksomely reiterated iconographic errors. Perplexing, too, is the book's failure to go beyond the formal and iconographic details of the Isenheim altarpiece to assay its functional and iconological significance in the context of its time and place. While this is not the ideal introduction, the lack of anything better in English makes this volume a recommended acquisition. Robert Cahn, Fashion Inst. of Technology, New York
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Publisher

Generally regarded as the greatest painter of the German Reniassance and certainly its greatest colorist, Grunewald produced paintings of extraordinary beauty and expressive force. A man of profound religious beliefs, his vision transcended the visible world and led him to paint some of the most moving and memorable images of Christ's Passion in Western art. The Isenheimer Altarpiece, which is now housed in the Musee d'Unterlinden in Colmar, France, is widely held to be the single most important work of the German Renaissance.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Prestel Publishing (May 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3791325000
• ISBN-13: 978-3791325002
• Product Dimensions: 12.1 x 9.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,024,971 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Will the real Matthias Grunewald please stand up?, April 15, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Matthias Grunewald (Art & Design) (Hardcover)

Possibly 26 paintings and 37 drawings by MATTHIAS GRUNEWALD made safe passage. Others didn't. In 1789 revolutionary mobs went after his late Gothic Isenheim altarpiece. An altarpiece panel went missing from a Frankfurt museum 36 years after.

Grunewald became unknown in art history. But he came back, thanks to Heinrich Alfred Schmid in 1911 and Walter Karl Zulch in 1938. In fact, records in Aschaffenburg and Seligenstadt, plus studies by Alfred Schadler and Bernhard Saran, have left us with 4 Masters Mathis to choose from!

So was the artist Master Mathis, carver in Seligenstadt? Or was he Master Mathis of Aschaffenburg, also hydraulic engineer of the Klopp castle artesian well in Bingen? Or was he Master Mathis of Grun, carver, painter or sculptor in Frankfurt? Or was he Master Mathis, architectural painter and gilder in Aschaffenburg?

Even with the author's answer, we've no record of Grunewald's journeymanship, apprenticeship, or pre-mastership. How did Grunewald paint the first European realistic total solar eclipse, in the Mainz small crucifixion? The only eclipse during his lifetime was on October 1, 1502. It was seen only in the Brandenburg marches, Lusatia, Mecklenburg, Silesia and southern Poland.

And how did he come up with his tempera medium? It used little oil, for boldly spreading colors and subtle changes. That was only done by the colorist Master of Wittingau, Bohemia.

Finally, his art had Bohemian, French, Italian and Netherlandish touches. Did the lack of colored center and the modulated local color in The mocking of Christ mean that he studied with Hans Holbein the Elder, the great colorist of Augsburg? Why was Judas standing alone, Leonardo da Vinci-style, in The last supper?

Why was the Isenheim Calvary painted, da Vinci-like, in brightest light? Why did Christ turn out his palms, Raphael- and Verrocchio-like, to show his wounds in the Isenheim Resurrection? Where did the Isenheim central panel get the angel concert from? They were painted in France, as of Jean Pucelle's Book of hours. The roofless golden temple was like Melchior Broederlam's Dijon altarpiece and the Breisach minster roodscreen in Alsace. Why were there Hieronymus Bosch-like light rays from God in the Isenheim Incarnation?

Horst Ziermann's book perfectly preps Ruth Mellinkoff's THE DEVIL AT ISENHEIM and Gottfried Richter's THE ISENHEIM ALTAR.

4 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lequel des maitres Mathis cherchez-vous?, January 14, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Matthias Grunewald (Art & Design) (Hardcover)

Les experts nous disent qu'il nous reste 26 peintures et 37 dessins definitivement faits par Matthias Grunewald. Il y avait aussi le retable d'Isenheim qu'une foule revolutionnaire du 18eme siecle ne laissait pas intact et le panneau d'un autre retable qu'un voleur prenait du musee de Frankfurt au 19eme siecle. Et puis l'artiste lui-meme devenait inconnu jusqu'a sa redecouverte par Heinrich Alfred Schmid et Walter Karl Zulch au 20eme siecle. Quant aux documents historiques d'Aschaffenburg et de Seligenstadt, et a cause des recherches d'Alfred Schadler et Bernhard Saran, lequel etait-il des quatre maitres Mathis de la meme epoque? Qui que ce soit, et l'auteur nous en donne son avis, Grunewald etait pionnier du premier eclipse solaire peint avec realisme en Europe. Lui encore et le coloriste bohemien, le Maitre de Wittingau, etaient pionniers du tempera qui se faisait de juste assez de l'huile, pour peindre des couleurs vives un peu partout dans la peinture, et des subtilites.