Matthias Grünewald (c1470-1528) is one of the greatest figures in German Renaissance art. The visionary character of his work, with its expressive colour and line, is in stark contrast to Albrecht Dürer's.
His real name was Mathis Gothart Niethart. A seventeenth-century writer mistakenly identified him by the name Grünewald, his real name was not discovered till the 1920s. He was born in Würzburg in the 1470s. He served as court painter and engineer to two successive archbishops of Mainz from about 1510 to 1525. He left this post apparently because of Lutheran sympathies. Grünewald died in Halle in 1528.
The greatest of his works is the Isenheim Altarpiece, completed 1515, now in the Musée d'Unterlinden, Colmar. It contains his most famous images: the Crucifixion, the Temptation of St Anthony, and the Resurrection.
Mathias GrUnewald[mAtE´As grUn´uvAlt] Pronunciation Key, c.1475–1528, German painter of religious subjects.
GrUnewald's earliest work of certain date is the Mocking of Christ of 1503 (Munich), a linear, energetic and colorful painting in which the blindfolded figure of Jesus is beaten by a group of grotesque men.
This work incorporates a number of stylistic components that GrUnewald employed in his later works: the dramatic use of silhouette and unusual color; the striking contrast of light with shadowed areas, called chiaroscuro; and the exaggeration and distortion of the human form.
The question of the artistÂ’s role in society is the theme of HindemithÂ’s opera Mathis der Maler (Mathias the Painter), a fictional account of the life of the MathiasGrunewald (c.
HindemithÂ’s Grunewald decides that he cannot continue his comfortable life as a court painter while the peasantsÂ’ struggle for justice is exploding around him.
The opening Engelkonzert ("Angelic Concert," the operaÂ’s overture) is a scene of Mary and the infant Jesus being serenaded by angels.
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