Quotes

Albrecht Altdorfer clearly let his art do the talking for him as there are very few attributable quotes remaining from his career.

This star of German art impressed with paintings, drawings, etchings and woodcuts but with his work first appearing at over 50 years ago, much of the documentation around his life has since been lost. With so few quotes available we have supplemented this page with quotes about the artist from other sources, which provides an insight into his career from other angles.

Famous Quotes by Albrecht Altdorfer

As discussed, we do not currently have any quotes which we can confidently attribute to the artist but work is underway to attempt to find some in the near future, perhaps from translating some of the German-based literature into English. Whilst being a world famous artist, Altdorfer has not received as much of the international acclaim and research as other members of the Northern Renaissance, which explains partly why we still no so little about his personal life and opinions on the world as he saw it.

None currently available.

Quotes by Art Historians and Famous Artists about Albrecht Altdorfer

As the father of landscape art, in many people's eyes, there is much to learn about this artist and many have had their say on his legacy. From art historians around the time of the Danube School, to present day newspaper articles which have sought to promote exhibitions of his work, there is much available.

Altdorfer was one of the most outstanding landscape painters. He lived for most of his life in the city of Regensburg on the Danube. Often grouped with the so-called Danube School, his work included landscape and natural plant forms as expressive elements even in religious works, such as the Gallery's 'Christ taking Leave of his Mother'. He painted brightly coloured images rooted in German Late Gothic love of ornament, and in its poetic feeling for nature. He also worked as a draughtsman, designer and printmaker, and pursued a career as an architect and town councillor.

The National Gallery, London, UK

The fantastic element that pervaded Altdorfer’s paintings was also prominent in his drawings, most of which were done in black with white highlights on brown or blue-gray paper. His engravings and woodcuts, usually miniatures, are distinguished by their playful inventiveness. Late in his career he used the new medium of etching to produce a series of landscapes.

Encyclopedia Britannica

The first landscape painter in the modern sense and the leading figure of the Danube School, Altdorfer introduced landscape as a theme of its own in art. Unlike most of his German contemporaries, he painted few portraits, preferring to focus on the virgin forest or to use it as a setting for both secular and religious subjects. With their gestures, facial expressions, and color distorted for dramatic and emotional ends, his figures complemented his landscapes, themselves alive with an unusual sense of character.

The Getty Museum