Albrecht Altdorfer and the Origins of Landscape
Revised and Expanded Second Edition
Second Edition, Revised and Expanded
9781780230801
9781780231150
Distributed for Reaktion Books
Albrecht Altdorfer and the Origins of Landscape
Revised and Expanded Second Edition
Second Edition, Revised and Expanded
In the early sixteenth century, Albrecht Altdorfer promoted landscape from its traditional role as background to its new place as the focal point of a picture. His paintings, drawings, and etchings appeared almost without warning and mysteriously disappeared from view just as suddenly. In Albrecht Altdorfer and the Origins of Landscape, Christopher S. Wood shows how Altdorfer transformed what had been the mere setting for sacred and historical figures into a principal venue for stylish draftsmanship and idiosyncratic painterly effects. At the same time, his landscapes offered a densely textured interpretation of that quintessentially German locus—the forest interior.
This revised and expanded second edition contains a new introduction, revised bibliography, and fifteen additional illustrations.
Reviews
Table of Contents
1. Independent Landscape
Where landscape could appear
Landscape and text
Landscape as parergon or by-work
2. Frame and Work
The German artist’s career
Subject and setting
The Landscape study
3. The German Forest
Two-dimensional pleasures
Germania illustrata
Outdoor worship
Wanderer, traveller
4. Topography and Fiction
The topographical drawing
Style in Altdorfer’s pen-and-ink landscapes
5. The Published Landscape
Altdorfer’s public
‘Printed drawings’
Order and disorder
Afterword to the Second Edition
References
Bibliography
List of Illustrations
Checklist of Landscapes
Index