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Hans Baldung Biography

German Northern Renaissance painter, printmaker, bookmaker, graphic designer and stained glass artist
born 1484 - died 1545

Also known as: Hans Baldung Grien, Hans Baldung Grien, Hans Baldung Grun.
Student of: Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528).
Collaborated with: Hans Weiditz, I (1475-1516).

Baldung Grien, Hans (b. 1484-85, Schwäbisch-Gmünd, Württemberg (now Germany); d. 1545, Imperial Free City of Strasbourg (now France)). German painter and graphic artist. Hans Baldung probably trained with Dürer in Nuremberg, but his brilliant color, expressive use of distortion, and taste for the gruesome bring him closer in spirit to his other great German contemporary, Grünewald.

Hans Baldung, called Grien, was most probably born in Schwäbisch Gmünd in southwestern Germany, the site of the family home. The most important evidence for deducing his date of birth (between 1484 and 1485) is a self-portrait drawing at age 49 which is preparatory to a 1534 woodcut. It has been pointed out that Hans Baldung was the only male member of his family not to receive a university education, for unlike many artists, he belonged to a family of academics, intellectuals, and professionals: Hans Baldung was surrounded by physicians, lawyers and scholars. his father was an attorney who seems by 1492 to have settled in Alsace. It is usually assumed that his earliest training took place around 1499/1500 in the Upper Rhine, perhaps with a Strasbourg artist, but an apprenticeship in Swabia has also been suggested. Hans Baldung probably trained with a painter from Martin Schongauer's school.

Baldung and Dürer
By 1503 Hans Baldung had moved to Nuremberg and had become a member of Albrecht Dürer's workshop. It was probably here that Hans Baldung acquired the nickname "Grien", perhaps a reference to his use of the color green or a preference for green attire -- he has a marked affinity for the color green, and many of his religious scenes are bathed in a weird, supernatural glow. It could also have distinguished him from Hans Schäufelein, Hans Süss von Kulmbach, and Hans Dürer, Albrecht's younger brother, all of whom were in Dürer's atelier. Baldung immediately absorbed Dürer's formal vocabulary, as is evident in one of earliest dated Hans Baldung paintings, the 1503 pen drawing of Aristotle and Phyllis. This picture symbolizes the power of the women by representing the phylosopher Aristotle as Hans Baldung brings on his back his lover, Phyllis. This story was often pictured by Renaissance artists.

Strasbourg
In 1509 the artist returned to Strasbourg and became a citizen. Hans Baldung soon became famous, and later even became a member of the town council. The following year he married Margarethe Herlin, joined the guild "zur Steltz", opened a workshop, and began signing Hans Baldung paintings with the HGB monogram that he used for the rest of his career. In addition to traditional, religious subjects, he was concerned during these years with the profane theme of the imminence of death and with scenes of sorcery and witchcraft. Hans Baldung was responsible for introducing supernatural and erotic themes into German art. He often depicted witches, also a local interest: Strasbourg's humanists studied witchcraft and its bishop was charged with ferreting out witches.

Along with Cranach and Hans Burgkmair, he was one of the earliest masters of the chiaroscuro woodcut.

Most characteristic Hans Baldung paintings are fairly small in scale; a series of puzzling, often erotic allegories and mythological paintings, exemplified by Death Kissing a Maiden (1517, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basel) involve the motif of a female girl body threatened by a grotesque skeleton, a subject Hans Baldung treated several times. In The Three Ages of Woman and Death (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, c. 1510), the beauty of the human body is confronted with the appalling image of Death, represented as a cadaver similar to the allegory of the Vanitas, inspired by the Middle-Ages macabre dances.

It's one of the few monumental retables that is still kept in place today at the original location. The layout and light effects are inspired by Grünewald, who paintings at Isenheim at the same period. The same expressions can be found in the Christ Lamentation (Berlin), painted around 1516. Around 1514-15 Hans Baldung also painted for Freiburg's cathedral two panels of the Schnewlin retable: The Baptism of Christ and Saint John on Patmos (Freiburg).

Mannerism
The altarpiece was not completed until 1516 and Baldung returned to Strasbourg early in 1517 where, as far as we know, Baldung remained for the rest of his life. From the 1520's onward the pictorial and psychological content of Hans Baldung painting becomes increasingly mannered, reflecting in part exposure to Italian art. his style developed Mannerist features: clashing colors and sinuous line combined with naturalistic detail. The 1516 Déluge (Flood) (Bamberg) reveals already this duality, with a very animated composition and dissonant colors.

Toward the end of his life, Hans Baldung increasingly represented secular subjects, reflecting the Reformation's constraints on religious art. Although Baldung continued to produce religious subjects for private patrons, he increasingly painted portraits or scenes from ancient legends, mythology and history, such as Pyramus and Thisbe (Berlin, 1530), Hercules and Antaeus (Breslau, 1530-31), Mucius Scaevola (Dresden, 1531). Such German paintings illustrate the transition from Renaissance to Mannerism.

This mannerist spirit is highlighted and accentuated in the German paintings produced during the last 20 years of his life in Strasbourg. Figures now have complex attitudes and abandonned the human body classical proportions learnt from Albrecht Dürer. Some of Hans Baldung paintings resemble those of Cranach the Elder. Mannerist tendencies are also visible in religious artworks. his multiple Virgin with Child (Nürnberg, Berlin, Strasbourg) reveal the influence of Jan Gossaert (c.1487-c.1536) and of 15th century Gothic painting.

his Portraits
Throughout his life Baldung painted numerous portraits, known for their sharp characterizations. While Dürer rigorously details his models, his style differs by focusing more on the personality of the represented character, an abstract conception of the model's state of mind.

Portrait of a Lady

At the time of his death in September, 1545, Hans Baldung was a member of the city council of Strasbourg and one of that city's richest citizens. his artistic estate went to Nicolaus Kremer, who was probably a pupil.

Hans Baldung Grien was Dürer's most inventive and talented disciple, who nonetheless achieved a distinctive style. Hans Baldung painting was expressionistic, imaginative and vividly colorful. his output was varied and extensive, including religious paintings, allegories and mythologies, portraits, designs for stained glass and tapestries, and a large body of graphic painting, particularly book illustrations. his oeuvre consists of approximately 90 German paintings and altarpieces, about 350 drawings and 180 woodcuts and book illustrations.
Eroticism is often strongly present in his engravings, the best known of which is The Bewitched Groom (1544), which has been interpreted as an allegory of lust.