BALDUNG Grien Hans

(Strasbourg 1484 ca.- 1545)

German painter, engraver, printer and decorator of windows.
His contemporaries numbered him among the greatest artists of the time. Today contemporary criticism places him just below Grünevald, Dürer and Hans Holbein the Younger. He worked initially in Strasbourg undergoing influences from Martin Shongauer, then in Nuremberg where he first became a student and then a follower of Dürer, standing out as one of the major contributors in the management of his workshop.
In his woodcuts, some of which are printed with the “AD” monogram in deference to his master, the interest in naturalistic detail and visionary solutions in the example of Dürer and Cranach is predominant.

Artist with great originality, versatility and fantasy Baldung was fascinated by the superstition and witchcraft and was always looking for new and different subjects and interpretation styles, in order to exceed the limits of the whimsicality. The new themes that he introduced in the art also included the supernatural and the erotic.
So even more than in religious subjects, the personality of Baldung is expressed in a series of works with allegorical figures and mystery to which he has devoted the last fifteen years of his life.

At the time of his death in September 1545, Baldung was a member of the Strasbourg city council and one of the wealthiest citizens of that city.