Albrecht Altdorfer and the Origins of Landscape: Revised and Expanded Second Edition - Softcover

Wood, Christopher S.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 178023080X ISBN 13: 9781780230801

Publisher: Reaktion Books, 2014

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author:

Christopher S. Wood is professor in the Department of the History of Art at Yale University.

Review:

"Christopher Wood’s book will immediately be recognized as a landmark in the art history of Northern Renaissance. An astonishing tour de force of scholarship, it is also written with exhilarating verve and great intellectual power. It offers a wholly persuasive historical account of the emergence of a new genre, but does so without ever robbing the paintings of their formal complexity. Wood's reading of Altdorfer's works represents some the most brilliantly sustained accounts of the origins of landscape to have appeared in many years"

(Simon Schama)

"The well chosen illustrations are a revelation."

(The Times (UK))

"This is an important book that will have a great and positive influence on the study of Northern art, and on the understanding of landscape painting generally."

(Joseph Leo Koerner)

"A study that is bound to become a standard work."

(Independent on Sunday)

“Sumptuous.” (Daily Telegraph)

“Excellent illustrations . . . [and] detailed exuberant comments leave the reader in no doubt about Altdorfer’s brilliance and originality.” (Anthony Grafton New York Review of Books)

About this edition

• Publisher: Reaktion Books
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 178023080X
• ISBN 13: 9781780230801
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 440