Creator story
Surprising fact
The Isenheim Altarpiece was made for a hospital treating skin disease; Christ's plague-ridden, sore-covered body was meant to comfort the dying patients.
Source: Wikipedia / WikimediaRenaissance
Matthias Grünewald
Matthias Grünewald (c. 1470–1528) was a German Renaissance master who rejected Italian idealism for raw, visionary intensity. His Isenheim Altarpiece is one of the most harrowing images of suffering in Western art.
Forgotten for centuries, Grünewald was rediscovered by the Expressionists, who saw a kindred spirit in his anguished vision.
- Painted the Isenheim Altarpiece, a masterpiece of raw, visionary anguish.
- Rejected Renaissance idealism for emotional, almost hallucinatory intensity.
- Rediscovered and revered by 20th-century Expressionists.
Key works
A key work by Matthias Grünewald
These works make it easiest to see how the artist changed form, content, and the very way art could exist in culture.
1512
Isenheim Altarpiece
The Isenheim Altarpiece is an altarpiece sculpted and painted by, respectively, the Germans Nikolaus Hagenauer and Matthias Grünewald in 1512–1516. It is on display at the Unterlinden Museum at Colmar, Alsace, in France.