Albrecht Altdorfer

Albrecht Altdorfer was a painter, printmaker and architect who spent his life in Regensburg, where he also served on the city council. The chief figure of the Danube School, he set religious and historical subjects in wild forest and mountain scenery and was among the first European artists to paint landscape for its own sake. His Battle of Alexander at Issus, painted for Duke William IV of Bavaria, is in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. The National Gallery in London holds his Christ taking Leave of his Mother and a small Landscape with a Footbridge.