b. cca 1400, Rottweil, d. ca. 1445, Basel. German-born painter from Rottweil in Swabia, active in Switzerland. German painter. One of the great innovators in northern European painting, he turned away from the lyricism of the preceding generation of German painters. His sturdy, monumental figures give a strong impression of their physical presence, gestures are dignified and the colours strong and simple. Even scenes with several figures are strangely undramatic and static. The surface appearance of materials, especially metals and stone, is intensely observed and recorded with an almost naive precision. Powerful cast shadows help to define the spatial relationships between objects. His fresh approach to the natural world reflects that of the Netherlandish painters: the Master of Fl?malle and the van Eycks. He need not, however, have trained in the Netherlands or in Burgundy as knowledge of their style could have been gained in Basle. He remained, however, untouched by the anecdotal quality present in their art,  Related Paintings of WITZ, Konrad :. | The Liberation of St Peter jgu | Annunciation r | The Miraculous Draught of Fishes | The Miraculous Draught of Fishes wr | Pieta |
Related Artists:
Cranach, Lucas il Vecchio
German tedesco, 1472-1553
Alexandr Ivanov
Russian, 1806-1858
Philippe de Champaigne
1602-1674 Philippe de Champaigne Locations His artistic style was varied: far from being limited to the realism traditionally associated with Flemish painters, it developed from late Mannerism to the powerful lyricism of the Baroque. It was influenced as much by Rubens as by Vouet, culminating in an aesthetic vision of the world and of humanity that was based on an analytic view of appearances and on psychological truth. He was perhaps the greatest portrait painter of 17th-century France. At the same time he was one of the principal instigators of the Classical tendency and a founder-member of the Acadmie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. His growing commitment to the Jansenist religious movement (see JANSENISM) and the severe plainness of the works that it inspired has led to his being sometimes considered to typify Jansenist thinking, with its iconoclastic impulse, in spite of the opposing evidence of his other paintings. He should be seen as an example of the successful integration of foreign elements into French culture and as the representative of the most intellectual current of French painting.