Albrecht Dürer was a prominent German Renaissance painter, printmaker, and theorist active in the late 15th and early 16th centuries who helped introduce classical motifs to Northern art through his knowledge of Italian artists. He established his reputation across Europe in his twenties through his high-quality woodcut prints. Dürer's body of work includes engravings, altarpieces, portraits, watercolors, and theoretical treatises involving principles of mathematics, perspective, and proportions.

1. A 12 Discovering artists from
Germany, research
Albrecht Dürer
21 May 1471 Nürnberg (Germany)
6 April 1528 Nürnberg (Germany)
was a painter, printmaker, and theorist of the German Renaissance.
Born in Nuremberg, Dürer established his reputation and influence
across Europe when he was still in his twenties due to his high-
quality woodcut prints. He was in communication with the major
Italian artists of his time, including Raphael, Giovanni Bellini and
Leonardo da Vinci, and from 1512 he was patronized by emperor
Maximilian I.
Dürer's vast body of work includes engravings, his preferred
technique in his later prints, altarpieces, portraits and self-portraits,
watercolours and books. The woodcuts, such as the Apocalypse
series (1498), are more Gothic than the rest of his work. His well-
known engravings include the Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513),
Saint Jerome in his Study (1514) and Melencolia I (1514), which has
been the subject of extensive analysis and interpretation. His
watercolours also mark him as one of the first European landscape
artists, while his ambitious woodcuts revolutionized the potential of
that medium.
Dürer's introduction of classical motifs into Northern art, through his
knowledge of Italian artists and German humanists, has secured his
reputation as one of the most important figures of the Northern
Renaissance. This is reinforced by his theoretical treatises, which
involve principles of mathematics, perspective, and ideal proportions
The rabbit 1502 Rhinocerus1515 Praying hands 1508 Adam and Eve 1507

2. A 12 Discovering artists from
Germany, research
Caspar David Friedrich
Caspar David Friedrich
5 September 1774 Greifswald (Germany)
7 May 1840 Dresden (Germany)
was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most
important German artist of his generation.[2]
He is best known for his mid-
period allegoricallandscapes which typically feature contemplative figures silhouetted
against night skies, morning mists, barren trees or Gothicor megalithic ruins. His
primary interest as an artist was the contemplation of nature, and his often symbolic
and anti-classicalwork seeks to convey a subjective, emotional response to the natural
world. Friedrich's paintings characteristically set a human presence in diminished
perspective amid expansive landscapes, reducing the figures to a scale that, according
to the art historian Christopher John Murray, directs "the viewer's gaze towards their
metaphysical dimension".[3]
Summer 1805 View of a harbour 1915/16
View
The lonely tree 1822
The wanderer over the sea of fog 1818
The Ice-Sea 1823/24

3. A 12 Discovering artists from
Germany, research
Carl Spitzweg
February 5, 1808 Germering (Germany)
September 23, 1885 München (Germany)
was a German romanticist painter, especially of genresubjects. He is considered to be
one of the most important artists of the Biedermeier era.
He was born in Unterpfaffenhofen, the second of three sons of Franziska (née
Schmutzer) and Simon Spitzweg.[1]
His father, a wealthy merchant, had Carl trained as
a pharmacist. He attained his qualification from the University of Munich but, while
recovering from an illness, he also took up painting. Spitzweg was self-taught as an
artist, starting out by copying the works of Flemish masters. He contributed his first
work to satiric magazines. Upon receiving an inheritance in 1833, he was able to
dedicate himself to painting.
Later, Spitzweg visited European art centers in Prague, Venice, Paris, London,
and Belgium studying the works of various artists and refining his technique and style.
His later paintings and drawings are often humorous genre works. Many of his paintings
depict sharply characterized eccentrics, for example The Bookworm (1850) and The
Hypochondriac (c. 1865, in the Neue Pinakothek, Munich).
His paintings inspired the musical comedy Das kleine Hofkonzert by Edmund Nick.
Playing Piano, an etching by Spitzweg, was found as part of the 2012 Nazi loot
discovery.[2]
Spitzweg is buried in the Alter Südfriedhof in Munich.[3]
The poor poet 1839 The bookworm 1950 A sunday walk 1941

4. A 12 Discovering artists from
Germany, research
Emil Nolde
7 August 1867 Nolde (Denmark in the Prussian Duchy of Schleswig)
13 April 1956) Neurchen (Germany)
was a German-Danish painter and printmaker. He was one of the first Expressionists, a
member of Die Brücke, and was one of the first oil painting and watercolor painters of
the early 20th century to explore color. He is known for his brushwork and expressive
choice of colors. Golden yellows and deep reds appear frequently in his work, giving a
luminous quality to otherwise somber tones. His watercolors include vivid, brooding
storm-scapesand brilliant florals.
Nolde's intense preoccupation with the subject of flowers reflected his interest in the art
of Vincent van Gogh.
Between 1884 and 1891, he studied to become a carver and illustrator in Flensburg,
and worked in furniture factories as a young adult. He spent his years of travel
in Munich, Karlsruhe and Berlin.
In 1889, he gained entrance into the School of Applied Arts in Karlsruhe.From 1892 to
1898 he was a drawing instructor at the schoolof the Museum of Industrial and Applied
Arts (Industrie- und Gewerbemuseum; today the Textilmuseum, or Textile Museum)
in St. Gallen, Switzerland
He eventually left this job to finally pursue his dream of becoming an independent
artist. As a child he had loved to paint and draw, but he was already 31 by the time he
pursued a career as an artist. When he was rejected by the Munich Academy of Fine
Arts in 1898, he spent the next three years taking private painting classes, visiting
Paris, and becoming familiar with the contemporary impressionist scene that was
popular at this time. He moved to Berlin, where he would meet collector Gustav
Schiefler and artist Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, both of whom would advocate his work later
in life.
He became a member of the revolutionary expressionist group Die Brücke (The Bridge),
of Dresden, in 1906, upon the group's invitation. This association lasted only until the
end of the following year.[2]
From 1908 to 1910 he was a member of the Berlin
Secession, before being excluded in 1910 due to a disagreement with the leadership. In
1912 he exhibited with Kandinsky’s Munich-based group Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue
Rider); he had achieved some fame by this time and was able to support himself
through his art.From 1902 he called himself after his birthplace.
Nolde was a supporter of the Nazi party from the early 1920s, having become a
member of its Danish section. He expressed anti-semitic, negative opinions about
Jewish artists, and considered Expressionism to be a distinctively Germanic style. This
view was shared by some other members of the Nazi party, notably Joseph
Goebbels and Fritz Hippler. .
However Hitler rejected all forms of modernism as "degenerate art", and the Nazi
regime officially condemned Nolde's work. Until that time he had been held in great
prestige in Germany. A total of 1,052 of his works were removed from museums, more
than those of any other artist.Some were included in the Degenerate Art exhibition of
1937, despite his protests, including (later) a personal appeal to Nazi gauleiter Baldur

5. von Schirach in Vienna. He was not allowed to paint—even in private—after 1941.
Nevertheless, during this period he created hundreds of watercolors, which he hid. He
called them the "Unpainted Pictures".
After World War II, Nolde was once again honored, receiving the German Order of
Merit, West Germany's highest civilian decoration He died in Seebüll (now part
of Neukirchen).
Young woman 1907 High Sunflower 1926 Quiet Sea 1936
Green Couple 1940 Unpainted pictures)

6. A 12 Discovering artists from Germany,
research
Paul Klee
18 December 1879 Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland
29 June 1940 Muralto , Switzerland
was a Swiss-German artist. In 1900 he started his studies at the academy in Munich,
Germany. He didn´t stay there for a long time, in 1901 he travelled to Italy and
returned to Bern, switzerland in 1902. In 1905 he went to Paris, France but returned to
Munich in 1906. There he met several other famous painters in 1911 (Wassily
Kandinsky, Franz Marc, Gabriele Münther and August Macke) who influenced him. But
mainly his journey to Tunis inspired his further works. He was a member of Der Blaue
Reiter (The Blue Rider), a journal whose name later became synonymous with the
circle of artists collaborating in it.
From 1920 to 1931 he and his colleague, Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, both
taught at the Bauhaus school of art, design and architecture. Lazter on he taught at the
Academy in Düsseldorf (germany) but he was forced to interrupt his work as teacher in
1933 because oft he nationalism, and he returned to Switzerland where he did, after
beeing ill for some years in 1940.
His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that
included Expressionism, Cubism, and Surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who
experimented with and eventually deeply explored color theory, writing about it
extensively; his lectures Writings on Form and Design Theory (Schriften zur Form und
Gestaltungslehre), published in English as the Paul Klee Notebooks, are held to be as
important for modern art as Leonardo da Vinci's A Treatise on Painting for
the Renaissance.[1][2][3]
. His works reflect his dry humor and his sometimes childlike
perspective, his personal moods and beliefs, and his musicality.
Burg und Sonne 1928 Rote Brücke 1928 Head of a man 1922

7. A 12 Discovering artists from Germany,
research
Franz Marc
February 8, 1880 München, Germany
March 4, 1916 Braquis France
was a German painter and printmaker, one of the key figures
of the German Expressionist movement. He was a founding
member of Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), a journal
whose name later became synonymous with the circle of
artists collaborating in it.
The tiger 1912 The big blue horses 1912 Deer in the forest 1914

8. A 12 Discovering artists from Germany,
research
August Macke
3 January 1887 Meschede, Germany
26 September 1914) Champagne, France
was one of the leading members of the German Expressionistgroup He was a
member of Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), a journal whose name later became
synonymous with the circle of artists collaborating in it.
He lived during a particularly innovative time for German art: he saw the development
of the main German Expressionist movementsas well as the arrival of the successive
avant-garde movements which were forming in the rest of Europe. Like a true artist of
his time, Macke knew how to integrate into his painting the elements of the avant-
garde which most interested him.[1]
Wife oft he artist 1909 The storm 1911 Girls under trees 1914

9. A 12 Discovering artists from
Germany, research
Otto Dix
Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix
2 December 1891Gera (Germany)
25 July 1969 Singen (germany)
was a German painter and printmaker, noted for his ruthless and harshly realistic
depictions of Weimar society and the brutality of war. Along with George Grosz, he is
widely considered one of the most important artists of the Neue Sachlichkeit.
Dix died on 25 July 1969 after a second stroke in Singen am Hohentwiel. He is buried
at Hemmenhofen on Lake Constance.
Anita Berber 1925 Sylvia von Harden, 1926,
Metropolis 1928

10. A 12 Discovering artists from
Germany, research
Max Ernst
2 April 1891 Brühl (Germany)
1 April 1976 Paris (France)
was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a
primary pioneer of the Dada movement and Surrealism.
In 1909 Ernst enrolled in the University of Bonn, studying philosophy, art history,
literature, psychology and psychiatry. He visited asylums and became fascinated with
the art of the mentally ill patients; he also started painting that year, producing
sketches in the garden of the Brühl castle, and portraits of his sister and himself.
In 1911 Ernst befriended August Macke and joined his Die Rheinischen
Expressionisten group of artists, deciding to become an artist. In 1912 he visited the
Sonderbund exhibition in Cologne, where works by Pablo Picasso and post-
Impressionists such as Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguinprofoundly influenced his
approach to art.
In 1914 Ernst met Hans Arp in Cologne. The two soon became friends and their
relationship lasted for fifty years. After Ernst completed his studies in the summer, his
life was interrupted by World War I.
Ernst was demobilized in 1918 and returned to Cologne
In September 1939, the outbreak of World War II caused Ernst to be interned as an
"undesirable foreigner" in Camp des Milles, near Aix-en-Provence. He was released a
few weeks later. Soon after the German occupation of France, he was arrested again,
this time by the Gestapo but managed to escape and flee to America,
He lived in Sedona, Arizona from 1946 to 1953, where the high desert landscapes
inspired him and recalled Ernst's earlier imagery.. From the 1950s he lived mainly in
France. In 1954 he was awarded the Grand Prize for painting at the Venice Biennale.
He died at the age of 84 on 1 April 1976 in Paris,[
and was interred at Père Lachaise
Cemetery.
Entire City 1936 The Barbarians 1936 Old man and flower 1924

11. Questions:
1. Which artists were contemporary?
2. At which age did they die?
3. At which age have they painted their
pictures?
4. In which paintings do you find
geometric shapes?
a) Can you name them?