Albrecht Altdorfer

Albrecht Altdorfer was a German Renaissance painter, printmaker, and architect, a leading figure of the Danube School and a pioneer of Western landscape painting.

He was born around 1480, probably in Regensburg, Bavaria, the son of the painter Ulrich Altdorfer. The family had ties to the city of Amberg before settling in Regensburg, where Altdorfer would spend most of his working life.

He acquired citizenship of Regensburg in 1505 and set up a workshop producing panel paintings, etchings, and woodcuts in a manner that drew on Albrecht Dürer and the older Bavarian tradition. He was elected to the city's outer council in 1519 and served as a city architect supervising construction projects on its fortifications and public buildings.

His Battle of Alexander at Issus, painted in 1529 for Duke William IV of Bavaria, set a vast cosmic landscape against tens of thousands of warriors and is considered one of the great achievements of German Renaissance painting. He also produced the Danube Landscape near Regensburg, one of the earliest pure landscape paintings in Western art, religious panels for the Monastery of Sankt Florian, and a substantial body of small-scale prints. He died in Regensburg on 12 February 1538.

His name Albrecht derives from the Old High German elements adal, meaning "noble," and beraht, meaning "bright," giving the sense of "noble and bright." Albrecht is a traditional masculine given name in German-speaking countries.