Hans Baldung

(nicknamed Grien). Born circa 1484-S5 in SchwäbischeGmünd(?), Württemberg; died 1545 in Strass-burg (present-day Strasbourg, France). German Renaissance painter and draftsman of the upper Rhine school. He was influenced by A. Dürer, in whose studio he worked from 1502 to 1504, and by M. Neithardt. He spent most of his life in Strassburg. Baldung’s art (portraits and religious compositions) is full of contradictions: Renaissance rationalism is combined with mysticism, and smoothly sculpted forms with broken rhythmic lines. His works include the main altar of the cathedral in Freiburg im Breisgau (1512–16) and Death and the Woman (1517, in the Public Art Collection, Basel).