Albrecht Altdorfer

Albrecht Altdorfer is regarded as the greatest painter of the Danube School, which took shape in southern Germany and Austria in the early 16th century. His early career is unclear. He is known for landscapes with a romantic mood, and as one of the earliest painters in Western art to make nature itself, not merely a backdrop to a story, the subject of a picture.

He also excelled at prints and drawings, and with Albrecht Dürer he contributed illustrations to the Prayer Book of Emperor Maximilian. His best-known work is The Battle of Alexander at Issus (Alte Pinakothek, Munich). In Japan, Mountain Landscape is known as a work by him.

Albrecht Altdorfer died on February 12, 1538.