BURGKMAIR, Hans

(1473-1531)

Hans Burgkmair, the son of the prominent Augsburg painter Thoman Burgkmair, studied both under his father and with Martin Schongauer in Colmar. He became a friend of Albrecht Dürer* and, like Dürer, made full use of the print medium, introducing the chiaroscuro woodcut in the north. He also shared Durer's great interest in the new ideas of the Italian Renaissance and responded particularly to the work of Venetian painters.

Achieving the status of master painter in 1498, Burgkmair probably married in the same year the sister of Hans Holbein the Elder, thus linking himself with the Holbein family of painters, who were also close neighbors in Augsburg. Burgkmair was well traveled, spending much time in Italy, particularly in Ven­ice, which was an important center of printing and humanistic studies. His work shows the influence of both Italian and Netherlandish art. Known for his wood­cuts as well as for his portraits and religious paintings, Burgkmair settled in Augsburg, a rich and cosmopolitan city where his status was as high as that of Albrecht Dürer in Nuremberg. Through his prints, Burgkmair came to the attention of Emperor Maximilian I, for whom he made ninety-two genealogical woodcuts. He was also one of several artists called upon to illuminate Maximilian's Prayer Book and partici­pated in the illustrations for the emperor's autobiographical romance, the Weis-skunig. With Dürer and others, he made woodcut designs for elaborate triumphal processions and arches for the emperor. Apart from his work for the emperor, Burgkmair is perhaps best known for his St. John Altarpiece of 1518, now in Munich, a work that blended Italianate and northern styles.

Burgkmair also participated in the growing dialogue between the German humanists and painters, encouraged by such men as Conrad Celtis, Maximilian's librarian. At Celtis's death, both Burgkmair and Dürer paid tribute, Burgkmair with a portrait woodcut of Celtis. Burgkmair's portraits and portrait woodcuts strongly influenced those of Hans Holbein the Younger,* but he was important also as an intellectual, a purveyor and supporter of the new humanism, and an eminent role model for Hans Holbein the Younger.

Bibliography

A. von Bartsch, Sixteenth Century German Artists: Hans Burgkmair the Elder, Hans Schaufelein, Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1980. H. M. Kaulbach, "Trial Sheets for Maximilian I," Burlington Magazine, May 1995: 313—14.

Rosemary Poole