Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Hans Baldung Grün

GRÜN, Hans Baldung (c. 1470-1545), commonly called Grün, a painter of the age of Dürer, was born about 1470 at Gmiind in Swabia, and spent the greater part of his life at Strasburg and Freiburg in Breisgau. The earliest pictures assigned to him are altarpieces with the monogram H. B. interlaced, and the date of 1496, in the monastery chapel of Lichtenthal near Baden. Another eorly work is a portrait of the emperor Maximilian, drawn in 1501 on a leaf of a sketch-book now in the print-room at Carlsruhe. The Martyrdom of St Sebastian and the Epiphany (Berlin Museum), fruits of his labour in 1507, were painted for the market-church of Halle in Saxony. In 1509 Griin purchased the freedom of the city of Strasburg, and resided there till 1513, when he moved to Freiburg in Breisgau. There he began a series of large compositions, which he finished in 1516, and placed on the high altar of the Freiburg cathedral. He purchased anew the freedom of Strasburg in 1517, resided in that city as his domicile, and died a member of its great town council 1545. Though nothing is known of Griin s youth and education, it may be inferred from his style that he was no stranger to the school of which Diirer was the chief. Gmiind is but 50 miles distant on either side from Augsburg and Nuremberg. Griin s prints were often mistaken for those of Diirer; and Diirer himself was well acquainted with Griin s woodcuts and copper-plates, in which he traded during his trip to the Netherlands (1520). But Criiri s prints, though Diireresque, are far below Diirer, and his paintings are below his prints. Without absolute correct ness as a draughtsman, his conception of human form is often very unpleasant, whilst a questionable taste is shown in ornament equally profuse and " baroque." Nothing is more remarkable in his pictures than the pug-like shape of the faces, unless we except the coarseness of the extremities. No trace is apparent of any feeling for atmosphere or light and shade, Though Griin has been commonly called the Correggio of the north, his compositions are a curious medley of glaring and heterogeneous colours, in which pure black is contrasted with pale yellow, dirty grey, impure red, and glowing green. Flesh is a mere glaze under which the features are indicated by lines. No wonder that English collectors should have neglected him. There is not one of his pictures in the whole of Great Britain, unless we accept as genuine a" Youth and Old Age" in the Liverpool Institution, bought by Roscoe as a masterpiece of Antonello da Messina, Even Germans express but slight esteem for Griin ; and if his works have any claims to attention at all, it is merely because of the wild and fantastic strength which some of them display. We may pass lightly over the Epiphany of 1507, the Crucifixion of 1512, or the Stoning of Stephen of 1522, in the Berlin Museum. There is some force in the Dance of Death of 1517, in the museum of Basel, or the Madonna of 1530, in the Lichtenstein Gallery at Vienna. Griin s best effort is the altarpiece of Freiburg, where the Coronation of the Virgin, and the Twelve Apostles, the Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity, and Flight into Egypt, and the Crucifixion, with portraits of donors, are executed with some of that fanciful power which Martin Schon bequeathed to the Swabian school. As a portrait painter he is well known. He drew the likeness of Charles V., as well as that of Maximilian; and his bust of Margrave Philip in the Munich Gallery tells us that he was connected with the reigning family of Baden as early as 1514, At a later period lie Lad sittings from Margrave Christopher of Baden, Ottilia his wife, and all their children, and the picture containing these portraits is still in the grand-ducal gallery at Carlsruhe. Like Diirer and Cranach, Griin became a hearty supporter of the Reformation. He was present at the diet of Augsburg in 1518, and one of his woodcuts represents Luther under the protection of the Holy Ghost, which hovers over him in tho shape of a dove.