Konrad Witz (ca.1400/1410 – winter 1445/spring 1446) was a German and Swiss painter, active mainly in

Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...

Life

He was born probably in

Rottweil Rottweil (; Alemannic: ''Rautweil'') is a town in southwest Germany in the state of Baden-Württemberg. Rottweil was a free imperial city for nearly 600 years. Located between the Black Forest and the Swabian Alps, Rottweil has over 25,000 ...

, Germany. In 1434 he entered the painters’ guild in Basel, where he worked most of his life. On 10 January 1435 he acquired Basel citizenship. Sometime afterward he married Ursula Treyger, a niece of the painter Nikolaus Ruesch. Witz is recorded as dead in a document of 1446.

Works

His 1444 panel '' The Miraculous Draft of Fishes'' (a portion of a lost

altarpiece An altarpiece is a painting or sculpture, including relief, of religious subject matter made for placing at the back of or behind the altar of a Christian church. Though most commonly used for a single work of art such as a painting or sculpture, ...

) has been credited as the earliest extant faithful portrayal of a landscape in European art history, being based on observation of real topographical features.Borchert, Till-Holger. ''Van Eyck to Dürer: The Influence of Early Netherlandish Painting on European Art, 1430–1530''. London: Thames & Hudson, 2011. 58. Witz is most famous for painting three altarpieces, all of which survive only partially. The earliest is the ' of about 1435, which today is mostly in the Kunstmuseum, Basel, and with isolated panels in other collections. The next is the ''Altarpiece of the Virgin'' (c. 1440), which has been associated with panels now in Basel, Nuremberg, and Strasbourg ('' Saint Madeleine and Saint Catherine'',

Musée de l'Œuvre Notre-Dame The Musée de l'Œuvre Notre-Dame (or Frauenhausmuseum in German) is the city of Strasbourg's museum for Upper Rhenish fine arts and decorative arts, dating from the early Middle Ages until 1681. The museum is famous for its collection of origi ...

). Witz's final altarpiece is the ''St. Peter Altarpiece'' of 1444, painted for St. Peter's Cathedral,

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

, and now in the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Geneva, which contains his most famous composition, the ''Miraculous Draft of Fishes''. The painting of ''St. Christopher'' (Kunstmuseum, Basel; illustrated) does not seem to be related to these major altarpieces. Other independent works by Witz and his followers can be found in Naples, Berlin, and New York (

Frick Collection The Frick Collection (colloquially known as the Frick) is an art museum on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was established in 1935 to preserve the collection of the industrialist Henry Clay Frick. The collection (museum) ...

). The

Ambraser Hofjagdspiel The Ambraser Hofjagdspiel (Court Hunting Pack of Ambras; sometimes the Ambras falconer cards or the Courtly Hunt Cards) is a pack of cards painted around 1440–1445 and attributed to the engraver Konrad Witz from Basel, Switzerland. It origin ...

is attributed to him. Witz rendered surfaces and textures with great precision, and was adept at creating depth with the use of cast shadows. According to Detlef Zinke, Witz was "one of the great innovators in northern European painting", whose "sturdy, monumental figures" enact scenes that are dignified and static, in contrast to the emotive style of earlier German painters.Zinke, D. (2003). "Witz, Konrad". Grove Art Online. Nevertheless, he had little influence on the course of German art, and was largely forgotten until the publication of a monograph by Daniel Burckhardt in 1901.

Notes

1400s births 1440s deaths 15th-century German painters German male painters People from Rottweil Artists from Basel-Stadt 15th-century Swiss painters {{Switzerland-painter-stub

Life

Works

See also

Notes