Martin Schongauer
Recent scholarship, building on the work of Max Lehrs, attributes 116 engravings to him, with many also being copied by other artists (including his monogram), as was common in the period.
[16] He is thought to have trained as a painter with Colmar's main local master Caspar Isenmann (d. 1472), a neighbour of his parents, who was greatly influenced by the Early Netherlandish painting of Rogier van der Weyden and others, and had perhaps studied in the Netherlands, and Schongauer's few surviving pictures reflect this.
His earlier engravings also show clear influences from several Early Netherlandish painters, suggesting that he followed the traditional pattern of a wanderjahre travelling at the end of his training.
One drawing, dated 1469, is a copy of the figure of Christ in Rogier van der Weyden's Beaune Altarpiece, presumably made in front of the painting.
[19] Various details of costume, and the exotic plants in the Rest on the Flight into Egypt, have suggested to some scholars that he also visited Spain, and possibly Portugal.
[24] The economics of fifteenth-century printmaking are unclear, and though his prints spread his fame widely across Europe, he may have relied more on the income from his "major vocation" of painting.
[36] The great majority of his subjects are religious, but there are a handful of comic scenes of ordinary life such as the early Peasant Family Going to Market or the Two Apprentices Fighting, which may reflect his background in a goldsmith's house.
[38] He also produced nine of the first ornament prints, initially intended to be used by craftsmen in various media, including woodcarvers and goldsmiths, as patterns for the elaborate and sophisticated designs.
[40] From his family background and time at university he was no doubt familiar with the emerging bourgeoisie of trade and the professions who provided the core market for high quality engravings,[41] but the subjects from classical mythology so popular in German prints of the next century, and already present in Italian ones, do not appear at all in his work.
[50] According to Arthur Mayger Hind, Schongauer was one of the first German engravers to "rise above the Gothic limitations both of setting and type" and that he "actualises an idea of beauty which in its nearer approach to more absolute ideals appeals to a far more universal appreciation" than earlier engravers such as Master E. S.[51] With Master E.S., he was the first northern printmaker not only to have his prints very widely copied by other printmakers, but to have his designs taken by painters, sculptors and artists in all media.
[52] The demons in his The Temptation of St Anthony established the hybrids of fish, bird and insect types followed by Hieronymus Bosch and other artists throughout the next century.
The different watermarks found suggest that impressions were printed over considerable periods, with most made when the copper plates were showing signs of wear.
Two double-sided shutters (probably made to surround a sculpted central section) from the "Orlier Altarpiece", dated c. 1470–75, show the Annunciation on the outer faces and a Nativity and Saint Anthony with donor portrait within.
Many everyday details, such as the grapes in the basket, the wheat carried by Joseph, and the flask of water in the niche in the wall, can be treated as allusions to the theology of the subject, in the tradition of Netherlandish painting.
