Matthias Grünewald

The first source to sketch his biography comes from the German art historian Joachim von Sandrart, who describes him around 1505 working on the exterior decoration of an altarpiece by Albrecht Dürer in Frankfurt.

[2] Sandrart records that Grünewald had as an apprentice the painter Hans Grimmer, who became famous in his time, but most of whose works were lost in the Thirty Years' War.

[6] From 1512 to 1514 or 1515 he worked on the Isenheim altarpiece, apparently in partnership with another Mathis, variously surnamed Nithart, Neithart, von Würzburg (after his place of birth), or Gothardt.

In 1938 Walter Karl Zülch published the theory that Grünewald and his partner Nithart/Gothardt were the same person; this Nithart/Gothardt was a painter, engineer, and "water artist" born in Würzburg in the 1460s or maybe 1470s and probably dying in 1528.

Its nine images on twelve panels are arranged on double wings to present three views (rather than just the open and closed states of triptych altarpieces), according to the season or occasion.

When the first set of wings is opened, the Annunciation, Angelic Concert (sometimes interpreted as the Birth of Ecclesia) Mary bathing Christ, and Resurrection are displayed.

The Lutheran theologian Philipp Melanchthon is one of the few contemporary writers to refer to Grünewald, who is rather puzzlingly described as "moderate" in style, when compared with Dürer and Cranach; what paintings this judgement is based on is uncertain.

In the late 19th century he was rediscovered, and became something of a cult figure, with the angst-laden expressionism—and absence of any direct classicism—of the Isenheim Altarpiece appealing to both German Nationalists and Modernists.

[9] The Isenheim Altarpiece also features in the last chapter of Sebald's novel The Emigrants, in which the painter Max Ferber describes his intuition of the extreme power of pain after seeing Grünewald's work.