Walter Ferdinand Friedlaender (March 10, 1873 – September 8, 1966) was a German art historian (who should not be confused with Max Jakob Friedländer).
Born in Glogau, he was taught art history by Heinrich Wölfflin and others.
According to architecture and art historian Rocky Ruggiero,[2] in a seminal observation about Mannerism by Friedlaender in his work, Mannerism and Anti-mannerism in Italian Painting, he presented the most sophisticated explanation of the transition from Renaissance art into the modern subjective "-isms" that followed the Baroque synthesis of Renaissance and High Renaissance styles.
[3] The concept Friedlaender presented was that artists moved from the objective and scientific work of Leonardo Da Vinci to the subjective presentations that have followed the break with Classical styles.
This biographical article about a German art historian is a stub.