The Visionary Religious Paintings of Matthias Grünewald
Matthias Grünewald is the painter of the most disturbing and the most luminous Christ in the history of Western art. The Matthias Grünewald paintings that survive today, fewer than twenty securely attributed panels, fill the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar with the great Isenheim Altarpiece, one of the founding masterpieces of European religious painting. He took the visual language of the late Gothic German Crucifixion to extremes of physical horror and spiritual transfiguration that no other painter of his generation, not even his contemporary Albrecht Dürer, ever attempted.
This article gathers nine of his most important religious works, the panels and altarpieces that make him the great visionary voice of the German Reformation generation.
The Mysterious Master of the Isenheim Altarpiece
Matthias Grünewald, whose real name was probably Mathis Gothart-Nithart, was born around 1470, possibly in Würzburg, and worked across the upper Rhine and central Germany during the great years of the early Reformation. He served as court painter to the prince-bishops of Mainz from 1510 to 1525 and produced his greatest masterpiece, the Isenheim Altarpiece, between about 1512 and 1516 for the Antonite monastery hospital of Isenheim in Alsace, a centre of treatment for ergotism and skin diseases.
His life was politically tempestuous. He sympathised with the Lutheran Reformation and the Peasants’ War of 1524 to 1525, which cost him his court appointment in Mainz. He spent his final years in Halle and in Frankfurt as a hydraulic engineer and a designer of fountains and water systems, before dying in 1528 in Halle. For two centuries after his death his name was almost forgotten, and the Isenheim Altarpiece was attributed to other masters until the late nineteenth century recovered his identity from archival research.
The Isenheim Altarpiece (Closed View)
Painted between 1512 and 1516 for the Antonite monastery hospital of Isenheim, the great altarpiece is a transformative polyptych of nine panels arranged on multiple folding wings. In its closed view, which would have been visible to the patients of the hospital throughout most of the liturgical year, the centre shows the great Crucifixion of Christ, perhaps the most physically intense crucifix in the history of Christian art. The body of Christ is covered in the wounds and scabs of ergotism, the disease the Antonites were treating, transforming the saviour into a sufferer alongside the hospital patients.
The altarpiece is preserved at the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar, in the same building as the Orlier Altar of Martin Schongauer. For a wider survey of the subject, see our article on famous Crucifixion paintings.
The Isenheim Altarpiece (First Opening)
When the wings are opened for the great Christian feast days, the dark Crucifixion gives way to a triptych of luminous joy: the Annunciation, the Concert of Angels with the Madonna and Child, and the Resurrection. The transformation from the closed view to the open view is one of the most dramatic theological staging effects in the entire history of religious art. From the suffering body of the dying Christ on the cross, the worshipper is led directly into the radiant body of the risen saviour, lifted from the tomb in a halo of supernatural colour.
The polyptych still hangs at the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar.
The Resurrection
The Resurrection panel of the Isenheim Altarpiece is the most famous single image of the rising Christ in Western art. The saviour lifts himself out of the open sepulchre in a vast halo of yellow, orange, and red light that bathes his entire body in supernatural fire. The Roman soldiers below the tomb fall back in terror, their armour and weapons rendered with the close observed precision of late medieval German art. The face of Christ is transfigured, no longer the suffering Christ of the closed Crucifixion but the glorified body of the new creation.
The panel is part of the Isenheim Altarpiece at the Unterlinden Museum. For a wider survey, see our article on famous Resurrection paintings.
The Crucifixion
Painted around 1515 to 1520, this independent panel of the Crucifixion shows the same tormented body of Christ as the Isenheim Altarpiece but in a smaller and more concentrated composition. The Virgin and John the Evangelist stand at the foot of the cross while Mary Magdalene weeps at the saviour’s feet. The colour is dominated by the deep blue and green of the night sky and the bleeding body of Christ rendered in livid greens and yellows.
The painting is at the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields.
The Stuppach Madonna
Painted around 1517 to 1519 for the parish church of Stuppach in Württemberg, this great Marian altarpiece shows the Virgin and Christ child in a rainbow-coloured paradise garden, surrounded by Old Testament symbols of the Marian iconography of the Counter-Reformation. The composition is one of the most lyrical of Grünewald’s surviving works, with the Virgin’s mantle billowing in a wind of paradise and the Christ child reaching upward with both hands.
The painting still hangs in its original chapel at the Church of the Coronation of Mary in Stuppach, near Bad Mergentheim.
The Founding of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome
One of Grünewald’s most colourful religious panels, this picture tells the medieval legend of the miraculous snowfall on the Esquiline Hill in Rome on the night of 4 August 358, which traced the outline of the great basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore that Pope Liberius then built on the site. The composition is built around the figure of the pope tracing the snowy outline while the patrons of the legend look on in adoration.
The painting is at the Augustiner Museum in Freiburg im Breisgau.
The Heller Altarpiece
Grünewald collaborated with Albrecht Dürer on this great altarpiece commissioned by the Frankfurt merchant Jakob Heller in 1509. Dürer painted the central panel, the lost Assumption of the Virgin, and Grünewald painted the outer wings showing four Christian saints in grisaille. The outer wings are now divided between the Historisches Museum Frankfurt and the Städel Museum.
The surviving Grünewald wings are split between the Historisches Museum Frankfurt and the Städel Museum.
The Mocking of Christ
One of Grünewald’s earliest surviving works, painted around 1503 to 1505, this small panel shows the moment when the soldiers mock Christ before the Crucifixion, blindfolding him and striking him while asking him to prophesy who hit him. The composition has the slightly elongated figures and the dramatic colour contrasts that characterise all of his mature production.
The painting is at the Beaux-Arts de Paris.
Temptation of Saint Anthony
The panel from the second opening of the Isenheim Altarpiece, this scene shows Saint Anthony assailed by hybrid demons in the Egyptian desert. The composition has the same hallucinatory intensity as the great Crucifixion of the closed view, with monstrous creatures swirling around the figure of the saint in a dramatic vertical composition. Grünewald paints the demons with the close observed precision of late medieval German imagination.
The original of this version is at the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga in Lisbon.
For more context on Grünewald’s German Renaissance world, see our articles on his great contemporary Albrecht Dürer, on the Saxon master Lucas Cranach the Elder, on the Strasbourg painter Hans Baldung, and on the upper Rhine engraver-painter Martin Schongauer.
Summary Table of Matthias Grünewald’s Religious Paintings
| Name | Artist | Date | Medium | Museum |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Isenheim Altarpiece (Closed View) | Matthias Grünewald | 1512 to 1516 | Oil on panel | Unterlinden Museum, Colmar |
| The Isenheim Altarpiece (First Opening) | Matthias Grünewald | 1512 to 1516 | Oil on panel | Unterlinden Museum, Colmar |
| The Resurrection | Matthias Grünewald | 1512 to 1516 | Oil on panel | Unterlinden Museum, Colmar |
| The Crucifixion | Matthias Grünewald | c. 1515 to 1520 | Oil on panel | Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields |
| The Stuppach Madonna | Matthias Grünewald | 1517 to 1519 | Oil on panel | Church of the Coronation of Mary, Stuppach |
| The Founding of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome | Matthias Grünewald | 1517 to 1519 | Oil on panel | Augustiner Museum, Freiburg |
| The Heller Altarpiece (wings) | Matthias Grünewald and Albrecht Dürer | 1509 to 1511 | Oil on panel | Historisches Museum Frankfurt and Städel Museum |
| The Mocking of Christ | Matthias Grünewald | c. 1503 to 1505 | Oil on panel | Beaux-Arts de Paris |
| Temptation of Saint Anthony | Matthias Grünewald | 1512 to 1516 | Oil on panel | Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon |
Conclusion
Grünewald painted the most physically extreme Christ in the entire history of Christian art. The Isenheim Altarpiece, with its hallucinatory Crucifixion and its blinding Resurrection, remains the most concentrated body of late medieval German religious painting that has come down to us. He died in obscurity in 1528 and was almost forgotten for two centuries, before the late nineteenth century rediscovered him as one of the great visionary masters of European Christian art. His Christ has continued to haunt the imagination of every later painter who has tried to capture the meeting of human suffering and divine transfiguration.
Important Facts About Matthias Grünewald
- Matthias Grünewald, whose real name was probably Mathis Gothart-Nithart, was born around 1470, possibly in Würzburg, in southern Germany, into a family whose exact background remains the subject of debate.
- He served as court painter to the prince-bishops of Mainz from about 1510 to 1525 and was active across the upper Rhine and central Germany during the early years of the German Reformation.
- Grünewald is one of the central figures of the late German Renaissance and is celebrated above all for the visionary intensity, the hallucinatory colour, and the extreme physical realism of his crucified and risen Christ figures.
- His most famous religious work is the great Isenheim Altarpiece, painted between 1512 and 1516 for the Antonite monastery hospital of Isenheim and now displayed at the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar.
- He died on 31 August 1528 in Halle, having lost his Mainz court appointment after sympathising with the Peasants’ War of 1524 to 1525, and his name was almost forgotten for two centuries before the late nineteenth century recovered his identity from archival research.
Questions and Answers About Matthias Grünewald Paintings
What is Matthias Grünewald’s most famous painting?
By far the most famous is the great Isenheim Altarpiece, painted between 1512 and 1516 for the Antonite monastery hospital of Isenheim and now at the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar. The central Crucifixion of the closed view and the Resurrection of the first opening are the two single most reproduced images of the entire German Renaissance.
Where can I see Matthias Grünewald paintings today?
The Unterlinden Museum in Colmar holds the Isenheim Altarpiece, the painter’s greatest masterpiece. The Stuppach Madonna is still in its original parish church near Bad Mergentheim. The Augustiner Museum in Freiburg, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Beaux-Arts de Paris, and the Städel Museum in Frankfurt all hold significant works.
What style is Matthias Grünewald associated with?
Grünewald is one of the most original masters of the German Renaissance, although his style sits at the very end of the late Gothic tradition rather than fully inside the Italian-influenced Northern Renaissance that Dürer represents. His mature manner is built on visionary colour, extreme physical realism, hallucinatory intensity, and a deep meditative concentration on the body of the suffering and risen Christ.
Why is the Isenheim Altarpiece so unusual?
The altarpiece was painted for a monastery hospital that treated ergotism, a horrific skin disease caused by infected rye bread. Grünewald painted the body of the crucified Christ covered in the very wounds and scabs of ergotism, transforming the saviour into a sufferer alongside the patients of the hospital. The transformation from the closed view of suffering to the open view of luminous Resurrection was part of a deliberate theological staging that helped the dying patients identify with the redemption of Christ.
Was Grünewald Catholic or Protestant?
He was born and trained a Catholic and worked for the Catholic prince-bishops of Mainz for most of his career. But he sympathised with the Lutheran Reformation from the early 1520s and supported the Peasants’ War of 1524 to 1525, which cost him his court appointment. By the time of his death in 1528 he had been at least nominally Protestant for several years, although his greatest religious painting, the Isenheim Altarpiece, was produced in a fully Catholic devotional context before the Reformation began.
Why was Grünewald forgotten for so long?
The political turmoil of the Peasants’ War and the early Reformation broke the continuity of the German workshops, and Grünewald’s late move from Mainz to Halle scattered his pupils and his personal records. By the seventeenth century even his real name had been lost, and the Isenheim Altarpiece was attributed to other masters until Joachim von Sandrart misnamed him Grünewald in 1675. His true identity was only recovered in the late nineteenth century by the German archivist Heinrich Schmid.
Where can I buy Matthias Grünewald paintings reproductions?
You can buy them at jesuschrist.pictures. All the Matthias Grünewald canvas prints are gathered in our shop, printed on premium canvas and shipped worldwide.
