Altdorfer & Fantastic Realism

A precursor of Romanticism by more than 300 years, German painter and engraver Albrecht Altdorfer did fantastical landscapes and expressive religious scenes that look as fresh today as when they were painted. His popular pen-and-ink drawings, rich in detail and awash in delicate white filigree, play up the wild, untamed character of nature. His huge painting The Battle of Alexander, a vortex of the violent forces of humans and nature, draws the viewer like a magnet. His nativities are plunged in darkness yet lit by magic brilliance. Even his architectural sketches have a freewheeling spontaneity and grandeur. A contemporary of Durer, Altdorfer steadfastly went his own way and ultimately became the darling of 19th century Romantics. This densely packed catalogue of a Paris exhibition combines specialized essays with marvelous reproductions as well as facsimiles of the artist's illustrations for a prayer book, reproduced here on vellum paper. (March 27)