Martin Schongauer
Schongauer
Alsatian family of artists. They were active mainly in Colmar in the second half of the 15th century. Caspard Schongauer, a goldsmith originally from Augsburg, settled in Colmar and became a citizen of the town in 1445. Of his four sons, Georg Schongauer (d 1514) and Paul Schongauer (d Colmar, 1516) were goldsmiths like their father, whereas Martin Schongauer and Ludwig Schongauer were both painters and engravers. Georg married Apollonia, daughter of the sculptor Nicolaus Gerhaert of Leiden; he became a citizen of Basle in 1482, then of Strasbourg in 1494. Paul was a citizen of Leipzig in 1478, worked in Basle in 1489 and was listed as a citizen of Colmar in 1494.
Martin Schongauer
(b Colmar, c. 1435–50; d Breisach, 2 Feb 1491).
Painter and engraver. A leading figure in the art of the late Middle Ages north of the Alps, he acquired during his own lifetime an influence that went far beyond the limits of the Rhine Valley. He revitalized German painting through a clever assimilation of Netherlandish art and a sense of local tradition and succeeded in combining precision and assurance of line with a strong sense of volume. From his painting of the Virgin of the Rose Bower (1473; Colmar, Dominican church), which unites refined draughtsmanship and monumentality, to his engravings, which are delicate yet convey a sense of solid form, he represents the splendid flowering of the Late Gothic style in the Upper Rhine.
Temptation of St Anthony
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest
