The Battle of Alexander
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| Alexander Battle |
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| Albrecht Altdorfer , 1528–29 |
| Oil tempera on linden panel |
| 158 × 120 cm |
| Old Pinakothek |
The Battle of Alexander ( Battle of Issus ) is considered the most famous paintings of the great German painter Albrecht Altdorfer .
description
The picture was created between 1528 and 1529. The client was Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria. It shows the fight of Alexander the great against the Persian king Darius .
“Of course, we shouldn't look for a composition in the higher historical style, like in antiquity or with Rafael, but we want to find a real knight's battle with thousands of figures on foot and horse; all heads, armor, grasses etc. executed with incomparable care, and behind it a fantastic landscape with mountains, rocks, cities and the sea, in which the rising sun is reflected, glowing gold, while the moon is pale, symbols of the victory of Alexander and the defeat of the Orientals. "
Altdorfer has meticulously reproduced the riders of the two armies in contemporary armor with pennants and standards as well as the tent camps in front of the city. Greeks and Persians fight in the foreground. The Greeks can be recognized by their white and blue uniform. The Persians fight in red clothes and sometimes wear turbans. The number of soldiers portrayed gives the impression of an unmistakable host. But what is special about the painting is the depiction of the landscape and the setting sun facing the rising moon.
In the left center of the picture you can see the three-horse, disproportionate carriage of Darius, who is being pursued by Alexander.
On the left there is a mountain with a ruin and a castle. Fleeing soldiers can be seen to the left of the ruins. The city of Tarsus is shown further back , the Gothic church building is a fantasy.
Altdorfer has also incorporated a map , although the south is on top. The middle and background can be seen as a representation of the eastern Mediterranean : In the middle lies the island of Cyprus , behind it the Red Sea, to the right of Egypt with the Nile , whose delta can be recognized by seven arms.
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On the plaque floating freely between the clouds at the top of the picture it says in Latin:
- ALEXANDER M (AGNVS) DARIVM VLT (IMVM) SVPERAT
- CAESIS IN ACIE PERSAR (VM) PEDIT (VM) C (ENTVM) M (ILIBVS) EQVIT (VM)
- VERO XM (ILIBVS) INTERFECTIS MATRE QVOQVE
- CONIVGE; LIBERIS DARII REG (IS) CVM M (ILLE) HAVD
- AMPLIVS EQVITIB (VS) FVGA DILAPSI CAPTIS:
Translation:
"Alexander the Great defeats Darius the Last after 100,000 men on foot and over 10,000 horsemen in the ranks of the Persians were slain and the mother, wife and children of King Darius and no more than 1,000 riders fleeing in disbandment were captured."
history
As part of a cycle of ancient battle pictures, Altdorfer was commissioned by the Bavarian Duke Wilhelm IV in 1528 to depict the battle between Alexander the Great and the Persian king Darius in the battle of Issus for the Munich residence . He refused the proposed office of mayor of Regensburg in order to complete this painting. It was delivered to Munich, where it stayed for the next centuries.
In 1800, however, French revolutionary troops looted the Munich painting collection and took 70 selected pictures with them to France. Napoléon Bonaparte liked the Battle of Alexander so much that he had it hung in his bathroom. In 1815, after the end of Napoleonic rule, it came back to Munich in the Alte Pinakothek .
The picture is no longer in its original size because it has been cropped all around. In addition, the German text in the writing box was painted over in the 17th century and translated into Latin.
comment
Altdorfer is one of the first to create pure landscape paintings without human figures. The Battle of Alexander is atypical for his work, both in terms of size and subject, which can be traced back to the client.
Altdorfer provided the picture with his signature on the lower left edge of the picture , the year 1529, and added in Latin: ALBRECHT ALTORFER ZU REGENSPVRG FECIT (German: 'Albrecht Altdorfer zu Regensburg painted this picture.')
Fading crescent moon (waxing moon) (= Orient)
Setting sun (= Occident)
The fleeing Darius
The pursuing Alexander
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The battle should look like a natural event or a cosmic conflict, because this world-historical event was understood as the victory of the Greek West over the Persian East . The crescent moon is the same as in the flag of the Turks who stood in front of Vienna in 1529. In view of the Turkish threat, Altdorfer invokes the victory of the West (the sun) over the East (the moon).
The painting should keep the memory of the strategic achievement of Alexander alive, who had defeated a multiple superiority. According to the numbers on the painting, Darius commanded 300,000 foot soldiers, Alexander only 32,000; Darius had 100,000 riders, Alexander only 4,000. One of the sources is likely the world chronicle of Hartmann Schedel have been, coincide with the most numbers. The book was published in Nuremberg in 1493, 35 years before Altdorfer began painting the Battle of Alexander. The mountains next to the Nile do not correspond to reality, but agree with the Schedel map.
Altdorfer did not adhere to his written information, however, because the numerical superiority of the Persians cannot be seen in the picture. He also dresses the characters like people in his presence.
The cultural philosopher Friedrich Schlegel saw the picture in 1803 in the restoration room of the Louvre (after that it was in Napoleon's bathroom in Saint-Cloud until 1815) and wrote overwhelmed in his description of the picture:
"Should I call it a landscape, a historical painting or a slaughter?"
Schlegel identifies the landscape as “the ocean of the world; then on the left the setting moon, on the right the rising sun; an equally clear as a great symbol of the story depicted ”, but he was wrong. He was right, however, with his interpretation of the light mood as the last illumination of the sun in the evening, on which, according to ancient sources, the battle was decided in favor of Alexander.
literature
- Reinhart Koselleck : Past future of early modern times, in this: Past future. On the semantics of historical times, Frankfurt am Main 1979 (Suhrkamp Theory), pp. 17–37.
- Hein Kähne: The Battle of Alexander . Prestel, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-7913-2028-9 .
- Manfred Wundram : The most famous paintings in the world . Imprimatur Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft, Bergisch Gladbach 1976.
Web links
- Homepage
- Albrecht Altdorfer (1482-1538): History cycle: Battle of Alexander (Battle of Issus) in the culture portal bavarikon
Individual evidence
- ^ Wilhelm Schmidt: Altdorfer, Albrecht . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, pp. 356-358.
- ↑ Winfrid Parkinson: Altdorfers Alexanderschlacht: How Munich became the city of art collections. Documentary film. Bayerisches Fernsehen, 1998, accessed on May 16, 2020 (1 min. 28).
- ↑ http://www.schulklausuren.de/kunst/albrecht-altdorfer-alexanderschlacht (corrected)
- ↑ a b Wetzel: Reclam's book of art