Landscape of Danube near Regensburg

Albrecht Altdorfer painted this Landscape of the Danube near Regensburg around 1520, one of the first pure landscape paintings in European art—a work with no human figures, the landscape itself as the sole subject. This extraordinary painting represents a decisive moment in art history: Altdorfer's decision to eliminate the figures or narrative pretext that had always justified landscape depiction asserted that nature itself was a worthy subject for painting. The dense Danube forest—the characteristic landscape of the region where he lived and worked as city architect of Regensburg—is depicted with loving attention to its specific qualities: the dark fir trees, the atmospheric mist, the quality of light in a northern forest. The work established the possibility of landscape as an autonomous art form centuries before it became standard practice. Now in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich.

The painting represents a milestone in the history of art as an independent landscape with no narrative pretext. Altdorfer's atmospheric rendering of the river, sky, and forested banks captures the specific character of the Danube valley with remarkable freshness.