Bartholome Zeitblom

1457 – 1520

German painter. Few details about his life are known. He is believed to have been a pupil of Martin Schongauer. Probably living in Ulm in 1482, he married a daughter of Hans Schuchlin in 1483. He collaborated with the sculptor Jörg Syrlin the Younger (c. 1455-1523) in Bingen. He and Bernhard Strigel were responsible for the two wings of the altarpiece on the high altar in the monastery of Blaubeuren near Ulm. These are painted on both sides with scenes from the Passion, the life of St John the Baptist and figures of saints. The Kilchberg Altarpiece, now in the museum in Stuttgart, is remarkable for the use made of reds and golds to portray imposing figures of St Margaret, St George, St Florian and St John. Also in Stuttgart is the Heerbengen Altarpiece painted in 1497-98 and representing the Birth of Christ and Presentation in the Temple. The Stuttgart Annunciation of 1496 is reminiscent of the work of Rogier van der Weyden. Influenced by Hans Multscher, his work lacks the strength of the great German Gothic masters such as Stephan Lochner or Konrad Witz. A late Gothic artist himself, he never developed the brilliant humanism of a Dürer. His lack of a clearly personal style has meant that a large number of similarly characterless works have been attributed to him. As a result, his identity has become submerged in a kind of collective appellation. Zeitblom is noted for the distinctive style of his altarpieces, which served as a model for Swabian painting in the early 16th century and was in the 19th century much admired by the Romantics.

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