1.
Augsburg
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Augsburg is a city in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany. It was a Free Imperial City for over 500 years and it is a university town and home of the Regierungsbezirk Schwaben and the Bezirk Schwaben. Augsburg is a district and home to the institutions of the Landkreis Augsburg. It is the third-largest city in Bavaria with a population of 286,000 citizens, after Neuss and Trier, Augsburg is Germanys third oldest city, being founded by the Romans as Augusta Vindelicorum, named after the Roman emperor Augustus. Augsburg is the only German city with its own legal holiday and this gives Augsburg more legal holidays than any other region or city in Germany. Augsburg was the home of two families that rose to great prominence internationally, replacing the Medicis as Europes leading bankers, the Fugger. Augsburg lies at the convergence of the Alpine rivers Lech and Wertach, in the south extends the Lechfeld, an Outwash plain of the post ice age between the rivers Lech and Wertach, where rare primeval landscapes were preserved. The Augsburg city forest and the Lech valley heaths today rank among the most species-rich middle European habitats, on Augsburg borders the nature park Augsburg Western Woods - a large forestland. The city itself is also heavily greened, as a result, in 1997 Augsburg was the first German city to win the Europe-wide contest Entente Florale for Europes greenest and most livable city. Augsburg is surrounded by the counties Landkreis Augsburg in the west, the neighboring towns and cities are Friedberg, Königsbrunn, Stadtbergen, Neusäß, Gersthofen, Rehling, Affing, Kissing, Mering, Merching, Bobingen, Gessertshausen und Diedorf. Augsburg has a continental climate. The city was founded in 15 BC by Drusus and Tiberius as Augusta Vindelicorum, the name means Augusta of the Vindelici. This garrison camp soon became the capital of the Roman province of Raetia, thus, Augsburg was the intersection of many important European east-west and north-south connections, which later evolved as major trade routes of the Middle Ages. Around 120 AD Augsburg became the capital of the Roman province Raetia, Augsburg was sacked by the Huns in the 5th century AD, by Charlemagne in the 8th century, and by Welf of Bavaria in the 11th century, but arose each time to greater prosperity. Augsburg was granted the status of a Free Imperial City on March 9,1276 and from then until 1803, it was independent of its former overlord, the Prince-Bishop of Augsburg. Frictions between the city-state and the prince-bishops were to remain frequent however, particularly after Augsburg became Protestant and curtailed the rights, with a strategic location as intersection of trade routes to Italy, the Free Imperial City became a major trading center. Augsburg produced large quantities of goods, cloth and textiles. Augsburg became the base of two banking families that rose to prominence, the Fuggers and the Welsers
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Germany
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Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed
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Painting
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Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface. The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, Painting is a mode of creative expression, and the forms are numerous. Drawing, gesture, composition, narration, or abstraction, among other aesthetic modes, may serve to manifest the expressive, Paintings can be naturalistic and representational, photographic, abstract, narrative, symbolistic, emotive, or political in nature. A portion of the history of painting in both Eastern and Western art is dominated by motifs and ideas. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action, the term painting is also used outside of art as a common trade among craftsmen and builders. What enables painting is the perception and representation of intensity, every point in space has different intensity, which can be represented in painting by black and white and all the gray shades between. In practice, painters can articulate shapes by juxtaposing surfaces of different intensity, thus, the basic means of painting are distinct from ideological means, such as geometrical figures, various points of view and organization, and symbols. In technical drawing, thickness of line is ideal, demarcating ideal outlines of an object within a perceptual frame different from the one used by painters. Color and tone are the essence of painting as pitch and rhythm are the essence of music, color is highly subjective, but has observable psychological effects, although these can differ from one culture to the next. Black is associated with mourning in the West, but in the East, some painters, theoreticians, writers and scientists, including Goethe, Kandinsky, and Newton, have written their own color theory. Moreover, the use of language is only an abstraction for a color equivalent, the word red, for example, can cover a wide range of variations from the pure red of the visible spectrum of light. There is not a register of different colors in the way that there is agreement on different notes in music. For a painter, color is not simply divided into basic, painters deal practically with pigments, so blue for a painter can be any of the blues, phthalocyanine blue, Prussian blue, indigo, cobalt, ultramarine, and so on. Psychological and symbolical meanings of color are not, strictly speaking, colors only add to the potential, derived context of meanings, and because of this, the perception of a painting is highly subjective. The analogy with music is quite clear—sound in music is analogous to light in painting, shades to dynamics and these elements do not necessarily form a melody of themselves, rather, they can add different contexts to it. Modern artists have extended the practice of painting considerably to include, as one example, collage, some modern painters incorporate different materials such as sand, cement, straw or wood for their texture. Examples of this are the works of Jean Dubuffet and Anselm Kiefer, there is a growing community of artists who use computers to paint color onto a digital canvas using programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel Painter, and many others. These images can be printed onto traditional canvas if required, rhythm is important in painting as it is in music
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Printmaking
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Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints that have an element of originality, except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable of producing multiples of the same piece, which is called a print. Each print produced is not considered a copy but rather is considered an original, a print may be known as an impression. Printmaking is not chosen only for its ability to multiple impressions. Prints are created by transferring ink from a matrix or through a screen to a sheet of paper or other material. Screens made of silk or synthetic fabrics are used for the screenprinting process, other types of matrix substrates and related processes are discussed below. Multiple impressions printed from the matrix form an edition. Prints may also be printed in book form, such as illustrated books or artists books, Printmaking techniques are generally divided into the following basic categories, Relief, where ink is applied to the original surface of the matrix. Relief techniques include woodcut or woodblock as the Asian forms are known, wood engraving. Intaglio, where ink is applied beneath the surface of the matrix. Intaglio techniques include engraving, etching, mezzotint, aquatint, planographic, where the matrix retains its original surface, but is specially prepared and/or inked to allow for the transfer of the image. Planographic techniques include lithography, monotyping, and digital techniques, stencil, where ink or paint is pressed through a prepared screen, including screenprinting and pochoir. Other types of printmaking techniques outside these groups include collagraphy and viscosity printing, collagraphy is a printmaking technique in which textured material is adhered to the printing matrix. This texture is transferred to the paper during the printing process, Contemporary printmaking may include digital printing, photographic mediums, or a combination of digital, photographic, and traditional processes. Many of these techniques can also be combined, especially within the same family, for example, Rembrandts prints are usually referred to as etchings for convenience, but very often include work in engraving and drypoint as well, and sometimes have no etching at all. Woodcut, a type of print, is the earliest printmaking technique. It was probably first developed as a means of printing patterns on cloth, woodcuts of images on paper developed around 1400 in Japan, and slightly later in Europe. These are the two areas where woodcut has been most extensively used purely as a process for making images without text, the artist draws a design on a plank of wood, or on paper which is transferred to the wood
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Woodcut
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Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas that the artist cuts away carry no ink, while characters or images at surface level carry the ink to produce the print, the block is cut along the wood grain. The surface is covered with ink by rolling over the surface with a roller, leaving ink upon the flat surface. Multiple colors can be printed by keying the paper to a frame around the woodblocks, single-leaf woodcut is a term for a woodcut presented as a single image or print, as opposed to a book illustration. Among these the best known are the 16th century Hieronymus Andreae, Hans Lützelburger and Jost de Negker, all of whom ran workshops, the formschneider in turn handed the block on to specialist printers. There were further specialists who made the blank blocks and this is why woodcuts are sometimes described by museums or books as designed by rather than by an artist, but most authorities do not use this distinction. The division of labour had the advantage that a trained artist could adapt to the medium relatively easily, there were various methods of transferring the artists drawn design onto the block for the cutter to follow. Either the drawing would be made directly onto the block, or a drawing on paper was glued to the block, either way, the artists drawing was destroyed during the cutting process. Other methods were used, including tracing, in both Europe and the Far East in the early 20th century, some artists began to do the whole process themselves. In Japan, this movement was called sōsaku-hanga, as opposed to shin-hanga, in the West, many artists used the easier technique of linocut instead. Compared to intaglio techniques like etching and engraving, only low pressure is required to print, as a relief method, it is only necessary to ink the block and bring it into firm and even contact with the paper or cloth to achieve an acceptable print. In Europe a variety of woods including boxwood and several nut and fruit woods like pear or cherry were commonly used, in Japan, there are three methods of printing to consider, Stamping, Used for many fabrics and most early European woodcuts. Used for European woodcuts and block-books later in the fifteenth century, also used for many Western woodcuts from about 1910 to the present. The block goes face up on a table, with the paper or fabric on top, the back is rubbed with a hard pad, a flat piece of wood, a burnisher, or a leather frotton. A traditional Japanese tool used for this is called a baren, later in Japan, complex wooden mechanisms were used to help hold the woodblock perfectly still and to apply proper pressure in the printing process. This was especially helpful once multiple colors were introduced and had to be applied with precision atop previous ink layers, printing in a press, presses only seem to have been used in Asia in relatively recent times. Printing-presses were used from about 1480 for European prints and block-books, simple weighted presses may have been used in Europe before the print-press, but firm evidence is lacking
6.
Martin Schongauer
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Martin Schongauer, also known as Martin Schön or Hübsch Martin by his contemporaries, was an Alsatian engraver and painter. He was the most important printmaker north of the Alps before Albrecht Dürer, Schongauer was born in about 1440 in Colmar, Alsace, probably the third of the four sons of Caspar Schongauer, a goldsmith from Augsburg who taught his son the art of engraving. Colmar is now in France but was part of the Holy Roman Empire. He may well have trained by Master E. S. The art historian A. Hyatt Mayor saw both their styles in different parts of a single engraving, and all the works with Schongauers M†S monogram show a fully developed style. Schongauer established at Colmar a very important school of engraving, out of which grew the Little Masters of the generation. Only a few of his paintings survive, the most notable of them being the Madonna in the Rose Garden, painted for St Martins Church, Colmar. The Musée d´Unterlinden in Colmar possesses eleven panels by him or his workshop, the miniature painting of the Death of the Virgin in the National Gallery, London is probably the work of a pupil. The main work of Schongauers life was the production of a number of beautiful engravings, which were largely sold, not only in Germany. Vasari says that Michelangelo copied one of his engravings, in the Trial of Saint Anthony and his style shows no trace of Italian influence, but a very clear and organised Gothic. His subjects are mainly religious, but include comic scenes of life such as the Peasant family going to market or the Two apprentices fighting. One hundred and sixteen engravings are generally recognised as by his hand, many of his pupils plates as well as his own are signed, M†S, as are many copies probably by artists with no connection to him. Among the most renowned of Schongauers engravings are the series of the Passion and the Death and Coronation of the Virgin, all are remarkable for their miniature-like treatment, their brilliant touch, and their chromatic force. Some, such as the Death of the Virgin and the Adoration of the Magi are richly-filled compositions of many figures and he also developed a burin technique producing deeper lines on the plate, which meant that more impressions could be taken before the plate became worn. The British Museum and other major print rooms possess fine collections of Schongauers prints, influencia de Martin Schongauer en los primitivos aragoneses, Boletin del Museo e Instituto Camon Aznar’, vol. xvii, pp. 15–39. Attribution This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Schongauer
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Colmar
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Colmar is the third-largest commune of the Alsace region in north-eastern France. It is the seat of the prefecture of the Haut-Rhin department, the town is situated on the Alsatian Wine Route and considers itself to be the capital of Alsatian wine. The city is renowned for its old town, its numerous architectural landmarks and its museums. Colmar was founded in the 9th century, and is mentioned as Columbarium Fiscum by the monk Notker Balbulus in a text dated 823 and this was the location where the Carolingian Emperor Charles the Fat held a diet in 884. Colmar was granted the status of an imperial city by Emperor Frederick II in 1226. In 1354 it joined the Décapole city league, during the Thirty Years War, it was taken by the Swedish army in 1632, who held it for two years. In 1635 the citys harvest was spoiled by Imperialist forces while the shot at them from the walls. The city was conquered by France under King Louis XIV in 1673, with the rest of Alsace, Colmar was annexed by the newly formed German Empire in 1871 as a result of the Franco-Prussian War and incorporated into the Alsace-Lorraine province. The Colmar Treasure, a hoard of precious objects hidden by Jews during the Black Death, was discovered here in 1863, Colmar is 64 kilometres south-southwest of Strasbourg, at 48. 08°N,7. 36°E, on the Lauch River, a tributary of the Ill. It is located directly to the east of the Vosges Mountains, in 2013, the city had a population of 67,956 and the metropolitan area of Colmar had a population of 126,957 in 2009. Colmar is the center of the arrondissement of Colmar-Ribeauvillé, which had 199,182 inhabitants in 2013, Colmar has a sunny microclimate and is one of the driest cities in France, with an annual precipitation of just 607 mm, making it ideal for Alsace wine. It is considered the capital of the Alsatian wine region, mostly spared from the destructions of the French Revolution and the wars of 1870–1871, 1914–1918 and 1939–1945, the cityscape of old-town Colmar is homogenous and renowned among tourists. An area that is crossed by canals of the river Lauch is now called little Venice, Maison Adolph – 14th century Koifhus, also known as Ancienne Douane –1480 Maison Pfister –1537. Cour dAssises –1840 Théâtre municipal –1849 Marché couvert –1865, the citys covered market, built in stone, bricks and cast iron, still serves today. Préfecture –1866 Water tower –1886, oldest still preserved water tower in Alsace. Gare SNCF –1905 Cour dappel –1906 Église Saint-Martin – 1234–1365, the largest church of Colmar and one of the largest in Haut-Rhin. Displays some early stained glass windows, several Gothic and Renaissance sculptures and altars, the choir is surrounded by an ambulatory opening on a series of Gothic chapels, a unique feature in Alsatian churches. Now disaffected as a church, displays Martin Schongauers masterwork La Vierge au buisson de roses as well as 14th century stained glass windows, the adjacent convent buildings house a section of the municipal library
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Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor
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Maximilian I was King of the Romans from 1486 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1493 until his death, though he was never crowned by the Pope, as the journey to Rome was always too risky. He was the son of Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor and he ruled jointly with his father for the last ten years of his fathers reign, from c.1483 to 1493. Charles father Philip died in 1506, so Charles succeeded Maximilian as Holy Roman Emperor in 1519, Maximilian was born at Wiener Neustadt on 22 March 1459. His father, Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor, named him for an obscure saint whom Frederick believed had once warned him of imminent peril in a dream, in his infancy, he and his parents were besieged in Vienna by Albert of Austria. One source relates that, during the sieges bleakest days, the prince would wander about the castle garrison, begging the servants. The young prince was an excellent hunter, his hobby was the hunting for birds as a horse archer. The reigning duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, was the political opponent of Maximilians father Frederick III. After the Siege of Neuss, he was successful, the wedding between Maximilian and Mary took place on the evening of 16 August 1477. Maximilians wife had inherited the large Burgundian domains in France and the Low Countries upon her fathers death in the Battle of Nancy on 5 January 1477. Already before his coronation as the King of the Romans in 1486, Maximilian decided to secure this distant and extensive Burgundian inheritance to his family, the House of Habsburg, at all costs. Maximilian undertook the defence of his wifes dominions from an attack by Louis XI and defeated the French forces at Guinegate, the wedding contract between Maximilian and Mary stipulated that only the children of bride and groom had a right to inherit from each, not the surviving parent. Mary tried to bypass this rule with a promise to transfer territories as a gift in case of her death, but her plans were confounded. After Marys death in an accident on 27 March 1482 near the Wijnendale Castle, Maximilians aim was now to secure the inheritance to one of his and Marys children. Some of the Netherlander provinces were hostile to Maximilian, and they signed a treaty with Louis XI in 1482 that forced Maximilian to give up Franche-Comté and they openly rebelled twice in the period 1482–1492, attempting to regain the autonomy they had enjoined under Mary. Flemish rebels managed to capture Philip and even Maximilian himself, Maximilian continued to govern Marys remaining inheritance in the name of Philip the Handsome. After the regency ended, Maximilian and Charles VIII of France exchanged these two territories for Burgundy and Picardy in the Treaty of Senlis, thus a large part of the Netherlands stayed in the Habsburg patrimony. Maximilian was elected King of the Romans on 16 February 1486 in Frankfurt-am-Main at his fathers initiative and he became emperor of the Holy Roman Empire upon the death of his father in 1493. Much of Austria was under Hungarian rule when he took power, in 1490, Maximilian reconquered the territory and entered Vienna
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Saint George's Cross
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Saint Georges Cross, also called Cross of Saint George, is a red cross on a white background. Sometimes associated with Saint George, the saint, often depicted as a crusader from the late Middle Ages, the cross has appeared on many flags, emblems, standards. Its first documented use was as the ensign of the Republic of Genoa, the cross is also found, for various reasons, on the provincial flags of Huesca, Zaragoza, and Teruel and Barcelona. In Northern Ireland the cross appears on the flag of the loyalist paramilitary group the Ulster Volunteer Force, Saint George became widely venerated as a warrior saint during the Third Crusade. There was a legend that he had miraculously assisted Godfrey of Bouillon, however, there was no association of the red cross with St George before the end of the crusades. The red-on-white combination was chosen by Genoa and Aragon, among others, Saint George was depicted as a crusader knight during this time, but the red cross had no particular association with him. A crusader-era fresco in the crypt of Trani cathedral shows Saint George wearing a cross on a red surcoat. It continued to be used as the Reichssturmfahne of the Holy Roman Empire, eventually giving rise to the flag of Savoy and the present-day flags of Switzerland and Denmark). The association with the Saint of the red-on-white cross probably arises in Genoa, a vexillum beati Georgii is mentioned in the Genovese annals for the year 1198, referring to a red flag with a depiction of St George and the dragon. An illumination of this flag is shown in the annals for the year 1227, the Genoese flag with the red cross was used alongside this Georges flag, from at least 1218, and was known as the insignia cruxata comunis Janue. The flag showing the saint himself was the principal war flag. The cross ceased to be a symbol associated with the taking of the cross. With the development of heraldry, there was great demand for variations of the cross symbol. Juliana Berners reports that there were Crossis innumerabull born dayli, the term St Georges cross was at first associated with any plain Greek cross touching the edges of the field. Thomas Fuller in 1647 spoke of the plain or St Georges cross as the mother of all the others. Edward III of England chose Saint George as the saint of his Order of the Garter in 1348. There was a tradition claiming that Richard the Lionheart himself adopted both the flag and the patron saint from Genoa at some point during his crusade. This idea can be traced to the Victorian era, Perrin refers to it as a common belief, the English Monarch paid an annual tribute to the Doge of Genoa for this privilege
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Putto
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A putto is a figure in a work of art depicted as a chubby male child, usually naked and sometimes winged. However, in the Baroque period of art, the putto came to represent the omnipresence of God, a putto representing a cupid is also called an amorino. The more commonly found form putti is the plural of the Italian word putto, the Italian word comes from the Latin word putus, meaning boy or child. Today, in Italian, putto means either toddler winged angel or, rarely, toddler boy. It may have derived from the same Indo-European root as the Sanskrit word putra, Avestan puθra-, Old Persian puça-, Pahlavi pus and pusar, all meaning son. Putti, in the ancient classical world of art, were winged infants that were believed to influence human lives. Putti are a motif found primarily on child sarcophagi of the 2nd century. Since then, Donatello has been called the originator of the putto because of the contribution to art he made in restoring the form of putto. He gave putto a distinct character by infusing the form with Christian meanings, putti also began to feature in works showing figures from classical mythology, which became popular in the same period. Most Renaissance putti are essentially decorative and they ornament both religious and secular works, without taking any actual part in the events depicted in narrative paintings. There are two forms of the putto as the main subject of a work of art in 16th-century Italian Renaissance art, the sleeping putto. So many artists have depicted them that a list would be pointless, but among the best-known are the sculptor Donatello, the two relaxed and curious putti who appear at the foot of Raphaels Sistine Madonna are often reproduced. They also experienced a revival in the 19th century, where they gamboled through paintings by French academic painters. The iconography of putti is deliberately unfixed, so that it is difficult to tell the difference between putti, cupids, and various forms of angels and they have no unique, immediately identifiable attributes, so that putti may have many meanings and roles in the context of art. In popular culture, putto is also used as a decorative art found on buildings, gardens, a putto smoking a cigarette served as the cover art for Van Halens album 1984. A putto is the protagonist of the 2000 third person shooter Messiah, in the British TV series Doctor Who, infants of the species Weeping Angels appear as putti. In the 1st-person shooter Team Fortress 2, the Meet the Pyro video has the BLU Team appear as putti in Pyroland, in the 2003 video game Drakengard, a group of malevolent god-like figures known as the Watchers appear as putti. The historiography of this matter is very short
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Burgkmair, Hans". Encyclopædia Britannica. 4 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the 
Media related to Hans Burgkmair d. Ä. at Wikimedia Commons
