The details of the life of Matthias…

The details of the life of Matthias Grünewald are unusually unclear for a painter of his significance at this date, despite the fact that his commissions show that he has reasonable recognition in his own lifetime.

The first source for his biography is the German art historian Joachim von Sandrart, who describes him around 1505 working on the exterior decoration of an altarpiece by Albrecht Dürer in Frankfurt.

This is the sort of work typically performed by apprentices and therefore an estimate of his age can be reached, suggesting he was born in 1480-83.

Sandrart records that Grünewald had as an apprentice the painter Hans Grimmer, who had become famous in his time, but most of whose works were lost in the Thirty Years' War.

Sandrart describes Grünewald as leading a withdrawn and melancholy life, and marrying unhappily.

Grünewald paints, between 1503 and 1505 (his earliest datable work), the starkly colorful, vehemently expressive Mocking of Christ, demonstrating his ability to create dazzling, iridescent light effects.

Employing figural distortion to portray violence and tragedy, Grünewald portrays Christ blindfolded and being beaten by a troupe of grotesque men, whose soft, fleshy, thick-bodied figures suggest the Italian High Renaissance manner while differing from High Renaissance idealism and humanism.

Christ sits blindfolded on a low stone wall.

His hands and arms are bound with a rope.

A torturer who pulls on the rope stands before him, with his back turned to the viewer.

Another stands behind Christ and tugs on his hair and has raised his fist to strike him.

On the right a man with a staff in his left hand and with his other holds back the second torturer, who appears not to notice him.

An older man faces the man with the staff, and lays his hands upon the latter's shoulders, and appears to be conversing with him.

In the background are three further men: on the left a musician who plays a flute with one hand while beating a small drum with the other, a youth near the center of the image, and an older man on the right.