The Battle of Alexander at Issus
Encyclopedia
The Battle of Alexander at Issus (German: Alexanderschlacht) is a 1529 oil painting
by the German artist Albrecht Altdorfer
(c. 1480–1538), a pioneer of landscape art
and a founding member of the Danube school
. It portrays the 333 BC Battle of Issus
, in which Alexander the Great secured a decisive victory over Darius III of Persia
and gained crucial leverage in his campaign against the Persian Empire. The painting is widely regarded as Altdorfer's masterpiece, and exemplifies his affinity for scenes of monumental grandeur.
Duke William IV of Bavaria
commissioned The Battle of Alexander at Issus in 1528 as part of a set of historical pieces that was to hang in his Munich
residence. Modern commentators suggest that the painting, through its abundant use of anachronism
, was intended to liken Alexander's heroic victory at Issus to the contemporary European conflict with the Ottoman Empire
. In particular, the defeat of Suleiman the Magnificent
at the Siege of Vienna
may have been an inspiration for Altdorfer. A religious undercurrent is detectable, especially in the extraordinary sky; this was probably inspired by the prophecies of Daniel
and contemporary concern within the Church about an impending apocalypse
. The Battle of Alexander at Issus and four others that were part of William's initial set are in the Alte Pinakothek
art museum in Munich.
king of Macedon who reigned from 336 BC until his death. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest military tacticians and strategists in history, and is presumed undefeated in battle. Renowned for his military leadership and charisma, he always led his armies personally and took to the front ranks of battle. By conquering the Persian Empire
and unifying Greece
, Egypt and Babylon
, he forged the largest empire of the ancient world and effected the spread of Hellenism
throughout Europe and Northern Africa.
Alexander embarked on his expedition to conquer the Persian Empire in the spring of 334 BC, having pacified the warring Greek states and consolidated his military might. During the first months of the Macedonian passage into Persian Asia Minor, Darius III
– king of Persia – largely ignored the presence of Alexander's 40,000 men. The Battle of the Granicus
, fought in May, was Persia's first major effort to confront the invaders, but resulted in an easy victory for Alexander. Over the next year, Alexander took most of western and coastal Asia Minor by forcing the capitulation of the satrap
ies in his path. He continued inland, travelling northeast through Phyrgia before turning southeast toward Cilicia
. After passing the Cilician Gates
in October, Alexander was delayed by fever in Tarsus
. Darius meanwhile mustered an army of up to 100,000 (some ancient sources posit exaggerated figures of over 600,000) and personally directed it over the eastern slopes of the Amanus Mountains. In early November, as Alexander proceeded about the Gulf of Issus from Mallus
via Issus
, the two armies inadvertently passed one another on opposite sides of the mountains. This was decidedly to Darius' advantage: now at the rear of Alexander, he was able to prevent retreat and block the supply lines Alexander had established at Issus. It was not until Alexander had encamped at Myriandrus
, a seaport on the southeastern shores of the Gulf of İskenderun, that he learned of the Persian position. He immediately retraced his route to the Pinarus River
, just south of Issus, to find Darius' force assembled along the northern bank. The Battle of Issus ensued.
Darius' initial response was defensive: he immediately stockaded the river bank with stakes to impede the enemy's crossing. A core vanguard of traitorous Greek mercenaries and Persian royal guard was established; as was usual for Persian kings, Darius positioned himself in the centre of this vanguard, in order that he might effectively dispatch commands to any part of his large army. A group of Persian light infantry was soon sent to the foothills, as it was suspected that Alexander would make an approach from the right, away from the coast. A mass of cavalry commanded by Nabarsanes occupied the Persian right.
Alexander made a cautious and slow advance, intending to base his strategy on the structure of the Persian force. He led a flank of his Companion cavalry
on the right, while the Thessalian cavalry were dispatched to the left, as a counter to Nabarsanes' mounted unit. Aware of the importance of the foothills to his right, Alexander sent a band of light infantry, archers, and cavalry to displace the defence Darius had stationed there. The enterprise was successful – those Persians not killed were forced to seek refuge higher in the mountains.
When within missile range of the enemy, Alexander gave the order to charge. He spearheaded the assault of his heavily armed Companion cavalry, who quickly made deep cuts into the Persian left flank. The Macedonian left wing, commanded by Parmenion
, was meanwhile driven back by Nabarsanes' large cavalry. The Macedonians' central phalanx
crossed the river and clashed with the renegade Greek mercenaries who fronted Darius' vanguard. As the Companion cavalry pushed further into the Persian left, the danger arose that Darius would exploit the gap that had formed between Alexander and the rest of his army. When he was satisfied that the left wing was crippled and no longer a threat, Alexander remedied the situation by moving the Companions to assault the Persian centre in the flank. Unable to handle the added pressure, the Persian vanguard was forced to withdraw from the river bank, allowing the Macedonian phalanx to continue their advance and lifting the pressure on Parmenion's left wing.
Upon realising that the onslaught of Alexander's Companion cavalry was unstoppable, Darius and his army fled. Many were killed in the rush, trampled by those who fled with them or collapsed with their horses. Some escaped to regions as remote as Egypt, and others reunited with Darius in the north. The onset of darkness ended the chase after approximately 20 km (12.4 mi); Alexander then recalled his army and set about burying the dead. Darius' family were left behind in the Persian camp; it is reported that Alexander treated them well and reassured them of Darius' safety. Darius' royal chariot was found discarded in a ditch, as were his bow and shield.
Ancient sources present disparate casualty figures for the Battle of Issus. Plutarch
and Diodorus Siculus
approximate 100,000 Persian deaths, in contrast with the 450 Macedonian deaths reported by Quintus Curtius Rufus
. In any case, it is probable that more Persians were killed as they fled than in battle; Ptolemy I, who served with Alexander during the battle, recounts how the Macedonians crossed a ravine on the bodies of their enemies during the pursuit.
The Macedonian conquest of Persia continued until 330 BC, when Darius was killed and Alexander took his title as king. Alexander died in 323 BC, having recently returned from campaigning in the Indian subcontinent
. The cause of death remains a subject of debate.
Albrecht Altdorfer
is regarded as one of the founders of Western landscape art
. He was a painter, etcher, architect, and engraver, and the leader of the Danube school
of German art. As evidenced by such paintings as Saint George and the Dragon (1510) and Allegory (1531), much of Altdorfer's work is characterised by an attachment to sprawling landscapes that dwarf the figures within them; The Battle of Alexander at Issus epitomises this facet of his style. With reference to St George and the Dragon in particular, art historian Mark W. Roskill comments that "The accessory material of landscape [in Altdorfer's work] is played with and ornamentally elaborated so that it reverberates with the sense of a sequestered and inhospitable environment". Inspired by his travels around the Austrian Alps and the Danube River, Altdorfer painted a number of landscapes that contain no figures at all, including Landscape with a Footbridge (c. 1516) and Danube Landscape near Regensburg (c. 1522–25). These were the first "pure" landscapes since antiquity. Most of Altdorfer's landscapes were made with a vertical format, in contrast with the modern conception of the genre. The horizontal landscape was an innovation of Altdorfer's Flemish
contemporary Joachim Patinir
and his followers.
Altdorfer also produced a great deal of religious artwork, in reflection of his devout Catholicism. His most frequent subjects were the Virgin Mary and the life and crucifixion of Christ. As in The Battle of Alexander at Issus, these paintings often feature settings of great majesty and use the sky to convey symbolic meaning. This meaning is not uniform throughout Altdorfer's corpus – for example, the visage of the setting sun connotes loss and tragedy in Agony in the Garden, but serves as "the emblem of power and glory" in The Battle of Alexander at Issus.
Larry Silver of The Art Bulletin explains that The Battle of Alexander at Issus is both similar to and in direct contrast with Altdorfer's previous work: "Instead of the peaceful landscape of retreat for Christian events or holy figures, this panel offers just the opposite: a battleground for one of ancient history's principal epoch-making encounters ... Yet despite its global or cosmic dimensions, the Battle of Issus still looks like Altdorfer's earlier, contemplative liminal landscapes of retreat, complete with craggy peaks, bodies of water, and distant castles."
Although the Battle of Alexander is atypical of Altdorfer in its size and in that it depicts war, his Triumphal Procession – a 1512–16 illuminated manuscript
commissioned by Maximilian I of the Holy Roman Empire
– has been described as a conceptual antecedent. The Procession was produced in parallel with the Triumph of Maximilian, a series of 137 woodcut
s collaboratively executed by Altdorfer, Hans Springinklee
, Albrecht Dürer
, Leonhard Beck
and Hans Schäufelein
.
Altdorfer's most significant contemporary influence was Matthias Grünewald
(c. 1470–1528). Art historian Horst W. Janson remarked that their paintings "show the same 'unruly' imagination". Elements of The Battle of Alexander at Issus – particularly the sky – have been compared to Grünewald's Heavenly Host above the Virgin and Child, which forms part of his masterpiece, the Isenheim Altarpiece
. Lucas Cranach the Elder
(1472–1553), also associated with the Danube school, was another important influence for Altdorfer. According to Roskill, works by Cranach from about 1500 "give a prominent role to landscape settings, using them as mood-enhancing backgrounds for portraits, and for images of hermits and visionary saints", and seem to play a "preparatory role" for the onset of pure landscape. Altdorfer owed much of his style, particularly in his religious artwork, to Albrecht Dürer
(1471–1528); Larry Silver writes that Altdorfer's "use of convincing German landscapes in combination with celestial phenomena for his religious narrative" is "firmly tied" to a tradition "modeled by Albrecht Dürer."
William IV, Duke of Bavaria
commissioned The Battle of Alexander at Issus in 1528. Altdorfer was approximately 50 at the time, and was living in the Free Imperial City
of Regensburg
. As a result of over a decade of involvement with the Regensburg city council, Altdorfer was offered the position of Burgomaster
on 18 September 1528. He declined; the council annals reported his reasoning as such: "He much desires to execute a special work in Bavaria for my Serene Highness and gracious Lord, Duke [William]." William probably wanted the painting for his newly built summer Lusthaus ("pleasure house") in the grounds of his palace in Munich
, approximately 60 miles (96.6 km) south of Regensburg. There, it was to hang alongside seven other paintings with a similar format and subject matter, including Ludwig Refinger's The Matyrdom of Marcus Curtius, Melchior Feselen's The Siege of Alesia
by Caesar, and the painting of Battle of Cannae
by Hans Burgkmair
(1473–1531). Another eight, each portraying a famous woman from history, were later added to the set, probably at the behest of the Duke's wife, Jacobaea of Baden. Altdorfer's Susanna and the Elders (1526) was among these.
Earlier depictions of the Battle of Issus are few. Battle of Issus, a fresco
by Philoxenus of Eretria
, is probably the first such. It was painted sometime around 310 BC for Cassander
(c. 350–297 BC), who was one of Alexander the Great's successors. Alexander and Darius – each within a lance's length of the other – are pictured among a wild fray of mounted and downed soldiers. While Alexander maintains an aura of unshaken confidence, fear is etched in Darius' face, and his charioteer has already turned to rein his horses and escape. Roman author and natural philosopher Pliny the Elder
claimed that Philoxenus' portrayal of the battle was "inferior to none". Some modern critics posit that Battle of Issus might not have been the work of Philoxenus, but of Helena of Egypt. One of the few named women painters who might have worked in Ancient Greece, she was reputed to have produced a painting of the battle of Issus which hung in the Temple of Peace during the time of Vespasian
.
The Alexander Mosaic
, a floor mosaic dating from c. 100 BC, is believed to be a "reasonably faithful" copy of Battle of Issus, though an alternative view holds it might instead be a copy of a work painted by Apelles of Kos, who produced several portraits of Alexander the Great. It measures 5.82 x 3.13 m (19 ft x 10 ft 3 in), and consists of approximately 1.5 million tesserae (coloured tiles), each about 3 mm (0.118110236220472 in) square. The mosaicist is unknown. Since the mosaic was not rediscovered until 1831, during excavations of Pompeii
's House of the Faun
, Altdorfer could never have seen it. It was later moved to the Naples National Archaeological Museum
in Naples, Italy, where it currently resides.
measuring 158.4 cm × 120.3 cm (62.4 in × 47.4 in), and portrays the moment of Alexander the Great's victory. The vertical format was dictated by the space available in the room for which the painting was commissioned – each in William's set of eight was made to be the same size. At an unknown date, the panel was cut down on all sides, particularly at the top, so the sky was originally larger and the moon further from the corner of the scene. The scene is approached from an impossible viewpoint – at first only feet from the fray, the perspective gradually ascends to encompass the seas and continents in the background and eventually the curvature of the Earth itself.
Thousands of horse and foot soldiers immersed in a sea of spears and lances populate the foreground. The two armies are distinguished by their dress, anachronistic though it is: whereas Alexander's men clad themselves and their horses in full suits of heavy armour, many of Darius' wear turbans and ride naked mounts. The bodies of the many fallen soldiers lie underfoot. A front of Macedonian warriors in the centre pushes against the crumbling enemy force, who flee the battlefield on the far left. The Persian king joins his army on his chariot of three horses, and is narrowly pursued by Alexander and his uniformly attired Companion cavalry. The tract of soldiers continues down the gently sloped battlefield to the campsite and cityscape by the water, gravitating toward the mountainous rise at the scene's centre.
Beyond is the Mediterranean Sea
and the island of Cyprus
. Here, a transition in hue is made, from the browns that prevail in the lower half of the painting to the aquas that saturate the upper half. The Nile River meanders in the far distance, emptying its seven arms into the Mediterranean at the Nile Delta
. South of Cyprus is the Sinai Peninsula
, which forms a land bridge
between Africa and Southwest Asia. The Red Sea
lies beyond, eventually merging – as the mountain ranges to its left and right do – with the curved horizon.
A fierce sky caught in the dichotomy between the setting sun and the crescent moon dominates more than a third of the painting. The rain-heavy clouds swirling ominously around each celestial entity are separated by a gulf of calmness, intensifying the contrast and infusing the heavens with an unearthly glow. Light from the sky spills onto the landscape: while the western continent and the Nile are bathed in the sun's light, the east and the Tower of Babel
are cloaked in shadow.
The painting's subject is explained in the tablet suspended from the heavens. The wording, probably supplied by William's court historian Johannes Aventinus
, was originally in German but was later replaced by a Latin inscription. It translates:
No date is provided for the battle alongside these casualty figures. The lower left-hand corner features Altdorfer's monogram
– an 'A' within an 'A' – and the lower edge of the tablet is inscribed with "ALBRECHT ALTORFER ZU REGENSPVRG FECIT" ("Albrecht Altdorfer from Regensburg made [this]"). Tiny inscriptions on their chariot and harness identify Darius and Alexander, respectively. Each army bears a banner that reports both its total strength and its future casualties.
laid siege
to the Austria
n city of Vienna. Although far inferior in number, the Austrian, German, Czech, and Spanish soldiers marshalled to defend Vienna were able to force the enemy into a retreat and stall the Ottoman advance on central Europe. It is probable the painting's underlying allegory was inspired by the siege of Vienna, given its similarities to Alexander's victory at Issus. Some critics go further, suggesting that the inclusion of anachronism may have been an element of Altdorfer's commission.
In his Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time, historian Reinhart Koselleck
discusses Altdorfer's representation of time in a more philosophical light. After differentiating between the superficial anachronism found in the casualty figures on the army banners and the deeper anachronism ingrained in the painting's contemporary context, he posits that the latter type is less a superimposition of one historical event over another and more an acknowledgement of the recursive nature of history. With reference to Koselleck, Kathleen Davis argues: "... for [Altdorfer], 4th-century Persians look like 16th-century Turks not because he does not know the difference, but because the difference does not matter ... The Alexanderschlacht, in other words, exemplifies a premodern, untemporalized sense of time and a lack of historical consciousness ... Altdorfer's historical overlays evince an eschatological
vision of history, evidence that the 16th century (and by degrees also the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) remained locked in a static, constant temporality that proleptically saturates the future as always a repetition of the same ... In such a system there can be no event as such: anticipation and arrival are together sucked into the black hole of sacred history, which is not temporalized because its time is essentially undifferentiated ..."
Featured alongside the anachronism in The Battle of Alexander at Issus is a genuine lack of historicity. Altdorfer demonstrates minimal hesitance in neglecting the painting's historical integrity for the sake of its heroic style, in spite of the pains he took to research the battle. That the Persian army was up to twice the size of the Macedonian army is not clear, and the relative positioning of the soldiers as reported by ancient sources has been disregarded. According to art critic Rose-Marie Hagen, "The artist was faithful to the historical truth only when it suited him, when historical facts were compatible with the demands of his composition." Hagen also notes the historically baseless inclusion of women on the battlefield, attributing it to Altdorfer's "passion for invention" and saying they "look like German courtly ladies, dressed for a hunting party" in their feathered toque
s.
Altdorfer's primary point of reference in his research was probably Hartmann Schedel
's Nuremberg Chronicle
(Schedelsche Weltchronik), an illustrated world history published in Nuremberg
in 1493. Schedel was a physician, humanist, historian and cartographer, and his Chronicle was one of the first books produced on the printing press
. With a heavy reliance on the Bible, it recounts the seven ages
of human history, from Creation
to the birth of Christ and ending with the Apocalypse
. Altdorfer's statistics for the battle of Issus mirror those of Schedel. Furthermore, the errors in Schedel's maps of the Mediterranean and Northern Africa are also present in The Battle of Alexander at Issus: the island of Cyprus is noticeably oversized, and both the mountain rise in the painting's centre and the range adjacent to the Nile do not exist. Since the Chronicle describes Alexander's victory over the Persians in terms of its proximity to Tarsus and omits mention of Issus, it is likely that the cityscape by the sea is intended to be the former city rather than the latter. Issus in the 16th century was minor and relatively unknown, whereas Tarsus was renowned for its having been a major centre of learning and philosophy in Roman times. Tarsus was also said to be the birthplace of the Apostle
Paul, which may explain the presence of the church towers in Altdorfer's portrayal. Another source may have been the writings of Quintus Curtius Rufus
, a 1st-century Roman historian who presents inflated figures for the number of killed and taken prisoner and the sizes of the armies.
The sky bears overt metaphorical significance and is the centrepiece of the painting's symbolism. Alexander, identified by the Egyptians and others as a god of the sun, finds his victory in the sun's rays; and the Persians are routed into the darkness beneath the crescent moon, a symbol of the Near East
. Considered in terms of the painting's contemporary context, the sun's triumph over the moon represents Christendom
's victory over the Islamism
of the Ottomans. Eschatological
meaning, probably inspired by prophecies in the Book of Daniel
, is imbued in the heavenly setting. In particular, Daniel 7 predicts the rise and fall of four kingdoms before the Second Coming
; these were thought to be Babylon
, Persia, Greece, and Rome at the time of the painting's creation. Altdorfer saw the Battle of Issus as a principal indicator of the transition of power from Persia to Greece, and thus as an event of cosmic significance. The battle also marked a progression toward the end of the world
– an important theological concern in the 16th century, given that the last traces of Rome were diminishing with the papacy. As a member of the Regensburg council and a practising Catholic, Altdorfer frequently interacted with the Church and was surely aware of this trend of eschatological thought. Schedel, too, had calculated that the final age of the seven he identified was nigh. It may therefore be inferred that the sky's expression of the momentous event at Issus was intended to be of contemporary relevance as well.
. The painting was one of 72 taken to Paris in 1800 by the invading armies of Napoleon I
(1769–1821), who was a noted admirer of Alexander the Great. The Louvre
held it until 1804, when Napoleon declared himself Emperor of France and took it for his own use. When the Prussians captured the Château de Saint-Cloud
in 1814 as part of the War of the Sixth Coalition
, they supposedly found the painting hanging in Napoleon's bathroom.
The Battle of Alexander at Issus and 26 others taken in the 1800 invasion were subsequently restored to the King of Bavaria in 1815. Five of the paintings in William IV's original set of eight – including The Battle of Alexander at Issus – later passed from the royal collection to the Alte Pinakothek
art museum in Munich, Germany, where they remain; the other three are in the National Museum of Fine Arts in Stockholm
, having been looted by the Swedish army in the Thirty Years War of 1618–1648. Susannah and the Elders is the only other work by Altdorfer in the Alte Pinakothek.
Contextually, the painting forms part of the Northern Renaissance
, a resurgence of classical humanism and culture in northern Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries. The Renaissance induced a new kind of social individualism which Altdorfer expressed through the heroic emphasis on Alexander and Darius, and which is reflected in the specifics of the painting's commission and by the subjects of its companion pieces: "During the Renaissance people no longer saw themselves solely as members of a social group, as the citizens of a town, or as sinners before God in whose eyes all were equal. They had become aware of the unique qualities that distinguished one person from another. Unlike the Middle Ages, the Renaissance celebrated the individual. Altdorfer may have painted row after row of apparently identical warriors, but the spectators themselves would identify with Alexander and Darius, figures who had names, whose significance was indicated by the cord which hung down from the tablet above them."
Altdorfer was not only a pioneer of landscape, but also a practitioner of early incarnations of the Romanticism
and expressionism
which impacted the arts so greatly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Kenneth Clark
writes of Altdorfer and contemporaries Grünewald and Bosch, "They are what we now call 'expressionist' artists, a term which is not as worthless as it sounds, because, in fact, the symbols of expressionism are remarkably consistent, and we find in the work of these early 16th-century landscape painters not only the same spirit but the same shapes and iconographical motives which recur in the work of such recent expressionists as van Gogh, Max Ernst
, Graham Sutherland
and Walt Disney
." According to art critic Pia F. Cuneo, "Altdorfer's construction of landscape on a cosmic scale" in the Battle of Alexander at Issus, and his "spiritual and aesthetic affinities with Romanticism
and Modern art (in particular, German Expressionism
)", "have been especially singled out for praise".
The Battle of Alexander at Issus is typically considered to be Altdorfer's masterpiece
. Cuneo states that the painting is usually "considered in splendid isolation from its fifteen other companion pieces, based on the assumption that it either metonymically stands in for the entire cycle, or that its perceived aesthetic predominance merits exclusive focus." German writer Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829) was one of many who saw the painting in the Louvre and marvelled, calling it a "small painted Iliad
". Reinhart Koselleck comments that Altdorfer's depiction of the thousands of soldiers was executed with "a mastery previously unknown", and Kathleen Davis describes the painting as "epochal in every sense".
Oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil—especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Often an oil such as linseed was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense; these were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body...
by the German artist Albrecht Altdorfer
Albrecht Altdorfer
Albrecht Altdorfer was a German painter, printmaker and architect of the Renaissance era.-Biography:Altdorfer was born in Regensburg or Altdorf around 1480....
(c. 1480–1538), a pioneer of landscape art
Landscape art
Landscape art is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still...
and a founding member of the Danube school
Danube school
The Danube School or Donau School is the name of a circle of painters of the first third of the 16th century in Bavaria and Austria . Many also were innovative printmakers, usually in etching...
. It portrays the 333 BC Battle of Issus
Battle of Issus
The Battle of Issus occurred in southern Anatolia, in November 333 BC. The invading troops, led by the young Alexander of Macedonia, defeated the army personally led by Darius III of Achaemenid Persia in the second great battle for primacy in Asia...
, in which Alexander the Great secured a decisive victory over Darius III of Persia
Darius III of Persia
Darius III , also known by his given name of Codomannus, was the last king of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia from 336 BC to 330 BC....
and gained crucial leverage in his campaign against the Persian Empire. The painting is widely regarded as Altdorfer's masterpiece, and exemplifies his affinity for scenes of monumental grandeur.
Duke William IV of Bavaria
William IV, Duke of Bavaria
William IV of Bavaria was Duke of Bavaria from 1508 to 1550, until 1545 together with his younger brother Louis X, Duke of Bavaria....
commissioned The Battle of Alexander at Issus in 1528 as part of a set of historical pieces that was to hang in his Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
residence. Modern commentators suggest that the painting, through its abundant use of anachronism
Anachronism
An anachronism—from the Greek ανά and χρόνος — is an inconsistency in some chronological arrangement, especially a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other...
, was intended to liken Alexander's heroic victory at Issus to the contemporary European conflict with the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
. In particular, the defeat of Suleiman the Magnificent
Suleiman the Magnificent
Suleiman I was the tenth and longest-reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1520 to his death in 1566. He is known in the West as Suleiman the Magnificent and in the East, as "The Lawgiver" , for his complete reconstruction of the Ottoman legal system...
at the Siege of Vienna
Siege of Vienna
The Siege of Vienna in 1529 was the first attempt by the Ottoman Empire, led by Suleiman the Magnificent, to capture the city of Vienna, Austria. The siege signalled the pinnacle of the Ottoman Empire's power, the maximum extent of Ottoman expansion in central Europe, and was the result of a...
may have been an inspiration for Altdorfer. A religious undercurrent is detectable, especially in the extraordinary sky; this was probably inspired by the prophecies of Daniel
Book of Daniel
The Book of Daniel is a book in the Hebrew Bible. The book tells of how Daniel, and his Judean companions, were inducted into Babylon during Jewish exile, and how their positions elevated in the court of Nebuchadnezzar. The court tales span events that occur during the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar,...
and contemporary concern within the Church about an impending apocalypse
Apocalypse
An Apocalypse is a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception, i.e. the veil to be lifted. The Apocalypse of John is the Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament...
. The Battle of Alexander at Issus and four others that were part of William's initial set are in the Alte Pinakothek
Alte Pinakothek
The Alte Pinakothek is an art museum situated in the Kunstareal in Munich, Germany. It is one of the oldest galleries in the world and houses one of the most famous collections of Old Master paintings...
art museum in Munich.
Subject matter
Alexander III of Macedon (356–323 BC), best known as Alexander the Great, was an Ancient GreekAncient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
king of Macedon who reigned from 336 BC until his death. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest military tacticians and strategists in history, and is presumed undefeated in battle. Renowned for his military leadership and charisma, he always led his armies personally and took to the front ranks of battle. By conquering the Persian Empire
Achaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid Empire , sometimes known as First Persian Empire and/or Persian Empire, was founded in the 6th century BCE by Cyrus the Great who overthrew the Median confederation...
and unifying Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, Egypt and Babylon
Babylon
Babylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...
, he forged the largest empire of the ancient world and effected the spread of Hellenism
Hellenization
Hellenization is a term used to describe the spread of ancient Greek culture, and, to a lesser extent, language. It is mainly used to describe the spread of Hellenistic civilization during the Hellenistic period following the campaigns of Alexander the Great of Macedon...
throughout Europe and Northern Africa.
Alexander embarked on his expedition to conquer the Persian Empire in the spring of 334 BC, having pacified the warring Greek states and consolidated his military might. During the first months of the Macedonian passage into Persian Asia Minor, Darius III
Darius III of Persia
Darius III , also known by his given name of Codomannus, was the last king of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia from 336 BC to 330 BC....
– king of Persia – largely ignored the presence of Alexander's 40,000 men. The Battle of the Granicus
Battle of the Granicus
The Battle of the Granicus River in May 334 BC was the first of three major battles fought between Alexander the Great and the Persian Empire...
, fought in May, was Persia's first major effort to confront the invaders, but resulted in an easy victory for Alexander. Over the next year, Alexander took most of western and coastal Asia Minor by forcing the capitulation of the satrap
Satrap
Satrap was the name given to the governors of the provinces of the ancient Median and Achaemenid Empires and in several of their successors, such as the Sassanid Empire and the Hellenistic empires....
ies in his path. He continued inland, travelling northeast through Phyrgia before turning southeast toward Cilicia
Cilicia
In antiquity, Cilicia was the south coastal region of Asia Minor, south of the central Anatolian plateau. It existed as a political entity from Hittite times into the Byzantine empire...
. After passing the Cilician Gates
Cilician Gates
The Cilician Gates or Gülek Pass is a pass through the Taurus Mountains connecting the low plains of Cilicia to the Anatolian Plateau, by way of the narrow gorge of the Gökoluk River. Its highest elevation is about 1000m....
in October, Alexander was delayed by fever in Tarsus
Tarsus (city)
Tarsus is a historic city in south-central Turkey, 20 km inland from the Mediterranean Sea. It is part of the Adana-Mersin Metropolitan Area, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in Turkey with a population of 2.75 million...
. Darius meanwhile mustered an army of up to 100,000 (some ancient sources posit exaggerated figures of over 600,000) and personally directed it over the eastern slopes of the Amanus Mountains. In early November, as Alexander proceeded about the Gulf of Issus from Mallus
Mallus
Mallus or Mallos was an ancient city of Cilicia Campestris lying near the mouth of the Pyramus river, in Anatolia. In ancient times, the city was situated at the mouth of the Pyramus , on a hill opposite Magarsus which served as its port. The district was called from it, Mallotis...
via Issus
Issus (town)
Issus is an ancient settlement on the strategic coastal plain straddling the small Pinarus river below the navigationally difficult inland mountains towering above to the east in the Turkish Province of Hatay, near the border with Syria...
, the two armies inadvertently passed one another on opposite sides of the mountains. This was decidedly to Darius' advantage: now at the rear of Alexander, he was able to prevent retreat and block the supply lines Alexander had established at Issus. It was not until Alexander had encamped at Myriandrus
Myriandrus
Myriandrus was an ancient Phoenician town and seaport located near the modern city of İskenderun, Turkey.In 333 BC Alexander the Great intended to lay an ambush at Myriandrus of Darius III of Persia but in the end the battle took place near Issus.-References:...
, a seaport on the southeastern shores of the Gulf of İskenderun, that he learned of the Persian position. He immediately retraced his route to the Pinarus River
Pinarus River
The Pinarus River is a small mountain spring fed stream famous in antiquity as the site of the First Battle of Issus, near a small coastal village or town which was reported to straddle the stream which by similar sources, was said to run red with blood after Alexander the Great leading his elite...
, just south of Issus, to find Darius' force assembled along the northern bank. The Battle of Issus ensued.
Darius' initial response was defensive: he immediately stockaded the river bank with stakes to impede the enemy's crossing. A core vanguard of traitorous Greek mercenaries and Persian royal guard was established; as was usual for Persian kings, Darius positioned himself in the centre of this vanguard, in order that he might effectively dispatch commands to any part of his large army. A group of Persian light infantry was soon sent to the foothills, as it was suspected that Alexander would make an approach from the right, away from the coast. A mass of cavalry commanded by Nabarsanes occupied the Persian right.
Alexander made a cautious and slow advance, intending to base his strategy on the structure of the Persian force. He led a flank of his Companion cavalry
Companion cavalry
The Companions were the elite cavalry of the Macedonian army from the time of king Philip II of Macedon and reached the most prestige under Alexander the Great, and have been regarded as the best cavalry in the ancient world and the first shock cavalry...
on the right, while the Thessalian cavalry were dispatched to the left, as a counter to Nabarsanes' mounted unit. Aware of the importance of the foothills to his right, Alexander sent a band of light infantry, archers, and cavalry to displace the defence Darius had stationed there. The enterprise was successful – those Persians not killed were forced to seek refuge higher in the mountains.
When within missile range of the enemy, Alexander gave the order to charge. He spearheaded the assault of his heavily armed Companion cavalry, who quickly made deep cuts into the Persian left flank. The Macedonian left wing, commanded by Parmenion
Parmenion
Parmenion was a Macedonian general in the service of Philip II of Macedon and Alexander the Great, murdered on a suspected false charge of treason....
, was meanwhile driven back by Nabarsanes' large cavalry. The Macedonians' central phalanx
Phalanx formation
The phalanx is a rectangular mass military formation, usually composed entirely of heavy infantry armed with spears, pikes, sarissas, or similar weapons...
crossed the river and clashed with the renegade Greek mercenaries who fronted Darius' vanguard. As the Companion cavalry pushed further into the Persian left, the danger arose that Darius would exploit the gap that had formed between Alexander and the rest of his army. When he was satisfied that the left wing was crippled and no longer a threat, Alexander remedied the situation by moving the Companions to assault the Persian centre in the flank. Unable to handle the added pressure, the Persian vanguard was forced to withdraw from the river bank, allowing the Macedonian phalanx to continue their advance and lifting the pressure on Parmenion's left wing.
Upon realising that the onslaught of Alexander's Companion cavalry was unstoppable, Darius and his army fled. Many were killed in the rush, trampled by those who fled with them or collapsed with their horses. Some escaped to regions as remote as Egypt, and others reunited with Darius in the north. The onset of darkness ended the chase after approximately 20 km (12.4 mi); Alexander then recalled his army and set about burying the dead. Darius' family were left behind in the Persian camp; it is reported that Alexander treated them well and reassured them of Darius' safety. Darius' royal chariot was found discarded in a ditch, as were his bow and shield.
Ancient sources present disparate casualty figures for the Battle of Issus. Plutarch
Plutarch
Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
and Diodorus Siculus
Diodorus Siculus
Diodorus Siculus was a Greek historian who flourished between 60 and 30 BC. According to Diodorus' own work, he was born at Agyrium in Sicily . With one exception, antiquity affords no further information about Diodorus' life and doings beyond what is to be found in his own work, Bibliotheca...
approximate 100,000 Persian deaths, in contrast with the 450 Macedonian deaths reported by Quintus Curtius Rufus
Quintus Curtius Rufus
Quintus Curtius Rufus was a Roman historian, writing probably during the reign of the Emperor Claudius or Vespasian. His only surviving work, Historiae Alexandri Magni, is a biography of Alexander the Great in Latin in ten books, of which the first two are lost, and the remaining eight are...
. In any case, it is probable that more Persians were killed as they fled than in battle; Ptolemy I, who served with Alexander during the battle, recounts how the Macedonians crossed a ravine on the bodies of their enemies during the pursuit.
The Macedonian conquest of Persia continued until 330 BC, when Darius was killed and Alexander took his title as king. Alexander died in 323 BC, having recently returned from campaigning in the Indian subcontinent
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...
. The cause of death remains a subject of debate.
Previous work
Albrecht Altdorfer
Albrecht Altdorfer was a German painter, printmaker and architect of the Renaissance era.-Biography:Altdorfer was born in Regensburg or Altdorf around 1480....
is regarded as one of the founders of Western landscape art
Landscape art
Landscape art is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still...
. He was a painter, etcher, architect, and engraver, and the leader of the Danube school
Danube school
The Danube School or Donau School is the name of a circle of painters of the first third of the 16th century in Bavaria and Austria . Many also were innovative printmakers, usually in etching...
of German art. As evidenced by such paintings as Saint George and the Dragon (1510) and Allegory (1531), much of Altdorfer's work is characterised by an attachment to sprawling landscapes that dwarf the figures within them; The Battle of Alexander at Issus epitomises this facet of his style. With reference to St George and the Dragon in particular, art historian Mark W. Roskill comments that "The accessory material of landscape [in Altdorfer's work] is played with and ornamentally elaborated so that it reverberates with the sense of a sequestered and inhospitable environment". Inspired by his travels around the Austrian Alps and the Danube River, Altdorfer painted a number of landscapes that contain no figures at all, including Landscape with a Footbridge (c. 1516) and Danube Landscape near Regensburg (c. 1522–25). These were the first "pure" landscapes since antiquity. Most of Altdorfer's landscapes were made with a vertical format, in contrast with the modern conception of the genre. The horizontal landscape was an innovation of Altdorfer's Flemish
Flemish
Flemish can refer to anything related to Flanders, and may refer directly to the following articles:*Flemish, an informal, though linguistically incorrect, name of any kind of the Dutch language as spoken in Belgium....
contemporary Joachim Patinir
Joachim Patinir
Joachim Patinir, also called de Patiner , was a Flemish Northern Renaissance history and landscape painter from the area of modern Wallonia...
and his followers.
Larry Silver of The Art Bulletin explains that The Battle of Alexander at Issus is both similar to and in direct contrast with Altdorfer's previous work: "Instead of the peaceful landscape of retreat for Christian events or holy figures, this panel offers just the opposite: a battleground for one of ancient history's principal epoch-making encounters ... Yet despite its global or cosmic dimensions, the Battle of Issus still looks like Altdorfer's earlier, contemplative liminal landscapes of retreat, complete with craggy peaks, bodies of water, and distant castles."
Although the Battle of Alexander is atypical of Altdorfer in its size and in that it depicts war, his Triumphal Procession – a 1512–16 illuminated manuscript
Illuminated manuscript
An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...
commissioned by Maximilian I of the Holy Roman Empire
Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor
Maximilian I , the son of Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor and Eleanor of Portugal, was King of the Romans from 1486 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1493 until his death, though he was never in fact crowned by the Pope, the journey to Rome always being too risky...
– has been described as a conceptual antecedent. The Procession was produced in parallel with the Triumph of Maximilian, a series of 137 woodcut
Woodcut
Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...
s collaboratively executed by Altdorfer, Hans Springinklee
Hans Springinklee
Hans Springinklee was a German artist from Nuremberg, best known for his woodcuts. He was a pupil of Albrecht Dürer.-Life:...
, Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since...
, Leonhard Beck
Leonhard Beck
Leonhard Beck was a painter and draughtsman in Augsburg, Germany. He was the son of Georg Beck. He worked with his father on two Psalters for the Augsburg monastery in 1495.-Sources:* Art encyclopedia...
and Hans Schäufelein
Hans Leonhard Schäufelein
Hans Leonhard Schäufelein was a German painter, designer, and wood engraver.He was born in Nuremberg, probably studied under Wohlgemut, and then became the assistant of Dürer, whom he imitated...
.
Influences and commission
Matthias Grünewald
Matthias Grünewald or "Mathis" , "Gothart" or "Neithardt" , , was a German Renaissance painter of religious works, who ignored Renaissance classicism to continue the expressive and intense style of late medieval Central European art into the 16th century.Only ten paintings—several consisting...
(c. 1470–1528). Art historian Horst W. Janson remarked that their paintings "show the same 'unruly' imagination". Elements of The Battle of Alexander at Issus – particularly the sky – have been compared to Grünewald's Heavenly Host above the Virgin and Child, which forms part of his masterpiece, the Isenheim Altarpiece
Isenheim Altarpiece
The Isenheim Altarpiece is an altarpiece painted by the German artist Matthias Grünewald in 1506-1515. It is on display at the Unterlinden Museum at Colmar, Alsace, now in France....
. Lucas Cranach the Elder
Lucas Cranach the Elder
Lucas Cranach the Elder , was a German Renaissance painter and printmaker in woodcut and engraving...
(1472–1553), also associated with the Danube school, was another important influence for Altdorfer. According to Roskill, works by Cranach from about 1500 "give a prominent role to landscape settings, using them as mood-enhancing backgrounds for portraits, and for images of hermits and visionary saints", and seem to play a "preparatory role" for the onset of pure landscape. Altdorfer owed much of his style, particularly in his religious artwork, to Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since...
(1471–1528); Larry Silver writes that Altdorfer's "use of convincing German landscapes in combination with celestial phenomena for his religious narrative" is "firmly tied" to a tradition "modeled by Albrecht Dürer."
William IV, Duke of Bavaria
William IV, Duke of Bavaria
William IV of Bavaria was Duke of Bavaria from 1508 to 1550, until 1545 together with his younger brother Louis X, Duke of Bavaria....
commissioned The Battle of Alexander at Issus in 1528. Altdorfer was approximately 50 at the time, and was living in the Free Imperial City
Free Imperial City
In the Holy Roman Empire, a free imperial city was a city formally ruled by the emperor only — as opposed to the majority of cities in the Empire, which were governed by one of the many princes of the Empire, such as dukes or prince-bishops...
of Regensburg
Regensburg
Regensburg is a city in Bavaria, Germany, located at the confluence of the Danube and Regen rivers, at the northernmost bend in the Danube. To the east lies the Bavarian Forest. Regensburg is the capital of the Bavarian administrative region Upper Palatinate...
. As a result of over a decade of involvement with the Regensburg city council, Altdorfer was offered the position of Burgomaster
Burgomaster
Burgomaster is the English form of various terms in or derived from Germanic languages for the chief magistrate or chairman of the executive council of a sub-national level of administration...
on 18 September 1528. He declined; the council annals reported his reasoning as such: "He much desires to execute a special work in Bavaria for my Serene Highness and gracious Lord, Duke [William]." William probably wanted the painting for his newly built summer Lusthaus ("pleasure house") in the grounds of his palace in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, approximately 60 miles (96.6 km) south of Regensburg. There, it was to hang alongside seven other paintings with a similar format and subject matter, including Ludwig Refinger's The Matyrdom of Marcus Curtius, Melchior Feselen's The Siege of Alesia
Battle of Alesia
The Battle of Alesia or Siege of Alesia took place in September, 52 BC around the Gallic oppidum of Alesia, a major town centre and hill fort of the Mandubii tribe...
by Caesar, and the painting of Battle of Cannae
Battle of Cannae
The Battle of Cannae was a major battle of the Second Punic War, which took place on August 2, 216 BC near the town of Cannae in Apulia in southeast Italy. The army of Carthage under Hannibal decisively defeated a numerically superior army of the Roman Republic under command of the consuls Lucius...
by Hans Burgkmair
Hans Burgkmair
Hans Burgkmair the elder was a German painter and printmaker in woodcut.Burgkmair was born in Augsburg, the son of painter Thomas Burgkmair and his son, Hans the Younger, became one too. From 1488 he was a pupil of Martin Schongauer in Colmar, who died during his two years there, before Burgkmair...
(1473–1531). Another eight, each portraying a famous woman from history, were later added to the set, probably at the behest of the Duke's wife, Jacobaea of Baden. Altdorfer's Susanna and the Elders (1526) was among these.
Earlier depictions
Fresco
Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...
by Philoxenus of Eretria
Philoxenus of Eretria
For other uses, see PhiloxenusPhiloxenus of Eretria was a painter from Eretria, the disciple of Nicomachus of Thebes, whose speed in painting he imitated and even surpassed, having discovered some new and rapid methods of colouring Nevertheless, Pliny states that there was a picture of his which...
, is probably the first such. It was painted sometime around 310 BC for Cassander
Cassander
Cassander , King of Macedonia , was a son of Antipater, and founder of the Antipatrid dynasty...
(c. 350–297 BC), who was one of Alexander the Great's successors. Alexander and Darius – each within a lance's length of the other – are pictured among a wild fray of mounted and downed soldiers. While Alexander maintains an aura of unshaken confidence, fear is etched in Darius' face, and his charioteer has already turned to rein his horses and escape. Roman author and natural philosopher Pliny the Elder
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
claimed that Philoxenus' portrayal of the battle was "inferior to none". Some modern critics posit that Battle of Issus might not have been the work of Philoxenus, but of Helena of Egypt. One of the few named women painters who might have worked in Ancient Greece, she was reputed to have produced a painting of the battle of Issus which hung in the Temple of Peace during the time of Vespasian
Vespasian
Vespasian , was Roman Emperor from 69 AD to 79 AD. Vespasian was the founder of the Flavian dynasty, which ruled the Empire for a quarter century. Vespasian was descended from a family of equestrians, who rose into the senatorial rank under the Emperors of the Julio-Claudian dynasty...
.
The Alexander Mosaic
Alexander Mosaic
The Alexander Mosaic, dating from circa 100 BC, is a famous Roman floor mosaic originally from the House of the Faun in Pompeii. It depicts a battle between the armies of Alexander the Great and Darius III of Persia and measures 5.82 x 3.13m .-Battle:The mosaic illustrates a battle in which...
, a floor mosaic dating from c. 100 BC, is believed to be a "reasonably faithful" copy of Battle of Issus, though an alternative view holds it might instead be a copy of a work painted by Apelles of Kos, who produced several portraits of Alexander the Great. It measures 5.82 x 3.13 m (19 ft x 10 ft 3 in), and consists of approximately 1.5 million tesserae (coloured tiles), each about 3 mm (0.118110236220472 in) square. The mosaicist is unknown. Since the mosaic was not rediscovered until 1831, during excavations of Pompeii
Pompeii
The city of Pompeii is a partially buried Roman town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Along with Herculaneum, Pompeii was destroyed and completely buried during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning...
's House of the Faun
House of the Faun
The House of the Faun , built during the 2nd century BC, was one of the largest, and most impressive private residences in Pompeii, Italy, and housed many great pieces of art...
, Altdorfer could never have seen it. It was later moved to the Naples National Archaeological Museum
Naples National Archaeological Museum
The Naples National Archaeological Museum is a museum in Naples, southern Italy, at the northwest corner of the original Greek wall of the city of Neapolis. The museum contains a large collection of Roman artifacts from Pompeii, Stabiae and Herculaneum...
in Naples, Italy, where it currently resides.
Description
The Battle of Alexander at Issus is painted on a limewood panelPanel painting
A panel painting is a painting made on a flat panel made of wood, either a single piece, or a number of pieces joined together. Until canvas became the more popular support medium in the 16th century, it was the normal form of support for a painting not on a wall or vellum, which was used for...
measuring 158.4 cm × 120.3 cm (62.4 in × 47.4 in), and portrays the moment of Alexander the Great's victory. The vertical format was dictated by the space available in the room for which the painting was commissioned – each in William's set of eight was made to be the same size. At an unknown date, the panel was cut down on all sides, particularly at the top, so the sky was originally larger and the moon further from the corner of the scene. The scene is approached from an impossible viewpoint – at first only feet from the fray, the perspective gradually ascends to encompass the seas and continents in the background and eventually the curvature of the Earth itself.
Thousands of horse and foot soldiers immersed in a sea of spears and lances populate the foreground. The two armies are distinguished by their dress, anachronistic though it is: whereas Alexander's men clad themselves and their horses in full suits of heavy armour, many of Darius' wear turbans and ride naked mounts. The bodies of the many fallen soldiers lie underfoot. A front of Macedonian warriors in the centre pushes against the crumbling enemy force, who flee the battlefield on the far left. The Persian king joins his army on his chariot of three horses, and is narrowly pursued by Alexander and his uniformly attired Companion cavalry. The tract of soldiers continues down the gently sloped battlefield to the campsite and cityscape by the water, gravitating toward the mountainous rise at the scene's centre.
Beyond is the Mediterranean Sea
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
and the island of Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
. Here, a transition in hue is made, from the browns that prevail in the lower half of the painting to the aquas that saturate the upper half. The Nile River meanders in the far distance, emptying its seven arms into the Mediterranean at the Nile Delta
Nile Delta
The Nile Delta is the delta formed in Northern Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the world's largest river deltas—from Alexandria in the west to Port Said in the east, it covers some 240 km of Mediterranean coastline—and is a rich...
. South of Cyprus is the Sinai Peninsula
Sinai Peninsula
The Sinai Peninsula or Sinai is a triangular peninsula in Egypt about in area. It is situated between the Mediterranean Sea to the north, and the Red Sea to the south, and is the only part of Egyptian territory located in Asia as opposed to Africa, effectively serving as a land bridge between two...
, which forms a land bridge
Land bridge
A land bridge, in biogeography, is an isthmus or wider land connection between otherwise separate areas, over which animals and plants are able to cross and colonise new lands...
between Africa and Southwest Asia. The Red Sea
Red Sea
The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez...
lies beyond, eventually merging – as the mountain ranges to its left and right do – with the curved horizon.
A fierce sky caught in the dichotomy between the setting sun and the crescent moon dominates more than a third of the painting. The rain-heavy clouds swirling ominously around each celestial entity are separated by a gulf of calmness, intensifying the contrast and infusing the heavens with an unearthly glow. Light from the sky spills onto the landscape: while the western continent and the Nile are bathed in the sun's light, the east and the Tower of Babel
Tower of Babel
The Tower of Babel , according to the Book of Genesis, was an enormous tower built in the plain of Shinar .According to the biblical account, a united humanity of the generations following the Great Flood, speaking a single language and migrating from the east, came to the land of Shinar, where...
are cloaked in shadow.
The painting's subject is explained in the tablet suspended from the heavens. The wording, probably supplied by William's court historian Johannes Aventinus
Johannes Aventinus
Johannes Aventinus was a Bavarian historian and philologist. He wrote Annals of Bavaria, a valuable record of the early history of Germany...
, was originally in German but was later replaced by a Latin inscription. It translates:
Alexander the Great defeating the last Darius, after 100,000 infantry and more than 10,000 cavalrymen had been killed amongst the ranks of the Persians. Whilst King Darius was able to flee with no more than 1,000 horsemen, his mother, wife, and children were taken prisoner.
No date is provided for the battle alongside these casualty figures. The lower left-hand corner features Altdorfer's monogram
Monogram
A monogram is a motif made by overlapping or combining two or more letters or other graphemes to form one symbol. Monograms are often made by combining the initials of an individual or a company, used as recognizable symbols or logos. A series of uncombined initials is properly referred to as a...
– an 'A' within an 'A' – and the lower edge of the tablet is inscribed with "ALBRECHT ALTORFER ZU REGENSPVRG FECIT" ("Albrecht Altdorfer from Regensburg made [this]"). Tiny inscriptions on their chariot and harness identify Darius and Alexander, respectively. Each army bears a banner that reports both its total strength and its future casualties.
Analysis and interpretation
Anachronism is a major component of The Battle of Alexander at Issus. By dressing Alexander's men in 16th-century steel armour and Darius' men in Turkish battle dress, Altdorfer draws deliberate parallels between the Macedonian campaign and the contemporary European–Ottoman conflict. In 1529 – the year of the painting's commissioning – the Ottoman forces under Suleiman the MagnificentSuleiman the Magnificent
Suleiman I was the tenth and longest-reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1520 to his death in 1566. He is known in the West as Suleiman the Magnificent and in the East, as "The Lawgiver" , for his complete reconstruction of the Ottoman legal system...
laid siege
Siege of Vienna
The Siege of Vienna in 1529 was the first attempt by the Ottoman Empire, led by Suleiman the Magnificent, to capture the city of Vienna, Austria. The siege signalled the pinnacle of the Ottoman Empire's power, the maximum extent of Ottoman expansion in central Europe, and was the result of a...
to the Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n city of Vienna. Although far inferior in number, the Austrian, German, Czech, and Spanish soldiers marshalled to defend Vienna were able to force the enemy into a retreat and stall the Ottoman advance on central Europe. It is probable the painting's underlying allegory was inspired by the siege of Vienna, given its similarities to Alexander's victory at Issus. Some critics go further, suggesting that the inclusion of anachronism may have been an element of Altdorfer's commission.
In his Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time, historian Reinhart Koselleck
Reinhart Koselleck
Reinhart Koselleck was a German historian, considered as one of the most important historians of the twentieth century...
discusses Altdorfer's representation of time in a more philosophical light. After differentiating between the superficial anachronism found in the casualty figures on the army banners and the deeper anachronism ingrained in the painting's contemporary context, he posits that the latter type is less a superimposition of one historical event over another and more an acknowledgement of the recursive nature of history. With reference to Koselleck, Kathleen Davis argues: "... for [Altdorfer], 4th-century Persians look like 16th-century Turks not because he does not know the difference, but because the difference does not matter ... The Alexanderschlacht, in other words, exemplifies a premodern, untemporalized sense of time and a lack of historical consciousness ... Altdorfer's historical overlays evince an eschatological
Eschatology
Eschatology is a part of theology, philosophy, and futurology concerned with what are believed to be the final events in history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity, commonly referred to as the end of the world or the World to Come...
vision of history, evidence that the 16th century (and by degrees also the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) remained locked in a static, constant temporality that proleptically saturates the future as always a repetition of the same ... In such a system there can be no event as such: anticipation and arrival are together sucked into the black hole of sacred history, which is not temporalized because its time is essentially undifferentiated ..."
Featured alongside the anachronism in The Battle of Alexander at Issus is a genuine lack of historicity. Altdorfer demonstrates minimal hesitance in neglecting the painting's historical integrity for the sake of its heroic style, in spite of the pains he took to research the battle. That the Persian army was up to twice the size of the Macedonian army is not clear, and the relative positioning of the soldiers as reported by ancient sources has been disregarded. According to art critic Rose-Marie Hagen, "The artist was faithful to the historical truth only when it suited him, when historical facts were compatible with the demands of his composition." Hagen also notes the historically baseless inclusion of women on the battlefield, attributing it to Altdorfer's "passion for invention" and saying they "look like German courtly ladies, dressed for a hunting party" in their feathered toque
Toque
A toque is a type of hat with a narrow brim or no brim at all. They were popular from the 13th to the 16th century in Europe, especially France. Now, it is primarily known as the traditional headgear for professional cooks.- Etymology :...
s.
Altdorfer's primary point of reference in his research was probably Hartmann Schedel
Hartmann Schedel
Hartmann Schedel was a German physician, humanist, historian, and one of the first cartographers to use the printing press. He was born in Nuremberg...
's Nuremberg Chronicle
Nuremberg Chronicle
right|thumbnail|240px|Fifth dayThe Nuremberg Chronicle is an illustrated Biblical paraphrase and world history that follows the story of human history related in the Bible; it includes the histories of a number of important Western cities. Written in Latin by Hartmann Schedel, with a version in...
(Schedelsche Weltchronik), an illustrated world history published in Nuremberg
Nuremberg
Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...
in 1493. Schedel was a physician, humanist, historian and cartographer, and his Chronicle was one of the first books produced on the printing press
Printing press
A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium , thereby transferring the ink...
. With a heavy reliance on the Bible, it recounts the seven ages
Six Ages of the World
The Six Ages of the World is a Christian historical periodization first written about by Saint Augustine circa 400 AD. It is based upon Christian religious events, from the creation of Adam to the events of Revelation...
of human history, from Creation
Creation according to Genesis
The Genesis creation narrative describes the divine creation of the world including the first man and woman...
to the birth of Christ and ending with the Apocalypse
Apocalypse
An Apocalypse is a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception, i.e. the veil to be lifted. The Apocalypse of John is the Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament...
. Altdorfer's statistics for the battle of Issus mirror those of Schedel. Furthermore, the errors in Schedel's maps of the Mediterranean and Northern Africa are also present in The Battle of Alexander at Issus: the island of Cyprus is noticeably oversized, and both the mountain rise in the painting's centre and the range adjacent to the Nile do not exist. Since the Chronicle describes Alexander's victory over the Persians in terms of its proximity to Tarsus and omits mention of Issus, it is likely that the cityscape by the sea is intended to be the former city rather than the latter. Issus in the 16th century was minor and relatively unknown, whereas Tarsus was renowned for its having been a major centre of learning and philosophy in Roman times. Tarsus was also said to be the birthplace of the Apostle
Apostle (Christian)
The term apostle is derived from Classical Greek ἀπόστολος , meaning one who is sent away, from στέλλω + από . The literal meaning in English is therefore an "emissary", from the Latin mitto + ex...
Paul, which may explain the presence of the church towers in Altdorfer's portrayal. Another source may have been the writings of Quintus Curtius Rufus
Quintus Curtius Rufus
Quintus Curtius Rufus was a Roman historian, writing probably during the reign of the Emperor Claudius or Vespasian. His only surviving work, Historiae Alexandri Magni, is a biography of Alexander the Great in Latin in ten books, of which the first two are lost, and the remaining eight are...
, a 1st-century Roman historian who presents inflated figures for the number of killed and taken prisoner and the sizes of the armies.
The sky bears overt metaphorical significance and is the centrepiece of the painting's symbolism. Alexander, identified by the Egyptians and others as a god of the sun, finds his victory in the sun's rays; and the Persians are routed into the darkness beneath the crescent moon, a symbol of the Near East
Near East
The Near East is a geographical term that covers different countries for geographers, archeologists, and historians, on the one hand, and for political scientists, economists, and journalists, on the other...
. Considered in terms of the painting's contemporary context, the sun's triumph over the moon represents Christendom
Christendom
Christendom, or the Christian world, has several meanings. In a cultural sense it refers to the worldwide community of Christians, adherents of Christianity...
's victory over the Islamism
Islamism
Islamism also , lit., "Political Islam" is set of ideologies holding that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system. Islamism is a controversial term, and definitions of it sometimes vary...
of the Ottomans. Eschatological
Eschatology
Eschatology is a part of theology, philosophy, and futurology concerned with what are believed to be the final events in history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity, commonly referred to as the end of the world or the World to Come...
meaning, probably inspired by prophecies in the Book of Daniel
Book of Daniel
The Book of Daniel is a book in the Hebrew Bible. The book tells of how Daniel, and his Judean companions, were inducted into Babylon during Jewish exile, and how their positions elevated in the court of Nebuchadnezzar. The court tales span events that occur during the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar,...
, is imbued in the heavenly setting. In particular, Daniel 7 predicts the rise and fall of four kingdoms before the Second Coming
Second Coming
In Christian doctrine, the Second Coming of Christ, the Second Advent, or the Parousia, is the anticipated return of Jesus Christ from Heaven, where he sits at the Right Hand of God, to Earth. This prophecy is found in the canonical gospels and in most Christian and Islamic eschatologies...
; these were thought to be Babylon
Babylon
Babylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...
, Persia, Greece, and Rome at the time of the painting's creation. Altdorfer saw the Battle of Issus as a principal indicator of the transition of power from Persia to Greece, and thus as an event of cosmic significance. The battle also marked a progression toward the end of the world
Eschatology
Eschatology is a part of theology, philosophy, and futurology concerned with what are believed to be the final events in history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity, commonly referred to as the end of the world or the World to Come...
– an important theological concern in the 16th century, given that the last traces of Rome were diminishing with the papacy. As a member of the Regensburg council and a practising Catholic, Altdorfer frequently interacted with the Church and was surely aware of this trend of eschatological thought. Schedel, too, had calculated that the final age of the seven he identified was nigh. It may therefore be inferred that the sky's expression of the momentous event at Issus was intended to be of contemporary relevance as well.
Legacy
The Battle of Alexander at Issus remained part of the royal collection of the Dukes of Bavaria for centuries. By the late 18th century, it was regularly featured in public galleries at the Schleissheim PalaceSchleissheim Palace
The Schleissheim Palace actually comprises three palaces in a grand baroque park in the village of Oberschleißheim near Munich, Bavaria, Germany. The palace was the summer residence of the rulers of Bavaria.-Old Schleissheim Palace:...
. The painting was one of 72 taken to Paris in 1800 by the invading armies of Napoleon I
Napoleon I
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
(1769–1821), who was a noted admirer of Alexander the Great. The Louvre
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
held it until 1804, when Napoleon declared himself Emperor of France and took it for his own use. When the Prussians captured the Château de Saint-Cloud
Château de Saint-Cloud
The Château de Saint-Cloud was a Palace in France, built on a magnificent site overlooking the Seine at Saint-Cloud in Hauts-de-Seine, about 10 kilometres west of Paris. Today it is a large park on the outskirts of the capital and is owned by the state, but the area as a whole has had a large...
in 1814 as part of the War of the Sixth Coalition
War of the Sixth Coalition
In the War of the Sixth Coalition , a coalition of Austria, Prussia, Russia, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Sweden, Spain and a number of German States finally defeated France and drove Napoleon Bonaparte into exile on Elba. After Napoleon's disastrous invasion of Russia, the continental powers...
, they supposedly found the painting hanging in Napoleon's bathroom.
The Battle of Alexander at Issus and 26 others taken in the 1800 invasion were subsequently restored to the King of Bavaria in 1815. Five of the paintings in William IV's original set of eight – including The Battle of Alexander at Issus – later passed from the royal collection to the Alte Pinakothek
Alte Pinakothek
The Alte Pinakothek is an art museum situated in the Kunstareal in Munich, Germany. It is one of the oldest galleries in the world and houses one of the most famous collections of Old Master paintings...
art museum in Munich, Germany, where they remain; the other three are in the National Museum of Fine Arts in Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
, having been looted by the Swedish army in the Thirty Years War of 1618–1648. Susannah and the Elders is the only other work by Altdorfer in the Alte Pinakothek.
Contextually, the painting forms part of the Northern Renaissance
Northern Renaissance
The Northern Renaissance is the term used to describe the Renaissance in northern Europe, or more broadly in Europe outside Italy. Before 1450 Italian Renaissance humanism had little influence outside Italy. From the late 15th century the ideas spread around Europe...
, a resurgence of classical humanism and culture in northern Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries. The Renaissance induced a new kind of social individualism which Altdorfer expressed through the heroic emphasis on Alexander and Darius, and which is reflected in the specifics of the painting's commission and by the subjects of its companion pieces: "During the Renaissance people no longer saw themselves solely as members of a social group, as the citizens of a town, or as sinners before God in whose eyes all were equal. They had become aware of the unique qualities that distinguished one person from another. Unlike the Middle Ages, the Renaissance celebrated the individual. Altdorfer may have painted row after row of apparently identical warriors, but the spectators themselves would identify with Alexander and Darius, figures who had names, whose significance was indicated by the cord which hung down from the tablet above them."
Altdorfer was not only a pioneer of landscape, but also a practitioner of early incarnations of the Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
and expressionism
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
which impacted the arts so greatly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Kenneth Clark
Kenneth Clark
Kenneth McKenzie Clark, Baron Clark, OM, CH, KCB, FBA was a British author, museum director, broadcaster, and one of the best-known art historians of his generation...
writes of Altdorfer and contemporaries Grünewald and Bosch, "They are what we now call 'expressionist' artists, a term which is not as worthless as it sounds, because, in fact, the symbols of expressionism are remarkably consistent, and we find in the work of these early 16th-century landscape painters not only the same spirit but the same shapes and iconographical motives which recur in the work of such recent expressionists as van Gogh, Max Ernst
Max Ernst
Max Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism.-Early life:...
, Graham Sutherland
Graham Sutherland
Graham Vivien Sutherland OM was an English artist.-Early life:He was born in Streatham, attending Homefield Preparatory School, Sutton. He was then educated at Epsom College, Surrey before going up to Goldsmiths, University of London...
and Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...
." According to art critic Pia F. Cuneo, "Altdorfer's construction of landscape on a cosmic scale" in the Battle of Alexander at Issus, and his "spiritual and aesthetic affinities with Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
and Modern art (in particular, German Expressionism
German Expressionism
German Expressionism refers to a number of related creative movements beginning in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin, during the 1920s...
)", "have been especially singled out for praise".
The Battle of Alexander at Issus is typically considered to be Altdorfer's masterpiece
Masterpiece
Masterpiece in modern usage refers to a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or to a work of outstanding creativity, skill or workmanship....
. Cuneo states that the painting is usually "considered in splendid isolation from its fifteen other companion pieces, based on the assumption that it either metonymically stands in for the entire cycle, or that its perceived aesthetic predominance merits exclusive focus." German writer Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829) was one of many who saw the painting in the Louvre and marvelled, calling it a "small painted Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
". Reinhart Koselleck comments that Altdorfer's depiction of the thousands of soldiers was executed with "a mastery previously unknown", and Kathleen Davis describes the painting as "epochal in every sense".