Wolf Huber was an 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 painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

, printmaker, and architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

, a leading 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...

.

Life

Records show that Huber was born in Feldkirch, Vorarlberg

Feldkirch, Vorarlberg

- Schools :* Bundesgymnasium und Bundesrealgymnasium Feldkirch * Bundeshandelsakademie und Bundeshandelsschule Feldkirch* Bundesoberstufenrealgymnasium und Bundesrealgymnasium Schillerstrasse...

, but that by 1515 he was living in Passau

Passau

Passau is a town in Lower Bavaria, Germany. It is also known as the Dreiflüssestadt or "City of Three Rivers," because the Danube is joined at Passau by the Inn from the south and the Ilz from the north....

. His relationship with other painters of that name living in Feldkirch is unknown, although it is widely believed that he was related to Hans Huber. Huber's birthdate has been estimated at around 1485 on the basis of several works, dated between 1510 and 1515, which show him to have been a well-established and mature artist by that date.

Nothing is known of Huber's training, although he likely worked in a family workshop

Workshop

A workshop is a room or building which provides both the area and tools that may be required for the manufacture or repair of manufactured goods...

 before setting out as a journeyman

Journeyman

A journeyman is someone who completed an apprenticeship and was fully educated in a trade or craft, but not yet a master. To become a master, a journeyman had to submit a master work piece to a guild for evaluation and be admitted to the guild as a master....

 painter. He likely visited northern Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, as much of his work shows a thorough grounding in the stylistic techniques of the Italian Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

. Drawings of local subjects reveal that he visited the Salzkammergut

Salzkammergut

The Salzkammergut is a resort area located in Austria. It stretches from City of Salzburg to the Dachstein mountain range, spanning the federal states of Upper Austria , Salzburg , and Styria . The main river of the region is the Traun, a tributary of the Danube...

 at least once.

After his relocation to Passau, Huber in 1517 became court painter

Court painter

A court painter was an artist who painted for the members of a royal or noble family, sometimes on a fixed salary and on an exclusive basis where the artist was not supposed to undertake other work. Especially in the late Middle Ages, they were often given the office of valet de chambre...

 to the Duke of Bavaria

Bavaria

Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...

, Ernst, who administered the local diocese

Diocese

A diocese is the district or see under the supervision of a bishop. It is divided into parishes.An archdiocese is more significant than a diocese. An archdiocese is presided over by an archbishop whose see may have or had importance due to size or historical significance...

 until 1540. In 1529 another local nobleman, Count Niklas II von Salm, commissioned him to rebuild Neuberg Palace on the Inn River

Inn River

The Inn is a river in Switzerland, Austria and Germany. It is a right tributary of the Danube and is approximately 500km long. The highest point of its drainage basin is the summit of Piz Bernina, at 4,049 metres.- Geography :...

, not far from the town, only fragments of which survive. These indicate the addition of wings in the style of the Italian Renaissance, complete with rich decorative paintings. Huber probably also designed the relief

Relief

Relief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...

s on the tomb

Tomb

A tomb is a repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes...

 of the Count's father, Niklas I von Salm, now located in the Votivkirche

Votivkirche

The Votive Church in Vienna, Austria, is one of the most important neo-Gothic religious architectural sites in the world.- Origin :Located on Ringstraße in the Alsergrund district near the University of Vienna, the origin of the church derives from a knife-attack on Emperor Franz Joseph by...

 in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

. For his work on the palace Huber was awarded a pension

Pension

In general, a pension is an arrangement to provide people with an income when they are no longer earning a regular income from employment. Pensions should not be confused with severance pay; the former is paid in regular installments, while the latter is paid in one lump sum.The terms retirement...

 and a manor house

Manor house

A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes...

, Neufils.

When Count Wolfgang von Salm became Passau's bishop

Bishop

A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...

 in 1542, he confirmed Huber's status as court painter, further recording that he was not subject to the laws of the guild of painters. The artist died in his manor house in Passau in 1553.

Work

None of Huber's architectural work has survived, and few of his paintings are extant. Those paintings still in existence show a heavy influence from the work of 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...

; some also show distinct Mannerist tendencies. Almost none of Huber's portrait

Portrait

thumb|250px|right|Portrait of [[Thomas Jefferson]] by [[Rembrandt Peale]], 1805. [[New-York Historical Society]].A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,...

s survive, save for the pendants of mintmaster Anton Hundertpfund and his wife (dated 1526) and the unusual image of Jakob Ziegler (dated 1550), in which the scholar is presented frontally, before a panorama

Panorama

A panorama is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film/video, or a three-dimensional model....

 of the cosmos

Cosmos

In the general sense, a cosmos is an orderly or harmonious system. It originates from the Greek term κόσμος , meaning "order" or "ornament" and is antithetical to the concept of chaos. Today, the word is generally used as a synonym of the word Universe . The word cosmos originates from the same root...

. Huber's surviving drawing

Drawing

Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...

s suggest a number of multi-figured compositions, now lost; his known graphic output is limited to thirteen 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.

Huber's drawings were copied from an early date; his landscape

Landscape

Landscape comprises the visible features of an area of land, including the physical elements of landforms such as mountains, hills, water bodies such as rivers, lakes, ponds and the sea, living elements of land cover including indigenous vegetation, human elements including different forms of...

s in particular bear a deal of resemblance to similar works by 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....

. He influenced his contemporary, the draughtsman Augustin Hirschvogel

Augustin Hirschvogel

Augustin Hirschvogel was a German artist, mathematician, and cartographer known primarily for his etchings. His thirty-five small landscape etchings, made between 1545 and 1549, assured him a place in the Danube School, a circle of artists in sixteenth-century Bavaria and Austria.- Life :He began...

.