Color enlivens the Virgin and Child in this woodblock, accents their haloes, and decorates the frame that surrounds them. The shades are basic, and the registration is not perfect. Still, this is something new in color printing. It is perhaps the earliest woodblock whose color was not applied by hand, with brushes or stencils, but by printing separate tone blocks, one for each of the five colors in succession, with no overlap. Another block printed the black lines. Tone blocks let Altdorfer exploit the white of the paper by reserving some areas within the fields of color; he did this to render the foliate design in the green pilasters of the frame, for example, and to create highlights in the Virgin’s robe.

These are molds used to cast lead or silver badges that, like the prints, were sold to pilgrims to the Regensburg shrine. Altdorfer produced designs for them. A contemporary account relates that supplies ran low in the first year of the pilgrimage and that people wept when they had to return home empty-handed. The next year 109,108 clay tokens were manufactured, along with 9,763 silver ones.

These two etchings of the Regensburg synagogue before its destruction are the first northern prints known that were made expressly to record a particular building. They represent the beginning of a long tradition of topographical prints that subsequent generations of printmakers would explore. Whatever motive Altdorfer might have had in recording the synagogue, beyond simply making a factual record, is impossible to know. Probably he acted quickly, perhaps basing the prints on drawings made in the interval between the council’s decision and the building’s destruction. His decision to etch them—etching is a much quicker process than engraving—argues for a hasty execution.

Within a month, a wooden chapel was built on the site of the synagogue, and the painting was transferred to it, set within a marble frame. Outside, a standing statue of the Virgin was also erected. Both are recorded in a woodcut by Altdorfer’s younger contemporary Michael Ostendorfer. Also clear in Ostendorfer’s print is the extreme nature of the pilgrims’ devotion. Many are prostrate on the ground, others strain toward the statue. Clothing that came in contact with the statue was said to be effective in curing sick cattle. Contemporary accounts reported that parties of pilgrims arriving from outlying areas would elect one of their number to disrobe outside the town walls and approach the shrine naked.

Protestant leaders in the region viewed this level of religious frenzy with suspicion and disapproval, fearing it as socially destabilizing. Moreover, they judged it another example of cynical chicanery from Rome intended to exploit the poor and uneducated. Martin Luther expressed his opposition in unequivocal terms: “The chapels in forest and the churches in fields, is as Wilsnack, Steinber, Trier, the Grimmenthal, and now Regensburg and a goodly number of others which recently have become the goal of pilgrimages, must be leveled.... The miracles that happen in these places prove nothing, for the evil spirit can also work miracles as Christ has told us in Matthew 24.” Albrecht Dürer owned a copy of the Ostendorfer print and annotated it with his own critical opinion of the motivation behind the shrine and its promotion by the town and church: ”This apparition has been set up against Holy Scripture at Regensberg and displayed by the Bishop, and for the sake of temporal profit not abolished. God help us that we not thus dishonor His esteemed Mother....”

Altdorfer would eventually embrace Protestantism, but his beliefs at the time he was making the Beautiful Virgin are not known; religious sentiment in southern Germany was especially fluid in the first years of the Reformation. Luther had posted the Ninety-Five Theses only in 1517. Printmakers played an important role in the religious upheavals that ensued, disseminating information and propaganda, on both sides of the religious debate, but they were also businessmen who naturally gauged opportunities for profit. By 1525, the fervor of devotion to the Beautiful Virgin had subsided and the pilgrims had stopped coming. A new stone church, largely funded by the sale of pilgrim goods,  was built to replace the wooden structure but was not completed until 1542, when it opened as Regensburg’s first Protestant church.

What was the future of Altdorfer’s experimental color block technique? While the artist’s synagogue etchings and his innovative landscape prints helped launch long lines of exploration by later printmakers, the color woodblock technique did not. Inexpensive popular prints continued to be colored with stencils. Some artists, notably Dürer, eschewed color altogether in their print works. Considering the astonishing lighting and three-dimensional effects Dürer achieved in these black-and-white images, Erasmus (a great admirer of the artist) wondered, “Is it not more wonderful to accomplish [them] without the blandishments of color....” Other print artists turned to the restricted color range of chiaroscuro woodcuts, which used a single tone block. Color printing of a type foreshadowed by Altdorfer’s Beautiful Virgin would have to wait for another century.

Altdorfer owned several vineyards and held various city positions. As city architect, he was responsible for the construction of municipal buildings and for reinforcing fortifications when the city was threatened by Ottoman forces. He received commissions from the emperor and delayed appointment as burgomaster (mayor) of Regensburg to complete a commission for the Duke of Bavaria. This painting, which depicted Alexander at the battle of Issos (Alte Pinakothek, Munich), is regarded as his greatest work. It reveals his taste for fantasy, brilliant color, manipulations of scale, and dazzling light. The scene takes place in a cosmic landscape; the figures are secondary in importance, actually and artistically.

Altdorfer’s lasting contribution was to introduce landscape as a subject worthy of art in its own right and not simply as a backdrop for something else. He painted the first independent landscapes and created the first landscape prints that were not tied narratives with figures. Also from Altdorfer came some of the first drawings known of identifiable places. His response to nature was expressive; for him nature appears as an active, animated presence.