Hans Baldung Grien (c. 1484–1545), Dürer's most talented student, was an important artist in Strasbourg during the Early Reformation. He worked among the elite humanists of that time, reformists, conservative Catholic sponsors, rich merchants and aristocrats. In general Baldung has always remained in dialogue with Dürer's works and their darker dimension.
Using typical depictions of decomposing bodies and naked female bodies, Baldung managed to create complex allegorical creations with many layers of meaning, but without obvious religious visual symbolism and moralization.
Vanity in a narrower and more complete form is the central motive of Baldun's depictions of Death and Woman, the sense of death with a sense of time, which he painted from 1503 onwards and which with him culminates in development in the fine arts. Baldung was also the first to produce unblinded erotic acts in the history of art.
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