Danube School

Collective name given to various 16th-century artists working in the region of the River Danube in southern Germany and Austria. Though they never worked as a formal group, they are united by a new emphasis on landscape for its own sake. The leading figures include Lucas Cranach, Albrecht Altdorfer, and Wolfgang Huber.

Other members of the Danube school – which is seen as having introduced landscape painting into German art – include Jörg Breu (c. 1475–1537) and Rueland Frueauf the Younger, both of whom probably visited Vienna during the first five years of the 16th century. The workshop of Jörg Kölderer, court painter to Emperor Maximilian I, may have provided a focus here. It is usually taken to apply to painters, but sculptors, architects, and other artists were also influenced by it.