Getty Museum
Studies of Heads (recto); Studies of a Male Figure (verso)
Creator
Hans Baldung GrienGerman Artist · 1484–1485
All works by this person →Surrounded by physicians, lawyers, and scholars, Hans Baldung Grien was one of the first German artists from a learned family. He first studied in Strasbourg or Swabia around 1499. While in Albrecht Dürer's Nuremberg workshop from 1503 to 1507, he was nicknamed "Grien," probably after his favorite color, green, and to distinguish him from other apprentices named "Hans." Two years later he settled
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- about 1512–1513
- Medium
- Pen and black ink
- Culture
- German
- Department
- Drawings
- Institution
- Getty Museum
- Object ID
- 199e2d6d-47e4-4252-bce5-d60cea0f5431
As he practiced drawing different heads for use in later paintings and prints, Hans Baldung Grien created a pattern unified by abstract hatching. The facing heads represent three distinct facial types: a young woman with long flowing hair and a crown, a bearded man in the top left, and a young man looking upward at the bottom right. By contrast, the six faces clustered in groups of two and four near the upper center of the sheet resemble physiognomic studies, or variations on distinctive profiles. Baldung Grien recorded various hooked, straight, and curving noses combined with rounded, pointed, and sloping or non-existent chins. The artist used light, flowing strokes to outline most of the faces and dark, broader accents to emphasize the eyes, noses, and mouths.
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