National Gallery of Scotland

Little-known German artist Adam Elsheimer had a lasting effect on landscape painting of the 17th-century European art world.

Adam Elsheimer, born 1578, was a 17th-century artist whose favorite type of painting was on copper, which allowed him to create extremely detailed paintings - richly colored - in a small format. The biggest is barely a foot high, the smallest about the size of a postcard. Copper is non-absorbent, so many layers could be built up without the pigments settling, and extremely thin layers of pigment could produce rich color saturation. Copper gives paintings an unusual luminosity, as light reflects off the metal background and makes paintings literally glow to the eye of the viewer.

This little-known artist had a lasting effect on landscape painting of the 17th century. Generations after him continued his natural realism and sensitive use of lighting in landscapes. Elsheimer was the first artist to depict accurately the constellations in the sky at night in his work "Flight Into Egypt", where viewers can witness his sensitive treatment of light.

Elsheimer was a meticulous painter. He worked so slowly that he ran into debt, for which he was imprisoned shortly before his death. It is rumored that in debtor's prison Elsheimer caught the disease that led to his early death at age 32. Supposedly the print-maker Goudt (who reproduced many of Elsheimer's works) had him imprisoned because of the money the artist owed him. After Elsheimer's death, the print-maker created engravings from Elsheimer's paintings that helped spread Elsheimer's artwork throughout Europe. Only 35 of his paintings remain.

He was a great artist, too little known today. Interestingly, he is the subject of an exhibition running June 23 to September 3, 2006 at the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh. The director of the National Galleries, John Leighton, states that Elsheimer may not be well-known, his work may not be splashy, and his subject matter may at times be obscure, but patrons who look closely at his work will be wowed by the detail and lushness of his Classical Landscape paintings. He calls them "Rubens or Rembrandt on the back of an envelope."

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