The Massacre of the Innocents 

Albrecht Altdorfer made this drawing of The Massacre of the Innocents with pen and brown ink. The massacre comes from the Gospel of Matthew, where King Herod orders the execution of all young male children in the vicinity of Bethlehem, so as to avoid the loss of his throne to a newborn King of the Jews. Here the horror unfolds amidst an elaborate Italianate building. Altdorfer was a leading member of the Danube School, based in Bavaria, and he never travelled to Italy. Yet, we can see he has borrowed wholesale from the Italian Renaissance, especially in the architecture, complete with classical statues. The massacre, as shown here, is both a biblical story and a contemporary commentary on the artist’s cultural moment. Art history is an inexact science. To understand this image better, one might look at period accounts of church architecture, the history of religious belief, or even the visual culture of the Danube school itself. Meaning in art is contingent on such socio-historical contexts.