Rest on the Flight into Egypt

Were it not for Mary’s throne-shaped lap, this might be any German family on a hike. Albrecht Altdorfer transported the Holy Family on their flight from persecution to a forested setting, with the Alps in the distance. His interest in such views led him to make the first pure, figureless landscapes in Western European art, forever elevating landscape to the autonomous, art-worthy genre it is today. Here the infant’s impatient, nicely foreshortened stretch is the only hint of the Holy Family’s travails.