# View of a Town along the River with a Church on the Right Bank [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [LAUTENSACK, Hanns]() - Date: 1551-1600 - Technique: Etching, 112 x 170 mm ## Commentary View of a Town along the River with a Church on the Right Bank 1533 Etching, 112 x 170 mm The Hermitage, St. Petersburg In the early sixteenth-century several German artists embarked on a sustained investigation of pure landscape in painting, drawing, and printmaking. For the first time in northern Europe, these artists produced landscapes that were not simply the backgrounds for narrative scenes, but were themselves the main or only subject. Because two of the most important practitioners of this landscape art, Albrecht Altdorfer and Wolf Huber, were active in the mountainous region of the Danube River Valley, the general phenomenon of pure landscape in Renaissance Germany became known as the Danube School. One of the most delightful of these artists was Hanns Lautensack. ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()