03 — ARTWORK
Landscape with Cannon
- MEDIUM
- Etching, 217 x 322 mm
- TYPE
- Landscape
PALETTE
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THIS REPRODUCTION
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CURRENT LOCATION · Metropolitan Museum of Art
- FILE
- 860 × 600 px · JPEG
COMMENTARY
UNDERLINED TERMS ARE DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY.
This cannon, decorated with the coat-of-arms of the city of Nuremberg, is the weapon which gave superiority of firepower to Emperor Maximilian I in his fight against the infidels (the Turks were then threatening the borders of the Empire). For many years, and again during the Diet of Augsburg in 1518, the Emperor had urged a new crusade, only to be denied the necessary funds by the princes and estates. It is not quite clear whether the Turk in the etching is an ambassador or a prisoner. Dürer pictured a cannon of older vintage, which by then had been replaced by newer models cast in the Emperor's new foundry near Innsbruck.
The landscape is based on an earlier drawing of Reuth near Bamberg. For the Turk, Dürer made use of a drawing dating back some twenty years, but replaced the head with a likeness of himself. This etching is a masterpieceA term now loosely applied to the finest work by a particular artist or to any work of art of acknowledged greatness or of preeminence in its field. Originally it meant the piece of work by which a craftsman, having finished his training, gained the rank of'master' in his guild. of panoramic breadth, perspectiveThe method of representing three-dimensional objects on a flat surface. Perspective gives a picture a sense of depth. The most important form of perspective in the Renaissance was linear perspective (first formulated by the architect Brunelleschi in the early 15th century), in which the real or suggested lines of objects converge on a vanishing point on the horizon, often in the middle of the composition (centralized perspective). The first artist to make a systematic use of linear perspective was Masaccio, and its principles were set out by the architect Alberti in a book published in 1436. The use of linear perspective had a profound effect on the development of Western art and remained unchallenged until the 20th century. coherence and clarity, announcing a new and final phase in Dürer's development, and reinstating the predominance of painting and orthodox burin work. It is the largest of Dürer's etchings.
OTHER WORKS BY ALBRECHT DÜRER
CITE THIS RECORD — BIBTEX
@online{wga-re106c7706ea564,
author = {Krén, Emil and Marx, Daniel},
title = {Landscape with Cannon by DÜRER, Albrecht},
organization = {{Web Gallery of Art}},
date = {2026-09-13},
url = {https://beta.wga.hu/artists/drer-albrecht-r9b10ff91cb62c2/landscape-with-cannon-re106c7706ea564},
urldate = {2026-09-13},
langid = {english}
}ACCESSED 2026-09-13. REPLACE THE AUTHOR FIELD WITH THE COMMENTARY AUTHOR WHERE ONE IS NAMED.