DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.48092#0288
CHAPTER XIII.
THE THEORY OF FORTIFICATION.
OUR account of Diirer’s works as an author would not be
complete without some notice of his book on Fortifications,
although, to the student of art, it presents few matters of
interest. The subject always possessed a certain fascination
for Diirer from the days when, in his Wanderjahre, he made
sketches of the Venediger Klausen (Louvre), the Welsch Schloss
(Haussmann Collection), and other castles (Louvre and Bremen).
Early association endeared the Niirnberg Veste to his heart;
picturesque combinations of massive walls and frowning rocks
could not fail of attraction for his artist’s eye, wherever and when-
ever he met with them. He was led on once again from the
picturesque to the scientific point of view, from making drawings
of castles to considering how they should best be planned.
The subject of fortification attracted much attention in
Diirer’s day, for the security of every man’s life and property
depended upon the strength of his city’s defences. The Re-
nascence was changing the tactics of war as it changed every-
thing else. Artillery was being developed, and gas was winning
its victory over muscle. Old defences, like old political and
social structures, had to be changed. Diirer in this, as in all else,
accurately reflected, but with the brightness of concentration,
the thoughts of the ordinary citizen of his day. His methodizing
mind reduced to form the subjects upon which his fellows
chattered and gossiped. They went to see the new great gun of
Niirnberg; he went to sketch and engrave it. His piercing
intellect failed not in this also to see deeper than others saw.
In October 1527 he gave to the world the results of his
experience, invention, and reasoning, in the form of a book
THE THEORY OF FORTIFICATION.
OUR account of Diirer’s works as an author would not be
complete without some notice of his book on Fortifications,
although, to the student of art, it presents few matters of
interest. The subject always possessed a certain fascination
for Diirer from the days when, in his Wanderjahre, he made
sketches of the Venediger Klausen (Louvre), the Welsch Schloss
(Haussmann Collection), and other castles (Louvre and Bremen).
Early association endeared the Niirnberg Veste to his heart;
picturesque combinations of massive walls and frowning rocks
could not fail of attraction for his artist’s eye, wherever and when-
ever he met with them. He was led on once again from the
picturesque to the scientific point of view, from making drawings
of castles to considering how they should best be planned.
The subject of fortification attracted much attention in
Diirer’s day, for the security of every man’s life and property
depended upon the strength of his city’s defences. The Re-
nascence was changing the tactics of war as it changed every-
thing else. Artillery was being developed, and gas was winning
its victory over muscle. Old defences, like old political and
social structures, had to be changed. Diirer in this, as in all else,
accurately reflected, but with the brightness of concentration,
the thoughts of the ordinary citizen of his day. His methodizing
mind reduced to form the subjects upon which his fellows
chattered and gossiped. They went to see the new great gun of
Niirnberg; he went to sketch and engrave it. His piercing
intellect failed not in this also to see deeper than others saw.
In October 1527 he gave to the world the results of his
experience, invention, and reasoning, in the form of a book