Landscape with a Road to a Castle on an Island in a River

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

Like Augustin Hirschvogel, Hanns Lautensack populated his images with traces of human activity that serve to characterize the features of the land rather than suggest a narrative. In several of his etchings, Lautensack used a vertical, rather than horizontal, format, emphasizing the strong verticals of mountainous terrain. This verticality was a particular feature of artists working in the Danube River valley and not often repeated by landscape artists in later centuries. The print demonstrates the qualities of etching that appealed to Lautensack, namely, the freely drawn lines and spontaneity that was similar to drawing.