Early Modern Battles and Military Strategy

Albrecht Dürer, The Siege of a Fortress (left side only, of 2 blocks), 1527, Woodcut on paper. Acquired by the Clark, 1968. The Clark Art Institute, 1968.267.

Much war imagery from the early modern period (1500–1800) lacks an eyewitness dimension. Renaissance artists were often attracted to staged, reconfigured, or imagined battle subjects for the compositional challenge of arranging large groups of figures and rendering the human body in strenuous action. Major artists were also involved in designs for military fortifications and defense, on commission from their princely leaders.