Albrecht Dürer’s ‘The Great Piece of Turf’

Light comments about interesting art

Detail of "The Great Piece of Turf," 1503, by Albrecht Dürer. Watercolor and gouache on paper, mounted on cardboard, 16 inches by 12-3/8 inches. Albertina Museum, Vienna. Public Domain

If you were a field mouse, a meadow would be your home, where lots of greens might make your mouth water. You look ahead and see a salad of delicious plants, and you head straight for it. This is how we see the watercolor “The Great Piece of Turf” (1503) by Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528)—from the perspective of a small animal, such as a field mouse.

Renaissance artists were discovering the beauty of nature with the help of new findings in science. Dürer’s interest in botany propelled him to study various plants and to draw them almost scientifically. In his newly established workshop in Nuremberg, Germany, Dürer made nature studies and, in this case, a composition of common meadow plants.

It is suggested that the artist first sketched individual sedges, grasses, and reeds, then, artist that he was, painted a watercolor in a way that was pleasing to the eye. The National Gallery of Art’s website says this about the arrangement: “Dürer’s deft synthesis of the compositional elements—each plant working in concert to create a unified whole—results in an exceptionally naturalistic effect. This masterpiece of observation creates a vivid microcosm that blurs the line between artifice and nature.”

Broad leaves support the slightly windblown lines of grass. A dot of yellow dandelion pops out to draw our eyes upward to the taller grasses. They swirl upward in a natural way, as if to say, “We are here for you, little mouse”—a banquet for a field mouse, and a visual feast for us.

We see an unordered clump of individual plants and grasses as they would be seen in nature, bending this way and that. The yarrow, dandelions, and blades of grass all move in their own rhythm. Tom Lubbock, writing for The Independent, says: “It mirrors our minds, where things do exist in isolation. The world as we conceive it, and as we often picture it, is made up of distinct and detachable entities.”

"The Great Piece of Turf," 1503, by Albrecht Dürer. Watercolor and gouache on paper, mounted on cardboard, 16 inches by 12 3/8 inches. Albertina Museum, Vienna. Public Domain

Natural Composition

Dürer’s watercolor shows a natural placement of plants, yet the plants are carefully placed together, in a way not found naturally, as only an artist would do. An IPL website analysis of his watercolor says: “Dürer’s representation of nature does not lie in mere imitation. Instead, he extracted ideal forms and imaginary figures from nature.”

The watercolor has all of the characteristics of a still life, as if carefully arranged in an interior setting. We can identify each of the plants, which were common to meadows in his native Germany: cock’s-foot grasses (invasive grass from North Africa), creeping bent (a common bluegrass often used for turf), smooth meadow-grass (known in the United States as Kentucky bluegrass), daisy (a common perennial with spoon-shaped leaves), dandelion (a common edible wildflower), germander speedwell (a plant with blue flowers), greater plantain (an edible flowering plant), hound’s-tongue (small-flowered plant with burs), and yarrow (a tall plant with tiny disk flowers). Some plants’ roots are exposed.

The tones and shades of green grasses and plants weave in and out over a brown base. A gouache, or opaque pigment, gives depth to the brown soil. A background wash of warm pink, in the same color family as the brown in the foreground, highlights the various lines and shapes of greenery.

Everything is composed at the service of the whole work of art. The lines and colors balance each other; the shapes and line of vision are in perfect scale.

The Renaissance celebrated everything in God’s creation: animals, plants, and human beings, and Dürer had mastered them all in his art. All the greenery in “The Great Piece of Turf” is alive and full of movement and growth. Lubbock says of the watercolor: “It is a slice of living, chaotic undergrowth.”

Dürer shows the beauty of nature, seemingly unordered, but with a natural rhythm that pleases and delights both mice and men.