Dürer's Rhinoceros, and Other Hybrids

Over at The Shrine, I've finally had the opportunity to write a decent-sized essay, some reflections on Albrecht Dürer and his brilliant if ideologically checkered legacy of work. Some may object to his humanism, his ego and his later crypto-Protestantism, but his oeuvre nonetheless is a fascinating fusion of the classic and the medieval, and, at least at his career's start, fairly iconographically pure, if judiciously innovative. So, if you're in the mood, head over to the Holy Whapping and have a look at Dürer's universe of Passion-plays, fanciful rhinoceri, domesticated satyrs, apocalyptic horsemen, bifurciate pigs and other wonders that straddle a strange and tempestuous period.

Also, for those of you in New York, the Museum of Biblical Art is sponsoring an exhibit, Albrecht Dürer: Art in Transition, running until September 21. It's a wonderful collection of his more well-known woodcuts and less-popular, but elegantly detailed engravings. They let you get right up to the glass and squint, which is a real pleasure if you're a fellow artist.