{"id":991,"date":"2021-07-06T08:06:02","date_gmt":"2021-07-06T00:06:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.atelierauction.com\/globalupdates\/?p=991"},"modified":"2021-07-05T12:10:30","modified_gmt":"2021-07-05T04:10:30","slug":"was-albrecht-durer-a-genius-an-idiosyncratic-new-book-searches-for-answers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.atelierauction.com\/globalupdates\/artist\/was-albrecht-durer-a-genius-an-idiosyncratic-new-book-searches-for-answers\/","title":{"rendered":"Was Albrecht D\u00fcrer a Genius? An Idiosyncratic New Book Searches for Answers"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is a sad fact that artists\u2019 lives are often nowhere near as interesting as their work. That\u2019s because, in some ways, they\u2019re just like the rest of us. Even the most talented biographers find themselves beleaguered in the face of an artistic giant like, say, Albrecht D\u00fcrer, perhaps the most famous artist of the Northern Renaissance. A case in point: In 1913, when critic Robert Fry edited D\u00fcrer\u2019s journals, he thought he would obtain grand insights into D\u00fcrer\u2019s art. Instead, he found something like a bland travelogue. He discovered that D\u00fcrer traded a print for dried fishes and coral, as well as some other trinkets, and that he once gave a prince some engravings in exchange for a coconut, two parrots, a fur coat, and more. He also learned that D\u00fcrer bought a pair of socks.<\/p>\n

The tale of Fry\u2019s disappointment is included in\u00a0Albert and the Whale: Albrecht D\u00fcrer and How Art Imagines Our World<\/em>\u00a0(Pegasus), a new book by\u00a0Philip Hoare<\/a>. Hoare did not set out to write out a biography of D\u00fcrer, though he probably could have, given that he penned the definitive tome about the life of playwright No\u00ebl Coward back in 1995. Instead, Hoare offers up a text that is something closer to a book of essays. Its focus is less on the Renaissance artist than on his continued allure today. Why, Hoare wonders, do we still care about an artist who lived and died centuries ago? Was D\u00fcrer a genius, and does that matter, anyway?<\/p>\n

The central event in this fascinating book involves a missed connection between D\u00fcrer and a dead whale. In 1520, while attempting to run away from a plague that was sweeping through Europe, D\u00fcrer set sail for the Netherlands\u2019 Zeeland region, where he was told there was a beached whale washed ashore. D\u00fcrer had a knack for etching almost impossibly detailed images of animals\u2014he was exceptionally good at lending them the kind of psychology typically only afforded to humans in portraits at the time\u2014and so he simply had to see the creature for himself. D\u00fcrer\u2019s ship just barely made it there in one piece, and the artist caught malaria in the process. When he got there, he never even saw the whale\u2014the canals were covered in an ooze that made them impassable, so he never got to see the maritime beast.<\/p>\n

\u201cD\u00fcrer\u2019s own abortive, amphibious expedition would shorten his life, from a condition he couldn\u2019t name, because of an animal he didn\u2019t see,\u201d Hoare writes. And yet, good art resulted: D\u00fcrer developed a fascination with sea creatures, and he wound up making work about them. In 1521, for one pen drawing now in the British Museum\u2019s collection, D\u00fcrer made an image of a walrus, its skin flecked with spiky-looking hairs. The walrus appears to seethe with rage\u2014its eyes seem to pop out of its skull. The image is so exacting that it\u2019s hard to believe that historians don\u2019t even know for sure that D\u00fcrer ever saw a walrus up close.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mulling a skeleton of a walrus, Hoare marvels at D\u00fcrer\u2019s abilities. \u201cWe cannot capture living, quivering creatures, their flesh and bone, tusks and fur, instincts and apprehensions,\u201d he writes. \u201cYet D\u00fcrer got close, even when he didn\u2019t see the real thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"The<\/div>\n<\/div>
COURTESY PEGASUS BOOKS<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Hoare is hardly alone in finding himself awed by D\u00fcrer\u2019s craft. A range of figures throughout history have similarly fallen under the artist\u2019s spell, from the writer Herman Melville (who himself created the ultimate artwork about whales,\u00a0Moby-Dick<\/em>) to the essayist W. G. Sebald, whose influence on\u00a0Albert and the Whale\u00a0<\/em>is palpable.<\/p>\n

A lengthy digression focused on the life of novelist\u00a0Thomas Mann<\/a>\u00a0forms the book\u2019s centerpiece. Mann was also a big D\u00fcrer fan, as Hoare continuously points out\u2014his novels are laced with allusions to the artist. The protagonist of Mann\u2019s 1943 novel\u00a0Doctor Faustus<\/em>, a doctor named Adrian Leverk\u00fchn, has a passion for D\u00fcrer, and at one point in Mann\u2019s revision of the Faust tale, Adrian begins to look disheveled, growing a beard. Hoare claims this is an allusion to D\u00fcrer\u2019s own 1500 self-portrait, in which the artist\u2019s piercing gaze meets the viewer\u2019s. \u201cHe has become D\u00fcrer,<\/a>\u201d Hoare writes.<\/p>\n

Albert and the Whale<\/em>\u00a0nearly spins out of control as Hoare delves into the history of Marianne Moore, an eccentric poet who loved D\u00fcrer and who, like the artist, found herself entranced when standing before monumental creatures hauled out of the ocean and onto land. But the story snaps back into place in its own idiosyncratic way.<\/p>\n

This is a whirlwind book, filled with people, places, and things that are often deliberately left blurry. The text is dotted with images without captions to identify them, and the prose is interspersed with unmarked quotations from writings of all kinds. (For those unwilling to surrender to the book\u2019s controlled chaos, there\u2019s a source list on Hoare\u2019s website.) It\u2019s all a bit confounding\u2014but it has a mesmerizing effect.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Toward the end of\u00a0Albert and the Whale<\/em>, Hoare finds himself in a Vienna library, holding a small piece of glass that contains what may be a wisp of D\u00fcrer\u2019s hair. \u201cI\u2019m holding D\u00fcrer,\u201d Hoare remarks. A 1550 note from a merchant certifies that this is D\u00fcrer\u2019s hair, though for all we know it could just as well belong to anyone. Hoare seems convinced, however, and he\u2019s concocted a whole story in his head about how valuable it is. \u201cD\u00fcrer was raised on relics,\u201d he writes. \u201cNow he is one<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source:https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is a sad fact that artists\u2019 lives are often nowhere near as interesting as their work. That\u2019s because, in some ways, they\u2019re just like the rest of us. Even the most talented biographers find themselves beleaguered in the face of an artistic giant like, say, Albrecht D\u00fcrer, perhaps the most famous artist of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,13,7,4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-991","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artist","8":"category-auction","9":"category-events","10":"category-gallery","11":"category-latest-news"},"yoast_head":"\nWas Albrecht D\u00fcrer a Genius? An Idiosyncratic New Book Searches for Answers - Investable Art Auctioneer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It is a sad fact that artists\u2019 lives are often nowhere near as interesting as their work. That\u2019s because, in some ways, they\u2019re just like the rest of us.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.atelierauction.com\/globalupdates\/artist\/was-albrecht-durer-a-genius-an-idiosyncratic-new-book-searches-for-answers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Was Albrecht D\u00fcrer a Genius? An Idiosyncratic New Book Searches for Answers - Investable Art Auctioneer\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It is a sad fact that artists\u2019 lives are often nowhere near as interesting as their work. 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