An Analysis Of Albrecht Dürer's Woodcut 'Rhinoceros'

Made in the year 1515, Albrecht Dürer’s woodcut rhinoceros, entitled The Rhinoceros, was created by woodcut; a relief printing technique. It stands at 9.3 inches by 11.7 inches, and is currently residing at The National Gallery of Art, in Washington. Dürer’s woodcut became very popular in Europe and was also copied many times, which continued for the next three centuries. It was also said about Dürer’s woodcut is that no other animal artwork had such an impact on the influence of arts.

In this artwork it is obvious that this does not have the real characteristics of a rhinoceros, instead, it has hard plates that cover its body like armor, a gorget at the throat, rivets along the seams and a solid-looking breastplate, a small twisted horn above the shoulders, scaley legs, and saw-like rear quarters. Dürer added all of these simply because he hadn’t seen a real rhinoceros and improvised in this artwork. Although, there are many characteristics comparing Dürer’s artwork and a real rhinoceros, for example, the build of the rhinoceros is very much similar and it is present that they have at least one horn, though Dürer’s piece only had one horn instead of two. At the top of the artwork, there are words

And although it doesn’t represent a real rhinoceros it just shows how much a creative mind can create, especially when it is a woodcut piece. Dürer uses Imitationalism by creating a woodcut of a rhinoceros from his imagination, this was his version of what looked like a rhinoceros, since he had never seen one before and wanted to recreate the image of one. Though, his woodcut and a real rhinoceros do have some similarities and some differences, it looked very well thought out. Dürer’s arrangement of elements and principles are thoroughly used with great extent, and it’s obvious that Dürer had quite an imagination to make it seem the rhinoceros was an indestructible