* Dürer's Rhinoceros cut.

Dürer's Rhinoceros, woodcut, 1515.

* Dürer's Rhinoceros

***** Rhinoceros, from: en: Dürer's Rhinoceros | Dürer's woodcutRhinoceroses are odd-toed ungulates with horns made of keratin, the same type of protein composing hair.

* Dürer's Rhinoceros

Dürer's Rhinoceros

The German artist Albrecht Dürer saw the sketches and descriptions and carved a woodcut of the rhino, known ever after as Dürer's Rhinoceros.

The obvious resemblance with Dürer's Rhinoceros is quite clear.

Norfolk based his second novel, The Pope's Rhinoceros, on the story of an actual animal ; see Dürer's Rhinoceros.

* Dürer's Rhinoceros, a woodcut image

Dürer's Rhinoceros, a fanciful ' armoured ' depiction.

16th century claw hammer from Albrecht Dürer | Dürer's " Melencolia I " ( 1514 )

16th century claw hammer from Albrecht Dürer | Dürer's " Melencolia I " ( 1514 )

This detail from Salvator Mundi, an unfinished oil painting on wood, reveals Dürer's highly detailed preparatory drawing.

Albrecht Dürer's drawing contrasts a well turned out bourgeoise from Nuremberg ( left ) with her counterpart from Venice.

Dürer's work on the book was halted for an unknown reason, and the decoration was continued by artists including Lucas Cranach the Elder and Hans Baldung.

Dürer's work on geometry is called the Four Books on Measurement ( Underweysung der Messung mit dem Zirckel und Richtscheyt or Instructions for Measuring with Compass and Ruler ).

Dürer's work on human proportions is called the Four Books on Human Proportion ( Vier Bücher von Menschlicher Proportion ) of 1528.

Dürer's belief in the abilities of a single artist over inspiration prompted him to assert that " one man may sketch something with his pen on half a sheet of paper in one day, or may cut it into a tiny piece of wood with his little iron, and it turns out to be better and more artistic than another's work at which its author labours with the utmost diligence for a whole year.

When analysing the work of the artist as a whole, Ronald Paulson says, " In A Harlot's Progress, every single plate but one is based on Dürer's images of the story of the Virgin and the story of the Passion.

These include The Descent from the Cross by Rogier van der Weyden, The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymous Bosch, Knight with his Hand on his Breast by El Greco, The Death of the Virgin by Mantegna, The Holy Family, known as " La Perla ", by Raphael, Charles V at Mülhberg by Titian, Christ Washing the Disciples ’ Feet by Tintoretto, Dürer's Self-portrait, Las Meninas by Velázquez, The Three Graces by Rubens, and The Family of Charles IV by Goya.

It was, until recently, preserved in the German National Museum, on the same floor as Albrecht Dürer's gallery ( owing to Nuremberg being the heart of the German Renaissance ).

* Albrecht Dürer's book on geometry and perspective, The Painter's Manual ( more literally, the Instructions on Measurement ) is published at Nuremberg.

However, Dürer's influence became less dominant after 1515, when Marcantonio perfected his new engraving style, which in turn traveled over the Alps to dominate Northern engraving also.

Analyzing Albrecht Dürer's famous 1515 woodcut, it is possible that the liberties taken with the rhino's design were in fact designs for a suit of armour created for the rhinoceros's fight against an elephant in Portugal.

Dürer's introduction of classical motifs into Northern art, through his knowledge of Italian artists and German humanists, has secured his reputation as one of the most important figures of the Northern Renaissance.

Dürer's godfather was Anton Koberger, who left goldsmithing to become a printer and publisher in the year of Dürer's birth.

He left in 1490, possibly to work under Martin Schongauer, the leading engraver of Northern Europe, but who died shortly before Dürer's arrival at Colmar in 1492.

Dürer's first painted self-portrait ( now in the Louvre ) was painted at this time, probably to be sent back to his fiancée in Nuremberg.

Dürer's father died in 1502, and his mother died in 1513.

A series of extant drawings show Dürer's experiments in human proportion, leading to the famous engraving of Adam and Eve ( 1504 ), which shows his subtlety while using the burin in the texturing of flesh surfaces.

By this time Dürer's engravings had attained great popularity and were being copied.

The post-Venetian woodcuts show Dürer's development of chiaroscuro modelling effects, creating a mid-tone throughout the print to which the highlights and shadows can be contrasted.

From 1512, Maximilian I became Dürer's major patron.

While providing valuable documentary evidence, Dürer's Netherlandish diary also reveals that the trip was not a profitable one.

As for engravings, Dürer's work was restricted to portraits and illustrations for his treatise.

For those of the Cardinal, Melanchthon, and Dürer's final major work, a drawn portrait of the Nuremberg patrician Ulrich Starck, Dürer depicted the sitters in profile, perhaps reflecting a more mathematical approach.

Dürer's writings suggest that he may have been sympathetic to Martin Luther's ideas, though it is unclear if he ever left the Catholic Church.

Dürer's later works have also been claimed to show Protestant sympathies.

The delaying of the engraving of St Philip, completed in 1523 but not distributed until 1526, may have been due to Dürer's uneasiness with images of Saints ; even if Dürer was not an iconoclast, in his last years he evaluated and questioned the role of art in religion.

His work in engraving seems to have had an intimidating effect upon his German successors, the " Little Masters " who attempted few large engravings but continued Dürer's themes in small, rather cramped compositions.

Dürer's geometric constructions include helices, conchoids and epicycloids.

Albrecht Dürer's Renaissance: Humanism, Reformation and the Art of Faith.