Albert and the Whale
, by Philip Hoare (Pegasus). This idiosyncratic account of the life, work, and afterlife of the Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer considers âhow art imagines our world.â Hoare shows Dürerâs responsiveness to his times. Copernicus and Martin Luther had ushered in a world âshifting nervously in space,â and printing (the âcurrencyâ of Dürerâs fame) and trade fostered unprecedented connectivity. Hoare also places his subject in a surprising lineage of artists including William Blake, Marianne Moore, Thomas Mann, and Andy Warhol. These comparisons elucidate Dürerâs radicalism, and establish him as a revolutionary and thoroughly modern artist. Hoare writes, âBefore Dürer, dragons existed; after him, they did not.â