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Albert and the Whale by Philip Hoare: book review

 



Albert and the Whale (2021) is about German illustrator Albrecht Dürer and his artworks of animals and plants.  Philip Hoare examines why Albrecht Dürer’s art is still so captivating after 500 years. 

 

Living in Italy, Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) travelled to Zeeland, north of Antwerp in The Netherlands, in December 1520 to see a stranded whale that he read about in the local newspaper. 

 

To Dürer, ‘the forest and the sea are desolate places, crawling with strange creatures. Who could resist their beauty and fear?’ But he knew that his early animal drawings were half-real and half-fantasy, and he wanted to improve on their reality by seeing real animals.

 

Dürer had already painted a watercolour of the Young Hare (1502) and created a woodcut of the Rhinoceros (1515). He had never seen a real rhinoceros, but his woodcut achieved great acclaim for its life-like characteristics: ‘probably no animal picture has exerted such a profound influence on the arts.’ 

 

So, he was excited to see a real whale.  A whale, on the beach. He was about to witness something more sensational than he had ever imagined. It became the turning point of his life. By this time, he was already a famous artist in Italy, but he was aging and worried about his capacity to continue drawing. He documented his year-long trip to The Netherlands and the whale.

 

Philip Hoare examines Dürer’s life and art (‘one hundred paintings, three hundred prints, a thousand drawings’), his inspirations, the history of whale sightings, people’s fascination with the sea, and people influenced by Dürer’s works. The author visits the Netherlands for this book’s research, takes a detour, and swims in the ocean before returning to ‘Albert and the Whale.’

 

The author spends a lot of effort on almost everyone influenced by Albrecht Dürer, especially Thomas Mann, than on the individual man himself. I would have liked to read more about Dürer’s year in The Netherlands and the impact that the whale had on the artist. For me, the author detoured, lost his way, and lost his focus, becoming more reflective than insightful.








 

 


 

MARTINA NICOLLS

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MARTINA NICOLLS  is an international aid and development consultant, and the author  of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce  (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).


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