Rhinoceros To last
The Rhinoceros To last is the name generally given to an engraving on wood of Albrecht Dürer gone back to 1515. The image is founded on a written description and a short sketch by an unknown artist of a Indian Rhinocéros, unloaded with Lisbon earlier in the year. To last forever considering this rhinoceros which was the first alive individual seen in Europe since the Roman epoch. Towards the end of 1515, the king of the Portugal, Manual I {{er}}, sent the Animal in gift to the Pape Leon X, but he died in a shipwreck off the Italian coasts , at the beginning of 1516. An alive rhinoceros will not be re-examined in Europe until a second Indian specimen arrives at Lisbon in 1577.
In spite of its anatomical inaccuracies , engraving on wood To last became very popular in Europe and was copied on several occasions during the three following centuries. She was regarded as a realistic representation of an rhinoceros until the end of the XVIIIe century. Thereafter, of the drawings and more realistic Peinture S supplant it, in particular representations of Clara the rhinoceros, which was exposed in all Europe during the Années 1740 and 1750. It is known as in connection with engraving Dürer that probably no animal image exerted such an influence on arts (free translation of probably animal No picture has exerted such has profound influence one the arts ).
The rhinoceros
A royal gift
In 1514, Alfonso de Albuquerque, governor of the Portuguese India with Goa, had sent two ambassadors near Muzaffar II, sultan of Cambay (modern Gujarat), to ask for the right to him of build strong Portuguese on the island of Diu. The sultan did not give his agreement but returned the Portuguese with prestigious gifts, of which an rhinoceros. In the Eastern tradition, the rhinoceros is a royal gift. Accustomed to the presence of the man, the animal was undoubtedly provided with one or more guards, because it is not very probable that the Portuguese knew how to occupy itself some. The ambassadors returned to Goa late in the year with their animal.
Albuquerque made as fast as possible embark this royal gift on the nave Nossa Senhora da Ajuda which left Goa in January 1515 with two other vessels bound for Lisbon. After a particularly fast voyage four months by the Cape of Good Hope, the fleet of the Indies charged with spices and other treasures in the port of Lisbon of May 20th 1515 arrived, but it is without question the unloading of the rhinoceros, coming to enrich the exotic menagerie by the king Manuel I {{er}} from Portugal, which made the strongest impression.
The Rhinoceros in Lisbon
Such an animal had not been seen in Europe for twelve centuries: one knew by the old authors that there existed, but it had become for the Occidental culture a mythical stupid , sometimes confused in the bestiaries with legendary the " monoceros" (the Unicorn). The Indians called it ganda (name of the species in Gujarâtî), but all the humanistic ones immediately identified the animal described under the name of rhinoceros by Pline Old the, Strabon, Solin, Isidore of Seville (which names it rhinoceron ) and other old authors. In the cultural context of the Rebirth, it was a piece of the Antiquité which reappeared, like the discovery of an inscription or a statue.
Scientists and curious examined the animal. One made of them one or more drawings, of which at least that which will be used as model with Hans Burgkmair and Albrecht Dürer, accompanied by descriptions and comments drawn from Old, that the scholars of Lisbon immediately sent to their correspondents in Germany and Italy. As of the July 13rd 1515 appeared with Rome a poemetto of Giovanni Giacomo Penni describing the sensational arrival of the animal.
In the days which followed, the king made ravel the animal without incident with other exotic animals during one or several parades in the streets of Lisbon. June 3rd, day of the Fête of the Holy Trinity, Manuel organized in closed field a combat opposing the rhinoceros to the one of its young elephants, since all that one knew of manners of this animal, in particular by Pline Old the, was that the elephant and the rhinoceros would be the worst enemies. Discovering its adversary and perhaps frightened by come noisy crowd of number, the elephant ran to take refuge in its enclosure and the rhinoceros was declared victorious by abandonment. The rhinoceros had had to only appear to put in escape the largest animal of creation: this chivalrous exploit was proclaimed in all Europe.
The Rhinoceros is offered to the Pope
The king Manuel then decided to offer the rhinoceros to the Pope of the family Médicis, Leon X: he needed his support to guarantee the exclusive rights of Portugal both in the Far East and with Brazil. The previous year, Leon X had been very content with Hannon, a white elephant of the Indies that Manuel had already offered to him. With other invaluable gifts such as money crockery and spices, green the avoided velvet rhinoceros decorated with flowers embarked in December 1515 for a voyage of the Tage to Rome. One lent to the pope the intention to organize with Rome a combat of the rhinoceros against an elephant, as at the time of Césars.
The vessel slackened near Marseilles with the beginning of the year 1516. The fame of the rhinoceros was such as the King de France François I {{er}}, ghost of Saint-Maximin-the-Holy-Balsam in Provence, wanted to see the animal. He which had been covered with glory the previous year with Marignan and had been armed knight at the evening with the battle undoubtedly made a point of meeting the animal whose natural armor and the prowess against the elephant constituted from now on a symbol of the knighthood. This meeting took place on an island with broad of Marseilles the January 24th 1516.
The death of the Rhinoceros
The ship set out again then for Rome, but made shipwreck at the time of a sudden Tempête whereas it sailed close to Portovenere, in the north of Spezia, on the coast of Ligurie. The rhinoceros, connected on board, was unable to swim and drowned.
Information of which we lay out on what occurred then are contradictory. Jean Barrillon says that its body was recovered close to " Civitavesche" (Civitavecchia, close to Rome). Jules César Scaliger says simply that it was rejected on the Tyrrhenian coast. One often reads that the animal was then empaillé and that it is a naturalized rhinoceros which the pope in the final analysis accepted, but this assertion does not rest on nothing serious, the more so as one knew at the 16th century empailler an rhinoceros. The most detailed account is in fact that of Paolo Giovio, for which the Portuguese brought to the pope " sweated it will vera effigy E grandezza " (its true portrait life size), with the pathetic account of its fine tragedy: after the prowess of Lisbon, such an end, fighting in spite of its chains against the storm, completed to turn into to Rhinoceros an authentic hero.
The rhinoceros was represented in paintings of the time in Rome by Raphael and Giovanni da Udine Its history was used as model with the Romance of Lawrence Norfolk, The Pope' S Rhinoceros , published in 1996.
Engraving To last
Creation of work
Between the May 20th and the June 3rd 1515 the rhinoceros was with Lisbon the object of general curiosity, artists and scientists made of them sketches and descriptions which they sent to their correspondents in Europe. It is on the basis of one of these documents that Penni composed in Italy its poemetto , illustrated of a rather summary engraving of the animal. Humanistic a Moravian, Valentim Fernandes, wrote with friends a letter describing the animal, letter whose German original text in is lost, but is known by a copy in Italian preserved at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale of Florence. A comparable document illustrated by an unknown author arrived to Nuremberg, and inspired the artists Hans Burgkmair and Albrecht Dürer. The drawing represented probably the rhinoceros at rest, seen profile and turned towards the left, the two forefeet blocked by a cord.
Initially Albrecht Dürer (if it is well him) made a copy with the feather and the ink of this sketch, with a copy (or a translation?) legend which accompanied it. This drawing, heading RHINOCERON 1515, not signed but that each one agrees to allot to Dürer, are today with the British Museum, with London. The legend, in German, speaks about " our king de Portugal" , which shows that the author of the letter was Portuguese, and to 1513 goes back it is a fault of copy for 1515. Dürer interpreted its model and made a dream of it: it did not reproduce the obstacles of the animal, added on its back a small tooth of Narval (what one then regarded as a horn of Licorne), drew the folds of the skin of the rhinoceros like the plates of the Carapace of a shellfish, interpreted returned skin of its legs like scales of reptile or legs of bird, and draws a tail of elephant to him.
A pen-and-ink drawing illustrating the Livre of Hours of the Emperor Maximilien , carried out a little later takes as a starting point the interpretation To last (carapace, tooth of narval) but reproduced the obstacles of the animal, which lets suppose that Dürer had carried out another drawing, lost, on which the obstacles were present.
Albrecht Dürer carried out shortly after a Gravure on wood according to its pen-and-ink drawing, with the result that with the impression the rhinoceros appears turned in the other direction. This engraving is entitled 1515 RHINOCERVS, and is signed of its usual monogram AD. The technique of engraving on wood not making it possible to trace lines as fine as with the feather, the plates of the carapace of the rhinoceros do not evoke any more one shellfish but rather the plates of a metal armor. It reproduces above the animal the legend, made up in mobile characters, with notable differences compared to the legend of the drawing: this time " there is mentioned; the large and powerful king de Portugal" , and one does not reproduce any more the name of the animal in Indian language. The unit measures 248 X 317 Misters.
French translation of the German legend of engraving To last: In the year 1513 (sic) after the birth of Christ, one brought from India to Emmanuel, the large one and powerful king de Portugal, this live animal. They call it rhinoceros. It is represented here in its complete form. It with the color of a mottled tortoise, and is almost entirely covered with thick scales. It is size of an elephant but low on its legs and almost invulnerable. It has a strong and pointed horn on the nose, which it starts to sharpen each time it is close to a stone. The stupid animal is the mortal enemy of the elephant. This one fears it terribly because when they clash, the rhinoceros runs the head lowered between its legs before and fatally breaks its adversary unable to be defended. Vis-a-vis an animal so well armed, the elephant can nothing make. They also say that the rhinoceros is fast, sharp and intelligent.
After the death of the artist in 1528, several republications of this engraved wood were carried out until the beginning of the 17th century. One can classify them according to the more or less advanced progression of a slit in wood (it leaves the hairs of the tail, and extends gradually to the legs postpones, then with the muzzle for the latest impressions), like by the corrections made to the made up text in mobile characters. J. - D. Gangway thus located 6 editions: two with 5 lines of legend, a third with 5 lines and half, a fourth with 5 complete lines, a fifth Dutch edition, published per H. Hondius, of which legend starts with “ Int jaer ons Heern 1515 …” (thus correcting the erroneous date of 1513 data by the first four German editions and tonic with a fault of copy Dürer when it carried out its first pen-and-ink drawing), finally a sixth edition on two boards in Clearly-obscure.
A less success for a similar work
Another engraving starting from the same model was carried out by Hans Burgkmair with Augsburg, about at the moment when Dürer carried out his in Nuremberg. As in the case of Dürer, one is not certain source of Burgkmair, but like the broad outlines (silhouette, folds of the skin) of the animal are nearly identical for two works, most probable is that the two engravers worked starting from the same original. The engraving of Burgkmair, entitled RHINOCEROS MDXV, appears closer to reality, or at least more faithful to the original document, because it is deprived of the tooth of narval added by Dürer and represents the obstacles employed to maintain the animal engraving To last existing only in black, several artists added colors to it. The majority, resting on Pline Old the which gives to the animal “the color wood of boxwood”, painted the rhinoceros in yellow. Others, coloring with the watercolour the boards of the book of Conrad Gessner, give to the plates of the animal the reflections of a steel armor, or a gilded armor.
A Sculpture reproducing the rhinoceros To last bearing on its back a Obélisque 21 meters height was conceived in Paris by Jean Goujon vis-a-vis the church of the Holy Sepulchre in the street Saint-Denis, at the time of the arrival of new the King de France Henri II. A similar rhinoceros, in Low-relief, decorates a panel with one of the doors in Bronze of the Cathédrale of Pisa. One can quote many other examples: with some extremely rare exceptions, all the representations of the rhinoceros to the Rebirth and the age baroque derive from engraving To last.
The popularity of the chimerical rhinoceros Dürer did not decrease in spite of the presence of a new Indian rhinoceros during eight years with Madrid of 1579 with 1587, although an engraving of this animal was carried out by Philippe Galle in 1586 with Antwerp, and that certain artists at the 17th century were inspired some. In spite of the exposure of an rhinoceros living to London in 1684 - 1686 and of a second in 1739, the rhinoceros Dürer remained for the majority of people the true image of an rhinoceros. It is only starting from 1741, with the arrival in Holland of Clara the rhinoceros which will be exhibée in all Europe by its owner Douwe Mout van der Meer until in 1758, that the realistic image of Clara will replace that of the rhinoceros Dürer in the iconography européenne.
(on these exhibitions, to see famous Rhinoceroses in Europe)
XVIIIe century at our days
The preeminent place of the image To last thus declined only as from the 18th century. Jean-Baptiste Oudry painted a portrait life size of Clara the rhinoceros in 1749, and George Stubbs a portrait of big size of an rhinoceros in London towards 1790. These two paintings were much more realistic than engraving Dürer, and these images gradually started to replace the rhinoceros Dürer in the Imaginaire collective. In particular, the painting of Oudry influenced the board of the Natural history of Buffon, which itself was largely copied. In 1790, the account of voyage of James Bruce Travels to discover the critical source off the Nile work To last as being " marvelously badly made of all parts " and adding that it was about " the origin of all the monstrous forms in which this animal was painted since " . However, the proper illustration by Bruce of the white Rhinocéros African, which is appreciably different from the Indian rhinoceros, always shares manifest inaccuracies with Dürer. The semiologist Umberto Eco explains why the " scales and plates imbriquées" , Dürer became an element necessary to represent the animal, even for those which believe to better know, because " they know that only this conventional graphic sign means “rhinoceros” for the person who interprets the sign iconique". It also notes that the skin of an rhinoceros is rougher than it does not appear visually and than such plates and scales translate this not-visual information rather correctly. Towards the end of the Years 1930, the drawing Dürer still appears in the German school handbooks like the faithful representation of an rhinoceros;