Review by Booklist Review
Hoare (The Sea Inside, 2014) whirls together biography, natural history, and memoir in this evocatively associative inquiry in the life and work of German Renaissance luminary Albrecht Dürer. Never missing an opportunity to swim in rivers or the sea, he makes pilgrimages to view Dürer originals and track the course of Dürer's ultimately failed 1520 quest to view a stranded whale and his imaginative recompense. Hoare's deep and illuminating responses to Dürer's iconic self-portraits and empathic portraits of animals inspire questions of sexuality and of our use and abuse of other species, especially whales. His narrative swerves also deliver incisive profiles of writers influenced by Dürer, including art historian Erwin Panofsky and Nobel laureate Thomas Mann, both refugees from Nazi Germany, and poet Marianne Moore. Hoare also vividly celebrates Dürer's standing as the first international art star due to his revolutionary, "almost uncanny," mass-produced woodcuts and engravings. In contemplating Dürer's virtuoso skills and gripping "vision of the dark, the beautiful, and the strange" and sharing his own immersive appreciation of nature and art, Hoare forges a new, reorienting, and exhilarating perspective.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
An examination of the works and influences of the German Renaissance painter. In his latest, Hoare--the author of biographies of Stephen Tennant, Oscar Wilde, and Noël Coward, among other books--explores the works of renowned painter and printmaker Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528). The book features striking renditions of the artist's popular paintings and sketches, but the text is florid and often difficult to follow, jumping from analyses of Dürer's artwork to lengthy discussions of other individuals with little apparent connection to the artist. Furthermore, Hoare doesn't include clear attributions when quoting the artist, and the connection between the artist and a whale, as indicated by the book's title, is exaggerated. According to the author, Dürer sailed to Zeeland in hopes of viewing a whale; however, the trip was not a success, and whales never became a subject of his artwork. In an attempt to create a connection, Hoare digresses from his study of his biographical subject to the topic of whales, including discussions of Moby-Dick and the works of writers and other artists who depicted whales. (Readers interested in the author's explorations of whales should consult his engaging 2010 book The Whale.) "Had Dürer seen even one whale," writes Hoare, "his art would have preempted Melville's mutterings about how you can't tell the true nature of the whale from its bones alone, and how no one ever painted a less monstrous picture of a whale, despite the fact that the writer was born, half Dutch, in New Amsterdam, and claimed his eyes were tender as young sperms. The pale usher of Moby-Dick tells us the word whale came from the Dutch wallen, to roll, to wallow. We wallow in our ignorance." For fans of art history, the portions of the book directly related to Dürer and how his interactions with nature influenced his art are fascinating. An intermittently intriguing yet baroque investigation of an artist that leaves readers wanting more. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
