Response to Clarke reading

     I can see how this chapter relates to our current assignment. We will be creating something based off of a description very much how like images of the rhinoceros that reached Europe were made from writings and sketches of the animal that were received instead of those images being made from directly observing the animal itself. At first I was surprised by how much circulation as an “accurate representation” of the rhinoceros Durer’s woodcut received but then realized in that day and age it’s a likely thing to happen. For how well it’s done, I can see why the wood cut caught such interest.

     Without being familiar with the animal, at first glare the woodcut would past as an accurate image of the rhinoceros. But when you compare the actual the animal and the image you can clearly see the exaggerations and the influence of Durer having designed armor. Although there is lots of talk about Durer, he wasn’t the only one who took interest in the rhinoceros. A man named Giovanni Giacomo Penni published an account of the animal with included a woodcut. That woodcut having almost a completely opposite feel than Durer’s woodcut shows how something can be shown in many different ways depending of the presenter.