June 2002 - Nr. 6
Nuremberg Celebrates 500 Years of Dürer’s Feldhase
Nuremberg is also hosting a birthday bash for the hare in August, followed by a series of related readings, film screenings and exhibitions. Visitors to the city will have a chance to see how artists have reinterpreted Dürer’s famous subject throughout the 20th century, and to catch a rare glimpse of other German Renaissance works, such as Quattuor Libriamorum, a book of love poems written by Konrad Celtis and illustrated by Dürer that also dates to 1502. Unfortunately, the Feldhase itself, owned by the Albertina Museum in Vienna, won’t be able to make it to the party. Curators say it is too precious and fragile to leave its current home. The closely guarded hare hasn’t made an outing since its last visit to Paris, in1950.
What makes this rabbit so special? Art historians point to its vulnerable expression, its soft-looking fur and delicate build, so sensitively drawn they seem tangible and move the viewer to sympathy. The Feldhase is also one of the first artworks to represent a simple animal as it appears in life, rather than using it as a symbol. "Dürer created something revolutionary with the Feldhase: the unbiased and scientifically precise imitation of nature," says Klaus Albrecht Schroeder, director of the Albertina. "But Albrecht Dürer also made the hare come to life. Dürer’s hare is not a still life or a dead thing, but a living being of flesh and blood. In works like this, Dürer once again moves beyond the Middle Ages and proves a pioneer of humanism, the early Renaissance."
