Alberto y la ballena

In 1520, Albrecht Dürer, the most famous artist in northern Europe, eagerly set sail for Zeeland, one of the twelve coastal provinces of the Netherlands, to see a whale for the first time. Nobody painted or drew the world like him and the representations of him captured the fragile spirit of beasts, people and nature. His art was a revelation that has endured to this day: he showed us who we are and predicted our future. However, Dürer was sunk in melancholy: he had just lost the support of his patron, the Holy Roman Emperor, and wanted to see the world. At this point in his life, the whale became his ultimate ambition. This is the story of a genius in search of his own Leviathan, and no one better than Philip Hoare to recount this fascinating journey through art and the world around us, exploring the strong link between creative passion and nature, from a visionary's workshop to the ocean. Parading through its pages are medieval alchemists and modernist poets, eccentric emperors, rebellious souls and prophetic artists whose lives and adventures lead us to wonder what is real and what is fantasy in art, and if it has the power to save us.