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Albrecht Dürer, the most important German artist in the Renaissance, worked in Nuremberg, the 16th-century center of instrument making. He was also the first artist to produce systematic treatises on art, geometry, and human proportion outside Italy. Here, an elaborate instrument constructed specifically for drawing serpentine lines dominates and animates the entire page. The image appeals to the reader as much for its striking appearance as for the instrument's exceptional ability in producing complex linear geometry.
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Albrecht Dürer
German, 1471–1528
Instrument to draw serpentine line
Plate 42 from Albrecht Dürer, Institutiones geometricae, 1532
Woodcut
Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation
2015.5
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