The Small Horse

From the museum

This print, made as a companion work to The Large Horse, showcases the horse’s ideal and natural qualities. The small horse is perfectly proportioned and posed like a statue, while the large horse displays its muscularity and strength. Both display Albrecht Dürer’s graphic system, which depicts texture and space by varying the direction, density, and arrangement of lines within controlled sections. Short flicks smooth the transition from highlighted to shadowed areas, while elegant S curves define and create volume. These uniformly sized sheets, called “half sheets,” were Dürer’s most common format. Small and relatively inexpensive, they reached artists throughout Europe and beyond.

The museum’s own description, in English. Licence: CC0