Is Albrecht Durer’s Last Supper Better Than da Vinci’s?

With Easter coming this Sunday and the minting of a new pope still fresh in people’s minds, considerations and reconsiderations of Christianity seem natural and unavoidable. The Renaissance art of the Italian big three—Michelangelo, da Vinci, and Raphael—continues to dominate the popular imagination, but a new exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, asks us to turn our eyes north, to a different kind of Renaissance man. Albrecht Dürer: Master Drawings, Watercolors, and Prints from the Albertina features all the bravura draftsmanship of Albrecht Dürer, who epitomizes what we now call the Northern Renaissance. When we think of Dürer, we think of his oversized talent matched by his oversized presence in the unforgettable portrait in which he set himself up as Christ himself. And, yet, Dürer, as the show demonstrates, could push ego aside in depicting scenes of great religious sensibility. For centuries, da Vinci’s take on The Last Supper has stood as the gold standard (even when the painting itself threatened to fall apart). Is it wrong (or even blasphemus) to ask if Dürer’s interpretation (shown above) is just as good, or even better? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Is Albrecht Durer’s Last Supper Better Than da Vinci’s?"

[Image: Albrecht Dürer. The Last Supper, 1523. Woodcut. Overall: 21.3 x 30.1 cm (8 3/8 x 11 7/8 in.). Overall (framed): 40.6 49.3 3.6 cm (16 19 7/16 1 7/16 in.). Albertina, Vienna.] 
[Many thanks to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, for providing the image above and other press materials related to their exhibition, Albrecht Dürer: Master Drawings, Watercolors, and Prints from the Albertina, which runs through June 9, 2013.]

Is David Eustace Scotland’s Secret Weapon?

Prison does things to a man, even if he gets to go home at the end of a long day of guarding the inmates. Scotland’s HM Prison Barlinnie features the same overcrowded conditions and gallows past of American prisons, but it also lays claim to one famous, rather than infamous, alumnus—photographer David Eustace. An exhibit of Eustace’s latest photos (part of “Scotland Week,” which runs from April 6 through 14, 2013, in New York City) brings the Highland Heart to the heart of the Big Apple. Taken with the eye of someone who’s seen humanity at its lowest, Eustace’s photographs soaringly celebrate his native land’s stark, epic beauty, adding to his already remarkable body of portraiture of both celebrities and everyday people. For a country looking to advertise its uniqueness, David Eustace might just be Scotland’s secret weapon. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Is David Eustace Scotland’s Secret Weapon?"

[Image: David Eustace, from the series Highland Heart.]

[Many thanks to Scotland.org for providing me with the image above and other materials related to “Scotland Week,” which runs from April 6 through 14, 2013, in New York City.]