A Grasshopper, Beneath Which a Fly

The tremendous charm of this small artwork derives from the way it renders its subject to create an optical illusion: it really seems as though the creatures are sitting on the paper in front of us. The artist, Hans Hoffmann, was the leading proponent of the movement known as the ‘Dürer Renaissance’, which flourished during the second half of the 16th and a good portion of the 17th century. Dürer’s name was associated with the precise observation and faithful reproduction of the natural world. Hoffmann would frequently copy subjects after Dürer, while just as many of his original works were created in the spirit of his famous forebear. Given this artistic sensibility, it seems entirely fitting that from 1585 he served as court painter in Prague to Emperor Rudolph II, the era’s most prominent admirer of Dürer.