Notes

"Iconographically speaking, the drawing of Kentridge’s rhinoceros leads to a topos in European art history, the oft-cited woodcut by Dürer entitled Rhinocerus. In an interview with Sandra Coumans, Kentridge, on being asked, briefly referred to the exemplary colonial history of the specific rhinoceros that stood as model for the woodcut that Dürer made in 1515.¹ The recorded history of this animal includes its shipping from India to Europe at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The animal, having disappeared from Europe since the third century, was supposed to be a gift from the Portuguese King Manuel to Pope Leo X, to make the latter favourably disposed in reference to the fixing of the boundaries between Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the so-called New World. During the journey from Lisbon to Rome, however, the rhinoceros died and reached the Vatican stuffed with straw. The woodcut, produced as a result of this grotesque history, has influenced European references through visual art to the rhinoceros by Dali and contains, in a broad sense, the presence of the colonial history of Europe as an ongoing destabilizing encounter."²

¹Coumans, Sandra T. J. (2011) Geschichte und Identität: ‘Black Box/Chambre noire’ von William Kentridge. Berlin: Regiospectra.

²Rosemarie Buikema (2015) 'The Revolt of the Object: Animated Drawings and the Colonial Archive: William Kentridge's Black Box Theatre' in Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies', 18(2): pages 251 - 269, illustrated on page 13 and referenced in text on page 14.

Literature

Rosemarie Buikema (2015) 'The Revolt of the Object: Animated Drawings and the Colonial Archive: William Kentridge's Black Box Theatre' in Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies', 18(2): pages 251- 269, illustrated on page 13 and referenced in text on page 14.