How does Durer make you want to stare at it for hours? It's just a monk on a hillside reading a book. There are no clashing armies or hidden images. No part of the picture is especially beautiful or even interesting.

But every time your eye lights on the picture, Durer grabs it and takes it for a ride. Every line goes somewhere, hits another line, changes direction, and takes off again - always under Durer's control. He never lets you exit the picture but always feeds you back from the margins, always - ultimately - back to your starting point, the oval relationship between the monk's cowl and his prayer book.

Once you get there - the 2/3 - 1/3 location, he spins your eye around that tight oval until it flies off along one of the routes he has devised. That's why you feel a sense of excitement about a picture that is not ostensibly exciting.

But it isn't just a triumph of technique and ingenuity. I think Durer is teaching something about the act of reading - in this case, reading scripture. That tight relationship of the monk to the book represents the thrill of profound ideas that model and organize and make sense of the world.

Thank you, Lyle. That's what I experience, but lack the words to express....

Another observation.

Geometry and logic fascinated Durer. He considered them manifestations of the divine. Many of his pictures - probably including this one - were based on elaborate grids constructed from the Golden Mean.

He would recognize a hillscape of bridges, walls, and towers as a metaphor of ideas. The complex architecture in the picture, dominated by the crucifix, would represent the content of the monk's prayer book.

At the same time, the monk's body reiterates the hillscape, suggesting that the content of the holy book is also the content of the monk himself.

If I am correct,this is St. Anthony the Abbott, a founder of monasticism, who actually lived in Egypt. Therefore, I think the artist portrays him as being apart from the world.

By the way, the city reminds me of Bamberg, the area from which my branch of the Weidner family originated.

You're a Weidner?

My mother was. She was Dolores Weidner of Buffalo Grove, Illinois.

Whoa! nice find...

BTW: did you catch my review of Six Frigates on Dean's today? I figured it would make you impatient to get your hands on it...

Susan, We're probly not connected. I've never heard of family in Illinois, though I know actually little of my Dad's ancestory.

Andrew, I did see it. If I didn't have a stack of unread books I'd probably buy it rather than wait for the library...

I'm disappointed.

By the way, we also have relatives in Nebraska.