An illuminating exploration of the intersection between life, art and the sea. In 1520, Albrecht Dürer, the most celebrated artist in Northern Europe, sailed to Zeeland to see a whale. A central figure of the Renaissance, no one had painted or drawn the world like him. But now he was in crisis. He had lost his patron, the Holy Roman Emperor. He was moorless and filled with wanderlust. In the shape of the whale, he saw his final ambition.

“He walks the sand before me, his heart like anemone.”

Photos by Anna Iltnere / Sea Library