LITTLE
RHINO
In the year 1515 AD, the German artist, Albrecht Durer, produced a
wood block print of a rhinoceros. The image was based entirely on
a verbal description he had been given by a sailor who had seen the
rhinoceros in captivity in Portugal. Four hundred and thirty seven
years later an eight year old American artist living on the Hawaiian
Island of Oahu, Robert Barber Anderson, saw a reproduction of Durer's
rhinoceros in a book. Not knowing at the time what a wood block print
was, Anderson assumed it was a pencil or pen and ink drawing. He was
so attracted to the fine line work and Durer's wonderful interpretation
of the rhinoceros that he proceeded to copy both the drawing and the
style using a number two pencil. Anderson continued to draw in a style
which resembled Durer's wood blocks and etchings, eventually trying
colored pencils, then pen and ink and finally, ten years later as
a student of architecture, when he discovered that his original inspiration
was in fact a wood block, he produced his drawings with a Rapidograph
pen.
Today,
Robert Barber Anderson, more commonly known as Bob Anderson and
at times, Trebor Nosredna, is a practicing architect, author, artist,
and publisher. He is also an amateur naturalist and hiker, and suffers
from a life-long obsession with rainforests.
The
smallest of the five surviving species of rhinoceros is the Sumatran
Rhinoceros. With a weight ranging from 1,100 to 1,760 lbs or 500
to 800 kilograms (the other species range from 2,000 lbs up to 6,600
lbs for the Indian Rhino), the Sumatran Rhino has two horns and
is unique in that it is covered in reddish brown hair. It is a deep
rainforest dweller and, with only an estimated 300 individuals left
in the wild, is the second most endangered rhinoceros, after the
Javan Rhino, of which only 60 remain.
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