Relay and Delay: Durer's Triumphal Chariots in the Era of the Post
Focusing on a multi block sequence of prints that remained incomplete at the death of the sovereign who commissioned it, this essay considers Maximilian's "Triumphal Proccession" alongside the relay of letters sent between the emperor and the project's collaborators, who included Albrecht Durer and Willibald Pirckheimer. The postal concerns of connectivity, urgency, and privacy illuminate the ambitions of an emperor who was constantly on the move. In considering the woodblocks of the never completed fictive parade, this essay proposes two new ways in which the term 'mobility' might be attached to prints: first by considering how the woodcuts figure motion, and second by describing the vehicular quality of images that mobilize the viewer's mind.