Durero con sapo y chapulin (Dürer with Grasshoppers and Toad)

In this print, Toledo riffs on a woodcut by German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer, likely from Dürer’s Four Books on Human Proportion (published posthumously in 1532–1534). Dürer based his studies on those of Leonardo da Vinci and others. He notably included examples of figures of all ages and sizes, a fact perhaps mocked by Toledo’s inclusion of a rotund toad with an erection. Grasshoppers are historically and symbolically important in Mexico, not least of all as a popular snack. Their inclusion here, and their large scale, may suggest a further critique of Dürer’s pseudo-scientific ideas about anatomy.