Rider (aka Happy Horseshit) - 60" x 74" - pencil on paper

Rider (aka Happy Horseshit) - 60" x 74" - pencil on paper, a photo by Velveeta_Heartbreak on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
Thousands of individual pencil strokes were used to create this masterpiece.

"The Rider" ("Reuter" in German) is a Northern Renaissance engraving by Albrecht Durer, created in 1513. Durer's "Rider" depicts a knight upon his trusted horse, fearlessly facing death and the devil, driven onward by his faith in God's unwavering path.

Fast-forward 500 years. Our knight is but a ghostly wisp of his former self, and his trusty steed is no better for having been mankind's 'beast of burden'. On his back sits a drunken monkey grabbing a free ride. On his spear rests the skull of a former companion. Hovering overhead the ghost of a jezebel he cannot save, infinitely falling to her death. Our knight now sports state-of-the-art "x-ray laser vision", despite his being completely blind in both eyes and unable to see either past or future. His horse plods through the empty praise shat out by those who trod before him, as he shits out a pile of his own. His tail grows into a beautiful rose bush, deceiving all those who follow. The horse is toothless as well, his rotting dentures flung towards the viewer's face. From his mouth he pumps out the very clouds of darkness he has sworn to defeat.

This futile procession is led by some type of grotesque primate (the knight's offspring perhaps), dancing and laughing as he tugs the reins of whim and caprice. Following behind and beneath is a strange beast that is half elephant, half donkey. Finally we see that our rider is trapped in his own wheel of time, forever stuck in the mud of his own bullshit.