Albrecht Dürer & The Art of Cross Contour

The drawings of Albrecht Dürer are a wonderful study in the art of cross contour. Not only is he a master of carving out form with his line-work but he combines this with toned paper so that some cross contour lines are also the highlight of the form while the others created a sense of shadow. Notice how thin his lines get until they taper off and disappear only to reappear on the other side of the form. With cross contour we also discuss things like line of sight, which is typically associated with linear perspective drawings. I believe that, if you look carefully you can imagine Dürer's line of sight or his imagined line of sight in these compositions. 

Albrecht Dürer (born May 21, 1471, Imperial Free City of Nürnberg [Germany]—died April 6, 1528, Nürnberg) was a painter and printmaker generally regarded as the greatest German Renaissance artist. His vast body of work includes altarpieces and religious works, numerous portraits and self-portraits, and copper engravings. His woodcuts, such as the Apocalypse series (1498), retain a more Gothic flavour than the rest of his work. [source]