HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

''Melencolia I'' is a large 1514
engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an i ...
by the
German Renaissance The German Renaissance, part of the Northern Renaissance, was a cultural and artistic movement that spread among German thinkers in the 15th and 16th centuries, which developed from the Italian Renaissance. Many areas of the arts and sciences ...
artist Albrecht Dürer. The print's central subject is an enigmatic and gloomy winged female figure thought to be a
personification Personification occurs when a thing or abstraction is represented as a person, in literature or art, as a type of anthropomorphic metaphor. The type of personification discussed here excludes passing literary effects such as "Shadows hold their b ...
of
melancholia Melancholia or melancholy (from el, µέλαινα χολή ',Burton, Bk. I, p. 147 meaning black bile) is a concept found throughout ancient, medieval and premodern medicine in Europe that describes a condition characterized by markedly d ...
– melancholy. Holding her head in her hand, she stares past the busy scene in front of her. The area is strewn with symbols and tools associated with craft and carpentry, including an
hourglass An hourglass (or sandglass, sand timer, sand clock or egg timer) is a device used to measure the passage of time. It comprises two glass bulbs connected vertically by a narrow neck that allows a regulated flow of a substance (historically sand) ...
,
weighing scale A scale or balance is a device used to measure weight or mass. These are also known as mass scales, weight scales, mass balances, and weight balances. The traditional scale consists of two plates or bowls suspended at equal distances from ...
s, a hand plane, a claw hammer, and a saw. Other objects relate to alchemy, geometry or numerology. Behind the figure is a structure with an embedded
magic square In recreational mathematics, a square array of numbers, usually positive integers, is called a magic square if the sums of the numbers in each row, each column, and both main diagonals are the same. The 'order' of the magic square is the number ...
, and a ladder leading beyond the frame. The sky contains a rainbow, a comet or planet, and a bat-like creature bearing the text that has become the print's title. Dürer's engraving is one of the most well-known extant
old master print An old master print is a work of art produced by a printing process within the Western tradition. The term remains current in the art trade, and there is no easy alternative in English to distinguish the works of " fine art" produced in printma ...
s, but, despite a vast art-historical literature, it has resisted any definitive interpretation. Dürer may have associated melancholia with creative activity; the woman may be a representation of a
Muse In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Muses ( grc, Μοῦσαι, Moûsai, el, Μούσες, Múses) are the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the ...
, awaiting inspiration but fearful that it will not return. As such, Dürer may have intended the print as a veiled self-portrait. Other art historians see the figure as pondering the nature of beauty or the value of artistic creativity in light of rationalism,Sander, 262 or as a purposely obscure work that highlights the limitations of
allegorical As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory ...
or symbolic art. The art historian
Erwin Panofsky Erwin Panofsky (March 30, 1892 in Hannover – March 14, 1968 in Princeton, New Jersey) was a German-Jewish art historian, whose academic career was pursued mostly in the U.S. after the rise of the Nazi regime. Panofsky's work represents a h ...
, whose writing on the print has received the most attention, detailed its possible relation to Renaissance humanists' conception of melancholia. Summarizing its art-historical legacy, he wrote that "the influence of Dürer's ''Melencolia I''—the first representation in which the concept of melancholy was transplanted from the plane of scientific and pseudo-scientific folklore to the level of art—extended all over the European continent and lasted for more than three centuries."


Context

''Melencolia I'' has been the subject of more scholarship than probably any other print. As the art historian
Campbell Dodgson Campbell Dodgson, CBE DLitt Hon RE (13 August 1867 – 11 July 1948) was a British art historian and museum curator. He was the Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum in 1912–32. Biography Student Campbell Dodgson was the eig ...
wrote in 1926, "The literature on ''Melancholia'' is more extensive than that on any other engraving by Dürer: that statement would probably remain true if the last two words were omitted." Panofsky's studies in German and English, between 1923 and 1964 and sometimes with coauthors, have been especially influential. ''Melencolia I'' is one of Dürer's three '' Meisterstiche'' ("master prints"), along with ''
Knight, Death and the Devil ''Knight, Death and the Devil'' (german: Ritter, Tod und Teufel) is a large 1513 engraving by the German artist Albrecht Dürer, one of the three ''Meisterstiche'' (master prints) completed during a period when he almost ceased to work in paint ...
'' (1513) and '' St. Jerome in His Study'' (1514).Panofsky, 156 The prints are considered thematically related by some art historians, depicting labours that are intellectual (''Melencolia I''), moral (''Knight''), or spiritual (''St. Jerome'') in nature. While Dürer sometimes distributed ''Melencolia I'' with ''St. Jerome in His Study'', there is no evidence that he conceived of them as a thematic group. The print has two states; in the first, the number nine in the magic square appears backward, but in the second, more common impressions it is a somewhat odd-looking regular nine. There is little documentation to provide insight into Dürer's intent. He made a few pencil studies for the engraving and some of his notes relate to it. A commonly quoted note refers to the keys and the purse—"Schlüssel—gewalt/pewtell—reichtum beteut" ("keys mean power, purse means wealth")Fenyő, Iván (1956). ''Albrecht Dürer''. Budapest: Corvina. p. 51.—although this can be read as a simple record of their traditional symbolism. Another note reflects on the nature of beauty. In 1513 and 1514, Dürer experienced the death of a number of friends, followed by his mother ( whose portrait he drew in this period), engendering a grief that may be expressed in this engraving.Panofsky, 170 Dürer mentions melancholy only once in his surviving writings. In an unfinished book for young artists, he cautions that too much exertion may lead one to "fall under the hand of melancholy". Panofsky considered but rejected the suggestion that the "I" in the title might indicate that Dürer had planned three other engravings on the four temperaments. He suggested instead that the "I" referred to the first of three types of melancholy defined by Cornelius Agrippa (see ''Interpretation''). Others see the "I" as a reference to '' nigredo'', the first stage of the alchemical process.


Description

The winged, central figure is thought to be a personification of
melancholia Melancholia or melancholy (from el, µέλαινα χολή ',Burton, Bk. I, p. 147 meaning black bile) is a concept found throughout ancient, medieval and premodern medicine in Europe that describes a condition characterized by markedly d ...
or
geometry Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is c ...
. She sits on a slab with a closed book on her lap, holds a
compass A compass is a device that shows the cardinal directions used for navigation and geographic orientation. It commonly consists of a magnetized needle or other element, such as a compass card or compass rose, which can pivot to align itself with ...
loosely, and gazes intensely into the distance. Seemingly immobilized by gloom, she pays no attention to the many objects around her. Reflecting the medieval
iconographical Iconology is a method of interpretation in cultural history and the history of the visual arts used by Aby Warburg, Erwin Panofsky and their followers that uncovers the cultural, social, and historical background of themes and subjects in the visu ...
depiction of melancholy, she rests her head on a closed fist. Her face is relatively dark, indicating the accumulation of black bile, and she wears a wreath of watery plants ( water parsley and
watercress Watercress or yellowcress (''Nasturtium officinale'') is a species of aquatic flowering plant in the cabbage family Brassicaceae. Watercress is a rapidly growing perennial plant native to Europe and Asia. It is one of the oldest known leaf ve ...
or lovage). A set of keys and a purse hang from the belt of her long dress. Behind her, a windowless building with no clear architectural function rises beyond the top of the frame. A ladder with seven rungs leans against the structure, but neither its beginning nor end is visible. A
putto A putto (; plural putti ) is a figure in a work of art depicted as a chubby male child, usually naked and sometimes winged. Originally limited to profane passions in symbolism,Dempsey, Charles. ''Inventing the Renaissance Putto''. University of ...
sits atop a millstone (or grindstone) with a chip in it. He scribbles on a tablet, or perhaps a burin used for engraving; he is generally the only active element of the picture. Attached to the structure is a balance scale above the putto, and above Melancholy is a bell and an hourglass with a
sundial A sundial is a horological device that tells the time of day (referred to as civil time in modern usage) when direct sunlight shines by the apparent position of the Sun in the sky. In the narrowest sense of the word, it consists of a fl ...
at the top. Numerous unused tools and mathematical instruments are scattered around, including a hammer and nails, a saw, a plane, pincers, a straightedge, a molder's form, and either the nozzle of a
bellows A bellows or pair of bellows is a device constructed to furnish a strong blast of air. The simplest type consists of a flexible bag comprising a pair of rigid boards with handles joined by flexible leather sides enclosing an approximately airtig ...
or an enema syringe (
clyster An enema, also known as a clyster, is an injection of fluid into the lower bowel by way of the rectum.Cullingworth, ''A Manual of Nursing, Medical and Surgical'':155 The word enema can also refer to the liquid injected, as well as to a device ...
). On the low wall behind the large
polyhedron In geometry, a polyhedron (plural polyhedra or polyhedrons; ) is a three-dimensional shape with flat polygonal faces, straight edges and sharp corners or vertices. A convex polyhedron is the convex hull of finitely many points, not all on ...
is a
brazier A brazier () is a container used to burn charcoal or other solid fuel for cooking, heating or cultural rituals. It often takes the form of a metal box or bowl with feet. Its elevation helps circulate air, feeding oxygen to the fire. Braziers h ...
with a goldsmith's
crucible A crucible is a ceramic or metal container in which metals or other substances may be melted or subjected to very high temperatures. While crucibles were historically usually made from clay, they can be made from any material that withstands te ...
and a pair of tongs. To the left of the emaciated, sleeping dog is a
censer A censer, incense burner, perfume burner or pastille burner is a vessel made for burning incense or perfume in some solid form. They vary greatly in size, form, and material of construction, and have been in use since ancient times throughout t ...
, or an inkwell with a strap connecting a pen holder. A bat-like creature spreads its wings across the sky, revealing a banner printed with the words "Melencolia I". Beyond it is a rainbow and an object which is either Saturn or a comet. In the far distance is a landscape with small treed islands, suggesting flooding, and a sea. The rightmost portion of the background may show a large wave crashing over land. Panofsky believes that it is night, citing the "cast-shadow" of the hourglass on the building, with the moon lighting the scene and creating a lunar rainbow. The print contains numerous references to mathematics and geometry. In front of the dog lies a perfect sphere, which has a radius equal to the apparent distance marked by the figure's compass. On the face of the building is a 4×4
magic square In recreational mathematics, a square array of numbers, usually positive integers, is called a magic square if the sums of the numbers in each row, each column, and both main diagonals are the same. The 'order' of the magic square is the number ...
—the first printed in Europe—with the two middle cells of the bottom row giving the date of the engraving, 1514, which is also seen above Dürer's monogram at bottom right. The square follows the traditional rules of magic squares: each of its rows, columns, and diagonals adds to the same number, 34. It is also
associative In mathematics, the associative property is a property of some binary operations, which means that rearranging the parentheses in an expression will not change the result. In propositional logic, associativity is a valid rule of replacement ...
, meaning that any number added to its symmetric opposite equals 17 (e.g., 15+2, 9+8). Additionally, the corners and each quadrant sum to 34, as do still more combinations. Dürer's mother died on May 17, 1514; some interpreters connect the digits of this date with the sets of two squares that sum to 5 and 17. The unusual solid that dominates the left half of the image is a truncated
rhombohedron In geometry, a rhombohedron (also called a rhombic hexahedron or, inaccurately, a rhomboid) is a three-dimensional figure with six faces which are rhombi. It is a special case of a parallelepiped where all edges are the same length. It can be us ...
with what may be a faint
skull The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, t ...
or face, possibly even of Dürer.Merback, 61 This shape is now known as Dürer's solid, and over the years, there have been numerous analyses of its mathematical properties. In contrast with '' Saint Jerome in His Study'', which has a strong sense of linear perspective and an obvious source of light, ''Melencolia I'' is disorderly and lacks a "visual center".Merback, 54–55 It has few perspective lines leading to the
vanishing point A vanishing point is a point on the image plane of a perspective drawing where the two-dimensional perspective projections of mutually parallel lines in three-dimensional space appear to converge. When the set of parallel lines is perpen ...
(below the bat-like creature at the horizon), which divides the diameter of the rainbow in the
golden ratio In mathematics, two quantities are in the golden ratio if their ratio is the same as the ratio of their sum to the larger of the two quantities. Expressed algebraically, for quantities a and b with a > b > 0, where the Greek letter phi ( ...
. The work otherwise scarcely has any strong lines. The unusual polyhedron destabilizes the image by blocking some of the view into the distance and sending the eye in different directions. There is little tonal contrast and, despite its stillness, a sense of chaos, a "negation of order", is noted by many art historians. The mysterious light source at right, which illuminates the image, is unusually placed for Dürer and contributes to the "airless, dreamlike space".


Interpretations

Dürer's friend and first biographer Joachim Camerarius wrote the earliest account of the engraving in 1541. Addressing its apparent symbolism, he said, "to show that such fflictedminds commonly grasp everything and how they are frequently carried away into absurdities, ürerreared up in front of her a ladder into the clouds, while the ascent by means of rungs is ... impeded by a square block of stone." Later, the 16th-century art historian
Giorgio Vasari Giorgio Vasari (, also , ; 30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian Renaissance Master, who worked as a painter, architect, engineer, writer, and historian, who is best known for his work '' The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculp ...
described ''Melencolia I'' as a technical achievement that "puts the whole world in awe". Most art historians view the print as an allegory, assuming that a unified theme can be found in the image if its constituent symbols are "unlocked" and brought into conceptual order. This sort of interpretation assumes that the print is a ''Vexierbild'' (a "puzzle image") or
rebus A rebus () is a puzzle device that combines the use of illustrated pictures with individual letters to depict words or phrases. For example: the word "been" might be depicted by a rebus showing an illustrated bumblebee next to a plus sign (+) ...
whose ambiguities are resolvable. Others see the ambiguity as intentional and unresolvable. Merback notes that ambiguities remain even after the interpretation of numerous individual symbols: the viewer does not know if it is daytime or twilight, where the figures are located, or the source of illumination.Merback, 38 The ladder leaning against the structure has no obvious beginning or end, and the structure overall has no obvious function. The bat may be flying from the scene, or is perhaps some sort of daemon related to the traditional conception of melancholia. Certain relationships in
humorism Humorism, the humoral theory, or humoralism, was a system of medicine detailing a supposed makeup and workings of the human body, adopted by Ancient Greek and Roman physicians and philosophers. Humorism began to fall out of favor in the 1850s ...
,
astrology Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. Di ...
, and
alchemy Alchemy (from Arabic: ''al-kīmiyā''; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in China, India, the Muslim world ...
are important for understanding the interpretive history of the print. Since the ancient Greeks, the health and
temperament In psychology, temperament broadly refers to consistent individual differences in behavior that are biologically based and are relatively independent of learning, system of values and attitudes. Some researchers point to association of temperam ...
of an individual were thought to be determined by the four humors: black bile (melancholic humor), yellow bile (choleric), phlegm (phlegmatic), and blood (sanguine). In astrology, each temperament was under the influence of a planet, Saturn in the case of melancholia. Each temperament was also associated with one of the
four elements Classical elements typically refer to earth, water, air, fire, and (later) aether which were proposed to explain the nature and complexity of all matter in terms of simpler substances. Ancient cultures in Greece, Tibet, and India had simil ...
; melancholia was paired with
Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surf ...
, and was considered "dry and cold" in
alchemy Alchemy (from Arabic: ''al-kīmiyā''; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in China, India, the Muslim world ...
. Melancholia was traditionally the least desirable of the four temperaments, making for a constitution that was, according to Panofsky, "awkward, miserly, spiteful, greedy, malicious, cowardly, faithless, irreverent and drowsy". In 1905,
Heinrich Wölfflin Heinrich Wölfflin (; 21 June 1864 – 19 July 1945) was a Swiss art historian, esthetician and educator, whose objective classifying principles (" painterly" vs. "linear" and the like) were influential in the development of formal analysis in ...
called the print an "allegory of deep, speculative thought". A few years earlier, the Viennese art historian Karl Giehlow had published two articles that laid the groundwork for Panofsky's extensive study of the print. Giehlow specialized in the German humanist interest in
hieroglyphics Egyptian hieroglyphs (, ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt, used for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with some 1,000 distinct characters.There were about ...
and interpreted ''Melencolia I'' in terms of astrology, which had been an interest of intellectuals connected to the court of Maximilian in Vienna. Giehlow found the print an "erudite summa of these interests, a comprehensive portrayal of the melancholic temperament, its positive and negative values held in perfect balance, its potential for 'genius' suspended between divine inspiration and dark madness".


Iconography

According to Panofsky, who wrote about the print three times between 1923 and 1964, ''Melencolia I'' combines the traditional iconographies of melancholy and geometry, both governed by Saturn. Geometry was one of the Seven Liberal Arts and its mastery was considered vital to the creation of high art, which had been revolutionised by new understandings of perspective. In the engraving, symbols of geometry, measurement, and trades are numerous: the compass, the scale, the hammer and nails, the plane and saw, the sphere and the unusual polyhedron. Panofsky examined earlier personifications of geometry and found much similarity between Dürer's engraving and an allegory of geometry from Gregor Reisch's ''Margarita philosophica'' (1503), a popular encyclopedia. Other aspects of the print reflect the traditional symbolism of melancholy, such as the bat, emaciated dog, purse and keys. The figure wears a wreath of "wet" plants to counteract the dryness of melancholy, and she has the dark face and dishevelled appearance associated with the melancholic. The intensity of her gaze, however, suggests an intent to depart from traditional depictions of this temperament. The magic square is a talisman of Jupiter, an auspicious planet that fends off melancholy—different square sizes were associated with different planets, with the 4×4 square representing Jupiter. Even the distant seascape, with small islands of flooded trees, relates to Saturn, the "lord of the sea", and his control of floods and tides. Panofsky believed that Dürer's understanding of melancholy was influenced by the writings of the German
humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "humani ...
Cornelius Agrippa, and before him
Marsilio Ficino Marsilio Ficino (; Latin name: ; 19 October 1433 – 1 October 1499) was an Italian scholar and Catholic priest who was one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian Renaissance. He was an astrologer, a reviver ...
. Ficino thought that most intellectuals were influenced by Saturn and were thus melancholic. He equated melancholia with elevation of the intellect, since black bile "raises thought to the comprehension of the highest, because it corresponds to the highest of the planets". Before the Renaissance, melancholics were portrayed as embodying the vice of acedia, meaning spiritual sloth. Ficino and Agrippa's writing gave melancholia positive connotations, associating it with flights of genius. As art historian Philip Sohm summarizes, Ficino and Agrippa gave Renaissance intellectuals a "
Neoplatonic Neoplatonism is a strand of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a chain of thinkers. But there are some i ...
conception of melancholy as divine inspiration ... Under the influence of Saturn, ... the melancholic imagination could be led to remarkable achievements in the arts". Agrippa defined three types of melancholic genius in his '' De occulta philosophia''. The first, ''melancholia imaginativa'', affected artists, whose imaginative faculty was considered stronger than their reason (compared with, e.g., scientists) or intuitive mind (e.g., theologians). Dürer might have been referring to this first type of melancholia, the artist's, by the "I" in the title. Melancholia was thought to attract daemons that produced bouts of frenzy and ecstasy in the afflicted, lifting the mind toward genius. In Panofsky's summary, the imaginative melancholic, the subject of Dürer's print, "typifies the first, or least exalted, form of human ingenuity. She can invent and build, and she can think ... but she has no access to the metaphysical world ... hebelongs in fact to those who 'cannot extend their thought beyond the limits of space.' Hers is the inertia of a being which renounces what it could reach because it cannot reach for what it longs." Dürer's personification of melancholia is of "a being to whom her allotted realm seems intolerably restricted—of a being whose thoughts 'have reached the limit'". ''Melencolia I'' portrays a state of lost inspiration: the figure is "surrounded by the instruments of creative work, but sadly brooding with a feeling that she is achieving nothing." Autobiography runs through many of the interpretations of ''Melencolia I'', including Panofsky's. Iván Fenyő considered the print a representation of an artist beset by a loss of confidence, saying: "shortly before ürerdrew ''Melancholy'', he wrote: 'what is beautiful I do not know' ... ''Melancholy'' is a lyric confession, the self-conscious introspection of the Renaissance artist, unprecedented in northern art. Erwin Panofsky is right in considering this admirable plate the spiritual self-portrait of Dürer." Within the magic square of ''Melencolia § I'', the combinations to be recognized are varied and surprising: «each corner group, formed by four squares (16, 3, 5, 10 - 2, 13, 11, 8 - 9, 6, 4, 15 – 7, 12, 14, 1), has the sum of 34. The same number is obtained by adding the digits of the central group (10, 11, 6, 7), but also those of the corner squares (16, 13, 4, 1). The same result is obtained by adding the digits on the horizontal, vertical, diagonal lines. We always get 34. In total, the number occurs sixteen times. Sixteen is the total number of enclosed squares. This is a property that also appears in Henricus Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim's ''Tabula Jovis'', but which has gone unnoticed by many, perhaps because it does not appear in the list of its characteristics, drawn up by the author himself. The characteristic of the sums of each zone is also shared in the analogous schemes of Mescupolo and Paracelsus. Despite the similarity with these, the magic square of ''Melencolia § I'' does not seem chosen to follow a hermetic tradition. The unspoken exclusivity of this type of square may be the reason for the dedication to Jupiter (privileged among the gods and the greatest of the planets) and for Dürer's choice. In truth, its most reliable source is found in the description that Luca Pacioli proposes as a pleasant curiosity ligiadro solazo» (f. 122''r'') attributing its origin to the greatest astronomers, "Ptolomeo al humasar ali, al fragano, Geber and to all the others ". These "have dedicated to Jupiter lanet «Giove» the figure made up of 4 squares on each side, with the numbers arranged in such a way as to obtain 34 for each direction, that is 16, 3, 2, 13 and in the following line 5, 10, 11, 8, therefore in the third line 9 tc.as seen in the margin.”» Since this indicated scheme does not appear in the manuscript, it has been completed with blue digits (''see image''). The magic square of ''Melencolia § I'' represents a jovial exercise (lat. ''iovialis'', from Iovis) to counter the influences of melancholy. In the lower center, the union of the numbers 15 and 14 indicates a very sad year.


Beyond allegory

In 1991, Peter-Klaus Schuster published ''Melencolia I: Dürers Denkbild'', an exhaustive history of the print's interpretation in two volumes. His analysis, that ''Melencolia I'' is an "elaborately wrought allegory of virtue ... structured through an almost diagrammatic opposition of virtue and fortune", arrived as allegorical readings were coming into question. In the 1980s, scholars began to focus on the inherent contradictions of the print, finding a mismatch between "intention and result" in the interpretive effort it seemingly required.Merback, 49 Martin Büchsel, in contrast to Panofsky, found the print a ''negation'' of Ficino's humanistic conception of melancholia. The chaos of the print lends itself to modern interpretations that find it a comment on the limitations of reason, the mind and senses, and philosophical optimism. For example, Dürer perhaps made the image impenetrable in order to simulate the experience of melancholia in the viewer.
Joseph Leo Koerner Joseph Leo Koerner (born June 17, 1958) is an American art historian and filmmaker. He is currently the Victor S. Thomas Professor of the History of Art and Architecture and, since 2008, Senior Fellow at the Society of Fellows at Harvard Univers ...
abandoned allegorical readings in his 1993 commentary, describing the engraving as purposely obscure, such that the viewer reflects on their own interpretive labour. He wrote, "The vast effort of subsequent interpreters, in all their industry and error, testifies to the efficacy of the print as an occasion for thought. Instead of mediating ''a'' meaning, ''Melencolia'' seems designed to generate multiple and contradictory readings, to clue its viewers to an endless exegetical labor until, exhausted in the end, they discover their own portrait in Dürer's sleepless, inactive personification of melancholy. Interpreting the engraving itself becomes a detour to self-reflection." In 2004, Patrick Doorly argued that Dürer was more concerned with beauty than melancholy. Doorly found textual support for elements of ''Melencolia I'' in Plato's '' Hippias Major'', a dialog about what constitutes the beautiful, and other works that Dürer would have read in conjunction with his belief that beauty and geometry, or measurement, were related. (Dürer wrote a treatise on human proportions, one of his last major accomplishments.) Dürer was exposed to a variety of literature that may have influenced the engraving by his friend and collaborator, the humanist
Willibald Pirckheimer Willibald Pirckheimer (5 December 1470 – 22 December 1530) was a German Renaissance lawyer, author and Renaissance humanist, a wealthy and prominent figure in Nuremberg in the 16th century, imperial counsellor and a member of the governing City ...
, who also translated from Greek. In Plato's dialog,
Socrates Socrates (; ; –399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no te ...
and
Hippias Hippias of Elis (; el, Ἱππίας ὁ Ἠλεῖος; late 5th century BC) was a Greek sophist, and a contemporary of Socrates. With an assurance characteristic of the later sophists, he claimed to be regarded as an authority on all subjects, ...
consider numerous definitions of the beautiful. They ask if that which is pleasant to sight and hearing is the beautiful, which Dürer symbolizes by the intense gaze of the figure, and the bell, respectively. The dialog then examines the notion that the "useful" is the beautiful, and Dürer wrote in his notes, "Usefulness is a part of beauty. Therefore what is useless in a man, is not beautiful." Doorly interprets the many useful tools in the engraving as symbolizing this idea; even the dog is a "useful" hunting hound. At one point the dialog refers to a millstone, an unusually specific object to appear in both sources by coincidence. Further, Dürer may have seen the perfect
dodecahedron In geometry, a dodecahedron (Greek , from ''dōdeka'' "twelve" + ''hédra'' "base", "seat" or "face") or duodecahedron is any polyhedron with twelve flat faces. The most familiar dodecahedron is the regular dodecahedron with regular pentag ...
as representative of the beautiful (the "
quintessence Quintessence, or fifth essence, may refer to: Cosmology * Aether (classical element), in medieval cosmology and science, the fifth element that fills the universe beyond the terrestrial sphere * Quintessence (physics), a hypothetical form of da ...
"), based on his understanding of
Platonic solid In geometry, a Platonic solid is a convex, regular polyhedron in three-dimensional Euclidean space. Being a regular polyhedron means that the faces are congruent (identical in shape and size) regular polygons (all angles congruent and all e ...
s. The "botched" polyhedron in the engraving therefore symbolises a failure to understand beauty, and the figure, standing in for the artist, is in a gloom as a result. In ''Perfection's Therapy'' (2017), Merback argues that Dürer intended ''Melencolia I'' as a therapeutic image. He reviews the history of images of spiritual consolation in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and highlights how Dürer expressed his ethical and spiritual commitment to friends and community through his art. He writes, the "thematic of a virtue-building inner reflection, understood as an ethical-therapeutic imperative for the new type of pious intellectual envisioned by humanism, certainly underlies the conception of ''Melencolia''". Dürer's friendships with humanists enlivened and advanced his artistic projects, building in him the "self-conception of an artist with the power to heal". Treatments for melancholia in ancient times and in the Renaissance occasionally recognized the value of "reasoned reflection and exhortation" and emphasized the regulation of melancholia rather than its elimination "so that it can better fulfill its God-given role as a material aid for the enhancement of human genius". The ambiguity of ''Melencolia I'' in this view "offers a moderate mental workout that calms rather than excites the passions, a stimulation of the soul's higher powers, an evacuative that dispels the vapors beclouding the mind... This, in a word, is a form of '' katharsis''—not in the medical or religious sense of a 'purgation' of negative emotions, but a 'clarification' of the passions with both ethical and spiritual consequences".


Legacy

Artists from the sixteenth century used ''Melencolia I'' as a source, either in single images personifying melancholia or in the older type in which all four temperaments appear. Lucas Cranach the Elder used its motifs in numerous paintings between 1528 and 1533.Merback, 131–133 They share elements with ''Melencolia I'' such as a winged, seated woman, a sleeping or sitting dog, a sphere, and varying numbers of children playing, likely based on Durer's
Putto A putto (; plural putti ) is a figure in a work of art depicted as a chubby male child, usually naked and sometimes winged. Originally limited to profane passions in symbolism,Dempsey, Charles. ''Inventing the Renaissance Putto''. University of ...
. Cranach's paintings, however, contrast melancholy with childish gaiety, and in the 1528 painting, occult elements appear. Prints by
Hans Sebald Beham Sebald Beham (1500–1550) was a German painter and printmaker, mainly known for his very small engravings. Born in Nuremberg, he spent the later part of his career in Frankfurt. He was one of the most important of the " Little Masters", the group ...
(1539) and Jost Amman (1589) are clearly related. In the Baroque period, representations of Melancholy and
Vanity Vanity is the excessive belief in one's own abilities or attractiveness to others. Prior to the 14th century it did not have such narcissistic undertones, and merely meant ''futility''. The related term vainglory is now often seen as an archaic ...
were combined.
Domenico Fetti Domenico Fetti (also spelled Feti) (c. 1589 – 1623) was an Italian Baroque painter who had been active mainly in Rome, Mantua and Venice. Biography Born in Rome to a little-known painter, Pietro Fetti, Domenico is said to have apprenticed ...
's ''Melancholy''/''Meditation'' (c. 1620) is an important example; Panofsky et al. wrote that "the meaning of this picture is obvious at first glance; all human activity, practical no less than theoretical, theoretical no less than artistic, is vain, in view of the vanity of all earthly things." The print attracted nineteenth-century Romantic artists; self-portrait drawings by
Henry Fuseli Henry Fuseli ( ; German: Johann Heinrich Füssli ; 7 February 1741 – 17 April 1825) was a Swiss painter, draughtsman and writer on art who spent much of his life in Britain. Many of his works, such as '' The Nightmare'', deal with supernatu ...
and
Caspar David Friedrich Caspar David Friedrich (5 September 1774 – 7 May 1840) was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landscape ...
show their interest in capturing the mood of the Melencolia figure, as does Friedrich's '' The Woman with the Spider's Web''.Bartrum et al., 296–298 The Renaissance historian
Frances Yates Dame Frances Amelia Yates (28 November 1899 – 29 September 1981) was an English historian of the Renaissance, who wrote books on esoteric history. After attaining an MA in French at University College London, she began to publish her resear ...
believed
George Chapman George Chapman (Hitchin, Hertfordshire, – London, 12 May 1634) was an English dramatist, translator and poet. He was a classical scholar whose work shows the influence of Stoicism. Chapman has been speculated to be the Rival Poet of Sh ...
's 1594 poem '' The Shadow of Night'' to be influenced by Dürer's print, and Robert Burton described it in his '' The Anatomy of Melancholy'' (1621). Dürer's ''Melencolia'' is the patroness of the City of Dreadful Night in the final canto of James Thomson's poem of that name. The print was taken up in Romantic poetry of the nineteenth century in English and French. The Passion façade of the
Sagrada Família The Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família, shortened as the Sagrada Família, is an unfinished church in the Eixample district of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It is the largest unfinished Catholic church in the world. Designed by ...
contains a magic square based on the magic square in Melencolia I. The square is rotated and one number in each row and column is reduced by one so the rows and columns add up to 33 instead of the standard 34 for a 4x4 magic square. File:Unbekannter Maler im Gefolge L. Cranach d.Ä. - Melancholia.jpg, Copy after Lucas Cranach the Elder's 1528 painting in Edinburgh File:Melancholia MET DP836203.jpg,
Hans Sebald Beham Sebald Beham (1500–1550) was a German painter and printmaker, mainly known for his very small engravings. Born in Nuremberg, he spent the later part of his career in Frankfurt. He was one of the most important of the " Little Masters", the group ...
's ''Melancholia'' (1539) File:Jost Amman - Melancholia.jpg, Jost Amman's ''Melancholia'' (1589) File:Melencolia I (copy) MET DP815746.jpg,
Jan Wierix Jan Wierix or Johannes Wierix (1549 – c. 1620) was a Flemish engraver, draughtsman, and publisher. He was a very accomplished engraver who made prints after his own designs as well as designs by local and foreign artists. Together with ot ...
's 1602 copy File:Seated Woman with a Spider's Web (Die Frau mit dem Spinnennnetz zwischen kahlen Baumen) MET DP872947.jpg, '' The Woman with the Spider's Web'' or ''Melancholy''. Woodcut after an 1803 drawing by
Caspar David Friedrich Caspar David Friedrich (5 September 1774 – 7 May 1840) was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landscape ...
File:Каспар Давид Фридрих. Автопортрет за столом.jpg, Friedrich's pre-1840 self-portrait File:Shamiram_ara.jpeg, Semiramis and Ara (1899) by Vardges Sureniants


References


Works cited

* * * * *


External links


''Melencolia I'' overview by the National Gallery of Art

''Melencolia I'' overview by the Khan Academy
{{Authority control 16th-century engravings 1514 works Prints by Albrecht Dürer Works about melancholia Rainbows in art Catholic engraving