In this engraving, a female figure sits on a step. She supports her head against her propped up left arm while her right hand rests in her lap, clutching a pair of dividers. Her face is turned to the side, gazing outward, looking despondent. Wings protrude from her back, but they are retracted and remain lifeless against her body. An hour glass, bell, and a magic chart are situated directly above her head (a magic chart is a square in which the numbers in each vertical, horizontal or diagonal row sum to the same number, which in this case is thirty-four). The date of this work, 1514, also appears in the last row of numbers on the magic square. An array of untouched carpentry tools and geometry instruments are scattered around the foreground. Nestled at the feet of the female figure is a sleeping dog. In the middle of the composition a little putto sits perched on a millstone. He appears to be scribbling into a small book. His face mirrors that of the female figure, dejected and sombre. The leaning ladder in the background reveals a remote coastal town between the rungs. The title of the work, Melencolia I, is also incorporated into the composition, haloed by a rainbow and lingering in the night sky like the falling comet next to it.
Melencolia I was engraved by Albrecht Dürer in 1514. The shading throughout the composition, achieved in cross and parallel hatching patterns, suggests multiple light sources. As art historian Heinrich Wölfflin has written of the print: ‘The light is not concentrated but broken up; the main highlights are set very low. The tonal movement shows no decisive contrasts; it goes across the print in chromatic passages. An unsteady light flares in the sky, the comet of Saturn’ (Wölfflin 1971, p.204).
There is no codex for deciphering all of the symbolism in Melencolia I. Wölfflin notes that Dürer himself only gave an explanation for the meaning behind two of the objects in the print. In some personal writings the artist noted that the pouch that rests on the hem of the figure’s gown and the keys tied around her waist represent wealth and power. However, beyond the symbolism of all the individual elements, the depiction of a state of mind, namely melancholy, is what prevails in the image. Melancholy is typically defined as a morose state of being that strips its victim of their energetic and creative life force. Art historian Jeroen Stumpel writes:
According to the classical doctrine of the Temperaments, an excess of black gall is responsible for the melancholic condition. According to this theory, it is a mixture of the four humours that results in the various types of human characters, which can be classified as sanguine (blood), choleric (yellow gall), phlegmatic (phlegm), or melancholic (black gall) (Stumpel 2013, p.258).
In this context, Melencolia I is the personification of a temperament. Philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato held a different understanding for this imbalance. They attributed the humour to a ‘divine frenzy’ (furor divinus) – a gift to those whose intellectual pursuits are on the cusp of fruition. Wölfflin’s analysis, written in the 1950s, likewise makes a connection between melancholy and intellectual gain, seeing the engraving ‘as an allegory of deep, speculative thought. It has been said that he only wanted to represent the searching intellect which has advanced from experiment to synthesis and, by extreme mental concentration, is trying to make the vague ideas of inward perception distinct’ (Wölfflin 1971 p.201). The connection between the melancholy and the intellect is made apparent through the tools that surround the central figure, which are associated with geometry and mathematical knowledge.
Melencolia I is often referred to as one of Dürer’s Meisterstiche (master engravings), along with Knight, Death, and Devil 1513 and Saint Jerome in His Study 1514. Although these works are not a series as such, scholars have attempted to link the trio together, seeing them as representing moral, theological and intellectual pursuits respectively. Stumpel remarks:
The idea that there is an iconographical enigma (or several such enigmas) is due not just to the suggested deeper layer connecting the Meisterstiche – it has been prompted by uncertainty about the subject of the first print, Knight, Death, and Devil, and much more even by the character of the most spectacular master engraving: Melancholy, with its complex and far from common display of symbolic material.’ (Stumpel 2013, p.251.)
Stumpel also suggests that in order to obtain a better perspective of Dürer’s ambitions and achievements it is important to look at his predecessor, fellow German engraver, Martin Schongauer, who had a great influence upon Dürer. Schongauer can be credited with being amongst the first engravers to elevate printmaking from a craft into a valued graphic art. His creative techniques and innovations are visible in Dürer’s style.
Further reading
Heinrich Wölfflin, The Art of Albrecht Dürer, London 1971.
Jeroen Stumpel, ‘Medium, Meaning, and Meisterstiche. An Essay on Dürer’s Art of Engraving’ in Jochen Sander (ed.), Albrecht Dürer His Life in Context, exhibition catalogue, Stradel Museum, Germany 2013, pp.250–8.
Trudy Gaba
The University of Edinburgh
December 2016
