Lettere da Venezia 2007, Mondadori Electa: Dalle opere di Albrecht Dürer. [47] 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). Closed. Melencolia I Albrecht Dürer 1514. Title: Melencolia I; Creator: Albrecht Dürer; Date Created: 1514; Iván Fenyő considered the print a representation of an artist beset by a loss of confidence, saying: "shortly before [Dürer] drew 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. In 1991, Peter-Klaus Schuster published Melencolia I: Dürers Denkbild,[51] an exhaustive history of the print's interpretation in two volumes. 6th St and Constitution Ave NW In his book about Albrecht Durer, John Berger classes Melencolia I and the other two parts of the Apocolypse as constituting "the great high-point in Durer's graphic work".Similarly, art historian Erwin Panofsky claimed that is was the supreme self-portrait of Durer's working life - presumably due to the imagery it conveys. Albrecht Dürer'S melencolia incorniciato stampa. Space itself is thrown into confusion. In the far distance is a landscape with small treed islands, suggesting flooding, and a sea. At one point the dialog refers to a millstone, an unusually specific object to appear in both sources by coincidence. 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. One of Dürer’s three “master engravings,” Melencolia I has been linked by scholars to alchemy, astrology, theology, and philosophy, among other themes. In an unfinished book for young artists, he cautions that too much exertion may lead one to "fall under the hand of melancholy". It lives at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In 1513–1514 Dürer produced three exceptional copper engravings—Knight, Death and Devil, Saint Jerome in His Study, and Melencolia I—that have come to be known collectively as the Meisterstiche, or Master Engravings. Prints by Hans Sebald Beham (1539) and Jost Amman (1589) are clearly related. Albrecht Dürer, Melencolia I, 1514, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart . Holding her head in her hand, she stares past the busy scene in front of her. Albrecht Dürer, quoted in Erwin Panofsky. Albrecht Dürer German Dürer's Melencolia I is one of three large prints of 1513 and 1514 known as his Meisterstiche (master engravings). In front of the dog lies a perfect sphere, which has a radius equal to the apparent distance marked by the figure's compass. Melencolia I is a 1514 engraving by the German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer. [7], The print contains numerous references to mathematics and geometry. [52] 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. In 1512 Dürer came to the attention of Emperor Maximilian I, who became his greatest patron. 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 or an enema syringe (clyster). The new emperor renewed the pension Dürer had been granted by Maximilian I. Melencolia I is an allegorical composition which has been the subject of many interpretations. Ediz. Erwin Panofsky e Fritz Saxl hanno scritto che Melencolia, I – una delle più celebri incisioni del Rinascimento – è l’“autoritratto spirituale” del suo autore, il pittore tedesco Albrecht Dürer. Provenienza: Stati Uniti. Dürer may have associated melancholia with creative activity;[2] the woman may be a representation of a Muse, awaiting inspiration but fearful that it will not return. [9] Her face is relatively dark, indicating the accumulation of black bile, and she wears a wreath of watery plants (water parsley[disambiguation needed] and watercress[20][21] or lovage). Dürer's Melencolia I is one of three large prints of 1513 and 1514 known as his Meisterstiche (master engravings). Albrecht Dürer Melencolia I Shown in 3 exhibitions Exhibition history Von Israhel van Meckenem bis Albrecht Dürer: deutsche Graphik 1470-1530 aus Sammlung Graf Maltzan, C.G. Clevelandart 1926.211.jpg 2,693 × 3,400; 7.68 MB Provenienza: Stati Uniti +EUR 63,06 di spedizione. 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". Boerner GmbH, Dusseldorf, 02 Feb 1983–20 Feb 1983. Dürer Albrecht, 2005, Interlinea: Albrecht Dürer. La Melencolia di Dürer Una scheda di Vittorio Sgarbi dedicata al capolavoro di Albrecht Dürer conservato nella collezione permanente della Fondazione Magnani Rocca. 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. Carpentry tools are scattered on the ground. Lucas Cranach the Elder used its motifs in numerous paintings between 1528 and 1533. Albrecht Dürer, Knight, Death, and Devil, 1513, engraving on laid paper, 1941.1.20, Albrecht Dürer, Saint Jerome in His Study, 1514, engraving on laid paper, 1949.1.11, Albrecht Dürer, Melencolia I, 1514, engraving, 1949.1.17, Albrecht Dürer, Self-portrait with gloves at age 26, 1498, Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain, Photo Credit: Scala / Art Resource, NY. Melencolia I is a 1514 engraving by the German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer. [58], 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. [37] Others see the ambiguity as intentional and unresolvable. [53] For example, Dürer perhaps made the image impenetrable in order to simulate the experience of melancholia in the viewer. Albrecht Dürer, quoted in Erwin Panofsky, Albrecht Dürer (Princeton University Press, 1943), vol. Copy after Lucas Cranach the Elder's 1528 painting in Edinburgh[59], The Woman with the Spider's Web or Melancholy. Dürer's engraving is one of the most well-known extant old master prints, but, despite a vast art-historical literature, it has resisted any definitive interpretation. [32], 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". Ironically, this anguished representation of artistic impotence has proved a shining and enduring example of the power of Dürer’s art. Melencolia I has been the subject of more scholarship than probably any other print. She can invent and build, and she can think ... but she has no access to the metaphysical world.... [She] belongs in fact to those who 'cannot extend their thought beyond the limits of space.' Some scholars have interpreted the master engravings as complementary examples of different virtues—moral (the Knight), theological (Saint Jerome), and intellectual (Melencolia). By the time of his second trip to Italy, 1505–1507, he was the most celebrated German artist of the period. It may be a general allegory of depression or melancholy. [6], Agrippa defined three types of melancholic genius in his De occulta philosophia. [6][13][14] Dürer mentions melancholy only once in his surviving writings. This ... Albrecht Dürer (German, Nuremberg 1471–1528 Nuremberg) ca. Melancholia was thought to attract daemons that produced bouts of frenzy and ecstasy in the afflicted, lifting the mind toward genius. He started to use what he learned in Italy more and more, so his work was quite different from the other artists in Nuremberg who used only the traditional German style. [24], A bat-like creature spreads its wings across the sky, revealing a banner printed with the words "Melencolia I". Under the influence of Saturn, ... the melancholic imagination could be led to remarkable achievements in the arts". 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."[4]. Interpreting the engraving itself becomes a detour to self-reflection. Melencolia I Sull’incisione di Albrecht Dürer – parte iI di Federica Campanelli . 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. The mysterious light source at right, which illuminates the image, is unusually placed for Dürer and contributes to the "airless, dreamlike space". Seemingly immobilized by gloom, she pays no attention to the many objects around her. Media in category "Melencolia I by Albrecht Dürer" The following 37 files are in this category, out of 37 total. Five Landsknechte and an Oriental Man on Horseback, Albrecht Dürer, ... 1490 Dürer may have been the first printmaker to engrave a group of Landsknechte, a theme that proved exceedingly popular, as the adjoining prints by Urs Graf, Master M. Z., and Daniel Hopfer confirm. The print's central subject is an enigmatic and gloomy winged female figure thought to be a personification of melancholia - melancholy. [6] He made a few pencil studies for the engraving and some of his notes relate to it. L'immagine della melanconia fra psicopatologia e arte. [40][42], Other aspects of the print reflect the traditional symbolism of melancholy, such as the bat, emaciated dog, purse and keys. ALBRECHT DÜRER (1471-1528) Melencolia I engraving, 1514, on laid paper, without watermark, a fine Meder IIa impression, printing with great clarity and intense contrasts, the figure's face printing darkly, trimmed inside the platemark but retaining a fillet of blank paper outside the subject in most places, trimmed on or just inside the platemark below, a narrow strip on the right of the upper sheet edge and … [33] It has few perspective lines leading to the vanishing point (below the bat-like creature at the horizon), which divides the diameter of the rainbow in the golden ratio. [43][44] 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. [31] There is little tonal contrast and, despite its stillness, a sense of chaos, a "negation of order",[20] is noted by many art historians. In the Baroque period, representations of Melancholy and Vanity were combined. Doorly interprets the many useful tools in the engraving as symbolizing this idea; even the dog is a "useful" hunting hound. Special thanks to the Minneapolis Institute of ArtAlbrecht Dürer, Melencolia I, 1514, engraving (Minneapolis Institute of Art) This famous image is packed with meaning. Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528), one of the greatest of all German artists, was a painter, printmaker, draftsman, and theoretician. [6] The print has two states; in the first, the number nine in the magic square appears backward,[10] but in the second, more common impressions it is a somewhat odd-looking regular nine. Perhaps the most prevalent analysis suggests the engraving represents the melancholy of the creative artist, and that it is a spiritual self-portrait of Dürer himself. As Agrippa's study was published in 1531, Panofsky assumes that Dürer had access to a manuscript. Alleged to suffer from an excess of black bile, melancholics were thought to be especially prone to insanity. This sort of interpretation assumes that the print is a Vexierbild (a "puzzle image") or rebus whose ambiguities are resolvable. Department. Melencolia I was completed in 1514 A.D. by Albrecht Dürer. Dürer’s take on artists’ melancholy may have been influenced by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa’s De Occulta Philosophia, a tract popular in Renaissance humanist circles. È una delle tesi portanti del saggio che essi dedicarono all’opera nel 1923, La «Melencolia I» di Dürer. Due to rights restrictions, this image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded. 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, a popular encyclopedia. EUR 121,35. Melencolia I is by far the most complex of the three master engravings. Dürer was exposed to a variety of literature that may have influenced the engraving by his friend and collaborator, the humanist Willibald Pirckheimer, who also translated from Greek. The square follows the traditional rules of magic squares: each of its rows, columns, and diagonals adds to the same number, 34. Melencolia I o Melancholia I è un’incisione a bulino (23,9×28,9 cm) di Albrecht Dürer, siglata e datata al 1514. 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. In astrology, each temperament was under the influence of a planet, Saturn in the case of melancholia. Yet struggle as she might intellectually, she is powerless to transcend the earthbound realm of imagination to attain the higher stages of abstract thought (an idea to which the ladder that extends beyond the image may allude). The Passion façade of the Sagrada Família contains a magic square based on[64] the magic square in Melencolia I. [19] To the left of the emaciated, sleeping dog is a censer, or an inkwell with a strap connecting a pen holder. 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. The dialog then examines the notion that the "useful" is the beautiful, and Dürer wrote in his notes, "Usefulness is a part of beauty. 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. [60] Dürer's Melencolia is the patroness of the City of Dreadful Night in the final canto of James Thomson's poem of that name. © 2021 National Gallery of Art   Notices   Terms of Use   Privacy Policy. Addressing its apparent symbolism, he said, "to show that such [afflicted] minds commonly grasp everything and how they are frequently carried away into absurdities, [Dürer] reared 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. Unlike many of his other prints, these engravings, large by Dürer’s standards, were intended more for connoisseurs and collectors than for popular devotion. Since the ancient Greeks, the health and temperament of an individual were thought to be determined by the four humors: black bile (melancholic humor), yellow bile (choleric), phlegm (phlegmatic), and blood (sanguine). Therefore what is useless in a man, is not beautiful." [16] He suggested instead that the "I" referred to the first of three types of melancholy defined by Cornelius Agrippa (see Interpretation). Certain relationships in humorism, astrology, and alchemy are important for understanding the interpretive history of the print. Saint Jerome and Melencolia may be informal pendants; Saint Jerome’s clarity, light, and order contrast markedly with Melencolia’s brooding angst, nocturnal setting, and disorderly arrangement. Source "[35] Later, the 16th-century art historian Giorgio Vasari described Melencolia I as a technical achievement that "puts the whole world in awe".[36]. Beyond it is a rainbow and an object which is either Saturn or a comet. The objects she has at hand are associated with geometry and measurement, fields of knowledge that were considered the building blocks of artistic creation and that Dürer studied doggedly in his quest to theorize absolute beauty.