DOCSLIB.ORG

What Good Would Climbing

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
What Good Would Climbing 10 ART HISTORY ART HISTORY 11 madness allied to genius to decode the engrav- so solid, “seems weirdly possessed of an inner well as a way clear of the predicament. Poised and the Resurrection, implies a history of the ing. This was developed into a book-length torque, a kinetic potential that makes its planar between extremes, but ready to move in the right world in which the figures depicted and the What good would climbing do? study, still one of the masterpieces of the War- components seem to rotate away from the cen- direction, Melancholy’s narrative “situation” figures gazing at what is depicted form part of burg school: Saturn and Melancholy by Panof- tral axis”, and how “this instability lends the invites and instigates a tempered response in the a whole. In Dürer’s image we are in a timeless sky and his colleagues Raymond Klibansky and form an uncanny ‘agency’ in steering the eye’s beholder, a moderate and modulated speculation present which corresponds to no spot on earth, Therapy, melancholy and Albrecht Dürer Fritz Saxl, which appeared in English in 1964. activity around the composition”. He brings out with the power not only to model, but to restore and to identify with the brooding central figure What all these scholars share, argues Mitchell the complex mathematical echoes set up by the the mind’s creative functioning. would seem more likely to entrap one in one’s Merback in Perfection’s Therapy, his erudite magic square (scholars have even argued that it It is as if, fired by his thesis about the work’s melancholy than to relieve it. GABRIEL JOSIPOVICI new study of Dürer’s engraving, “is a commit- holds the key to the construction of the polyhe- therapeutic power, Merback has forgotten The source of the problem is that Merback ment to reading Dürer’s picture as a unified dron), and points out that Dürer in fact dates his everything he had previously said about it. He consistently identifies melancholy as Dürer Mitchell B. Merback statement, a symbol in the sense articulated by work twice – once, in his usual fashion, above could be describing a different picture. He depicts her with acedia, one sin in a very pre- Panofsky’s mentor, the neo-Kantian philoso- his monogram, though here half hidden in the might of course persuade us if he were to show cise series in a precise cosmology. But if you PERFECTION’S THERAPY An essay on Albrecht Dürer’s Melencolia I pher, Ernst Cassirer (1874–1945)”. He explains shadows beneath the bench on which the figure us what it was in the engraving that we had believe, as I do, that there is something radi- 357pp. Zone. $32.95. what he means by this: sits, and again in the middle two numbers of the read so wrongly, but he doesn’t do that. cally new and radically different about 978 1 942130 00 0 Each assumes that the engraving’s accumulated bottom row of the magic square: 1514. Instead he bombards us with information Dürer’s Melancholia, that she belongs not to object-signs all point beyond themselves, to All this merely reinforces our immediate about medieval and Humanist therapeutic the ordered world of Dante but to the new something mysteriously “contained” by the sense, on seeing the picture of chaos and practices and theories, but there is nothing world whose outlines will be explored by y sometime friend Belacqua”, one work, as if gestating there, awaiting the herme- confusion (the tools of Melancholy’s trade there that makes me feel that this bears any Kierkegaard, Baudelaire, Mann and many of Samuel Beckett’s early stories neutical act that will liberate it and bring it into scattered on the floor, the sense of too many relation to our particular image. others, then the entire premiss of Merback’s Mbegins, “enlivened the last phase of the light of day. Once successful, such an act will things piled together on the right and bottom left To take just one example. It is well known argument collapses. From this type of melan- his solipsism . with the belief that the best show the whole work to be a synthesis of these of the picture) allied to stasis (in Melancholy’s that certain works of art were literally seen as choly there is no obvious release; once it has thing he had to do was to move constantly from revealed meanings. posture, her wide-open eyes gazing not outward aids to healing. Merback points to Rogier van you in its grip it colours your entire world, and place to place. He did not know how this conclu- More recently, though, scholars, foremost but somehow into herself, the compasses inac- der Weyden’s “Last Judgement”, commis- the suggestion that there is a way out of it sion had been gained, but that it was not thanks among them Joseph Koerner, have taken to tive in her hand, the emaciated dog at her feet, sioned in 1443 for the hospice in Beaune by the seems insufferably smug and self-confident. to his preferring one place to another he felt arguing that “instead of mediating a meaning, asleep but hardly relaxed, and over it all the Burgundian Chancellor, Nicolas Rolin, and his But, a defender of Merback might reply, all sure.” Belacqua Shua, the Dublin layabout ‘Melencolia’ seems designed to generate multi- wide open expanse of sea and the sky with its wife; the Isenheim Altarpiece, by Matthias Grü- your examples belong 300 years after Dürer, who is the protagonist of these stories, is a ple and contradictory readings” (as Koerner weird light, the baleful rainbow and the eerie bat newald and Nikolaus Hagenauer, created in the who was still very much a man of the Renais- thinly veiled version of the young Beckett puts it), that “the impossibility of ever arranging heralding its melancholy message to the world). same years as Dürer’s engraving for the monas- sance. Mann may use the Dürer image in con- himself. The story goes that when, one mid- the parts into a cohesive and meaningful whole, The Warburg argument that this is an image of tery of St Anthony near Colmar; and the high nection with his latter-day Faustus, but the key day in Paris in the 1930s, Peggy Guggenheim should be understood as a deliberate effort by Neoplatonic genius (which according to Ficino altarpiece in the hospital church of the Holly here is that he is a latter-day Faustus. My and friends called on Beckett to go picnicking Dürer to convey the feeling of melancholic dis- and others tends to be allied to melancholy) Spirit in Laatsch, South Tyrol, by Jörg Lederer response would be: What about Hamlet? Are as they had planned they found him still in tress, to simulate the disorientation that attends seems more and more wide of the mark the and Jörg Mack. If we look at any one of these in we to identify Hamlet’s melancholy as a cura- bed. “Get up!” they shouted. “We’ve got to a particular state of mind”. longer one looks. detail, Merback’s attempt to draw “Melencolia ble disease for which the tradition, both get moving!” To which the budding writer Merback’s sympathies lie with this more I” into their orbit seems utterly perverse. In Col- Christian and Humanist, suggested clear rem- answered: “Why?” and, turning over in bed, recent trend but he wishes to take this insight in ut Merback has only been laying the mar, at the Monastery of St Anthony, those suf- edies (Merback is very persuasive on this), or went back to sleep. a new direction. The engraving, he argues, groundwork for his own view. “Accord- fering from ergotism, a disease caused, we now as an incurable condition brought about by a Beckett’s alter ego in these stories is named seeks not only to disorientate viewers, but, Bing to the theory put forward in this know, by contaminated rye but which, in early general crisis in authority, which in Hamlet’s after a character in Dante. In Canto 4 of the having done so, to redirect them along a new book”, he says early on, modern Europe, was known as St Anthony’s case means less than absolute faith in his Purgatorio Dante and Virgil come across a path that will restore them to health. But first he Dürer’s print is singularly equipped to perform a fire, were looked after in a great chamber at the father’s ghost and its injunction to avenge strange figure: explores, with great subtlety, the way in which particular task: to stimulate a certain kind of far end of which was displayed Grünewald’s him? My sense is that the answer has to be the We drew near; and there were persons in the the picture is fashioned to repel any attempt at a receptive process in the beholder. That process I huge polyptych whose central image is a vast latter, and that is why Hamlet still speaks to us shade behind the rock, in postures people take for unified vision. He begins, as indeed does Panof- will describe as therapeutic in nature – therapeu- and terrible depiction of Christ on the cross, so powerfully today. negligence. And one of them, who seemed weary, sky, by comparing and contrasting “Melencolia tic in the Petrarchan sense, as a union of rhetoric covered in boils precisely like those afflicting But, it might be retorted, Hamlet was writ- was sitting embracing his knees, holding his face I” with another engraving made by Dürer in and philosophy in the pursuit of virtue, and also in sufferers from ergotism.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 2010-2011 Newsletter
    Newsletter WILLIAMS G RADUATE PROGRAM IN THE HISTORY OF A RT OFFERED IN COLLABORATION WITH THE CLARK ACADEMIC YEAR 2010–11 Newsletter ••••• 1 1 CLASS OF 1955 MEMORIAL PROFESSOR OF ART MARC GOTLIEB Letter from the Director Greetings from Williamstown! Our New features of the program this past year include an alumni now number well over 400 internship for a Williams graduate student at the High Mu- going back nearly 40 years, and we seum of Art. Many thanks to Michael Shapiro, Philip Verre, hope this newsletter both brings and all the High staff for partnering with us in what promises back memories and informs you to serve as a key plank in our effort to expand opportuni- of our recent efforts to keep the ties for our graduate students in the years to come. We had a thrilling study-trip to Greece last January with the kind program academically healthy and participation of Elizabeth McGowan; coming up we will be indeed second to none. To our substantial community of alumni heading to Paris, Rome, and Naples. An ambitious trajectory we must add the astonishingly rich constellation of art histori- to be sure, and in Rome and Naples in particular we will be ans, conservators, and professionals in related fields that, for a exploring 16th- and 17th-century art—and perhaps some brief period, a summer, or on a permanent basis, make William- sense of Rome from a 19th-century point of view, if I am al- stown and its vicinity their home. The atmosphere we cultivate is lowed to have my way.
    [Show full text]
  • Rainer Schoch How Albrecht Dürer Defined the Modern Artist Type With
    Rainer Schoch How Albrecht Dürer defined the modern artist type with his symbolic image Dürer reflects upon “melancholy” in this masterpiece engraving. This work has the knowledge of dimensions, size, scale and numbers. The always been regarded as one of his most enigmatic and personal pieces. The sheer tools can be categorized into two different spheres: intel- amount of literature built upon this artwork has generated a Babylonian tower of lectualism and craftsmanship. Thus, what at first appeared interpretation on this “Image of Images” (Peter-Klaus as a chaotic jumble of objects, can be interpreted as an Schuster). Erwin Panofsky understood the piece as a, ascending hierarchy in which the intellectual, “artes libe- “spiritual self-portrait of Albrecht Dürer”. rales,” prevails over craft, “artes mechanicae”. Certainly, T he work depicts a winged, matronlike figure, Dürer is addressing one of the core disputes of his time, as sumptuously dressed and crowned with flowers. well as his very own artistic existence. She sits upon the stairs before a wall, pensively According to historians such as Erwin Panofsky, Fritz crouching amid a chaotic jumble of objects and Saxl, and Raymond Klibansky the conceptual and semantic devices that appear to have been abandoned by history of the word melancholy demonstrated a significant chance. Lost in her thoughts, she melancholically change in Dürer’s epoch. Scholars in medieval times belie- rests her head in her hands. She carelessly holds a ved that a surplus of black bile within the body could result Albrecht Dürer: Self-portrait with fur-trimmed compass in her right hand and a book in her lap.
    [Show full text]
  • Albrecht Dürer: “The Apelles of Black Lines”
    Albrecht Dürer: “The Apelles of Black Lines” Background Notes Dr Gillian White - 9 January 2019 Albrecht Dürer, Peasant Couple Dancing, 1514 Copperplate engraving Winchester Art History Group www.wahg.org.uk 1 Albrecht Dürer: “The Apelles of Black Lines” Introduction Towards the end of the fifteenth century there was a revolution in communication. The emergent printing press created a desire for the printed word and in its wake came a growing interest in illustration. At first the simple woodcut was used but, as the market for print grew, the techniques became more sophisticated and publishers included complex engravings with their works. From there it was a simple step to the emergence of the art print, the individual sheet or series to be collected as a work of art in its own right. The print became a major force for the circulation of ideas, whether in association with or independent from the word. Foremost amongst the print artists was Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), whose works illustrate the restless religious and philosophical world of the early sixteenth century. His prints are some of the most extraordinary and technically proficient ever produced and caused Erasmus to describe the artist as ‘the Apelles of black lines’. Albrecht Dürer Dürer was born in Nuremberg in 1471, the son of a successful goldsmith whose family origins were in Hungary. After basic schooling he was apprenticed to his father but, as he himself put it, was ‘more inclined towards painting’ and his father sent him to the successful workshop of Michael Wolgemut, where the boy could learn a broad range of techniques.
    [Show full text]
  • Dürer & Therhinoceros Tanya Desai Except Where Otherwise Noted, This Item’S License Is Described As Attribution- Noncommercial-Noderivatives 4.0 International
    Dürer & therhinoceros tanya desai Except where otherwise noted, this item’s license is described as Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International cover image: Dürer, Albrecht. The Rhinoceros. 1515 Woodcut on laid paper National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. book design: Vidura Jang Bahadur migration The Migration Stories Chapbook Series, 2019 Drawn from thestories community at and around the University of Chicago Edited by Rachel Cohen and Rachel DeWoskin Dürer& the rhinoceros tanya desai Figure 1. Dürer, Albrecht. The Rhinoceros. 1515. Woodcut on laid paper. National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. I. India to Portugal, 1515 dreams during storms, until on May 20, 1515, it finally lumbered Twenty years after the opening down the gangplank into the of the sea-route from Lisbon dazzling Portuguese sun—the to Calicut, a rhinoceros was first rhinoceros to discover brought aboard a ship in the Europe. docks of Goa. During the loading of the usual cargo of cinnamon, The animal had been taken from pepper and nutmeg onto the its Indo-Gangetic wallowing ship, the rhinoceros must have grounds to serve as a gift from stood on the deck, the sea-breeze the sultan of Gujarat to the stirring the folds of its skin for the governor of the new Portuguese first time, the sixteenth-century India. The governor had, in turn, horizon expanding before its sent it on this long sea-journey to eyes, till it was taken down to the please the king. Dom Manuel I, hold with the rest of the tradable already in possession of a large goods.
    [Show full text]
  • Renaissance Magic and Alchemy in the Works of Female Surrealist Remedios Varo
    RENAISSANCE MAGIC AND ALCHEMY IN THE WORKS OF FEMALE SURREALIST REMEDIOS VARO ____________ A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of California State University, Dominguez Hills ____________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in Humanities ____________ by Tammy M. Ngo Fall 2019 THESIS: RENAISSANCE MAGIC AND ALCHEMY IN THE WORKS OF FEMALE SURREALIST REMEDIOS VARO AUTHOR: TAMMY M. NGO APPROVED: ______________________________ Patricia Gamon, Ph.D Thesis Committee Chair ______________________________ Kirstin Ellsworth, Ph.D Committee Member ______________________________ Kimberly Bohman-Kalaja, Ph.D Committee Member Dedicated to Professor Lawrence Klepper ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to my advisor Professor Patricia Gamon, Ph.D., Humanities, Art History. In addition, to my family and friends who supported me during my thesis research, thank you. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................................... IV TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................................ V LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................................... VI ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... X 1. INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................1
    [Show full text]
  • Mlincoln Thesis Formatted
    ABSTRACT Title of Document: HENDRICK GOLTZIUS’S PROTEAN ICONOGRAPHY: 1582-1590 Matthew David Lincoln, Master of Arts, 2012 Directed By: Professor Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr., Department of Art History and Archaeology Karel van Mander famously characterized Goltzius as a “Proteus or Vertumnus of art”, a turn of phrase that has been taken to refer to his virtuosic skill at engraving in the styles of all the best masters. Often overlooked is the fact that Goltzius also conspicuously exercised his abilities as an iconographer in his early career as a print publisher. Between 1582, when he started his Haarlem print studio, and 1590, when he departed for Italy, Goltzius used classical rhetorical methods to construct innovative compositions. He thus promoted not only his skillful hand, but also his inventive and resourceful mind. This thesis considers Goltzius’s intellectual circles in Haarlem during this critical professional period, presents several case studies of his inventive iconographies, and concludes with two new interpretations of mythological artworks based on the artist’s rarely-acknowledged use of iconographic manuals and emblem books. HENDRICK GOLTZIUS’S PROTEAN ICONOGRAPHY: 1582-1590 By Matthew David Lincoln Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts 2012 Advisory Committee: Professor Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr., Chair Professor Anthony Colantuono Professor Meredith Gill © Copyright by Matthew David Lincoln 2012 DISCLAIMER The thesis document that follows has had referenced material removed in respect for the owner’s copyright. A complete version of this document, which includes said referenced material, resides in the University of Maryland College Park’s library collection.
    [Show full text]
  • Durer Melencolia I
    Albrecht Durer Albrecht Durer According to a google cache of http://d.whyville.net/smmk/whytimes/article?id=75: "... Durer was born May 21, 1471, in a small village outside of Nürnberg, Germany. He was the third son of Albrecht Durer and Barbara Holfer. He was one of eighteen children ... His father's family came from Hungary ... the family name was Ajtos which means "door" in Hungarian. When Durer senior and his brothers came to Germany they chose the name Turer which sounds like the German "Tur" meaning door. ... His father ... died in 1502 and Durer was left to care for his sick, and nearly blind, mother. ...". According to an alchemylab web article by John Read: "... Durer (1471-1528) ... was particularly skilled in drawing on the block for the wood-cutter and in engraving on copper with his own unsurpassed hand. In 1513 and 1514 he wrought three engravings on copper that will rank for all time among the world's select masterpieces of this form of art. These were ... "Melencolia" (1514). ... "St. Jerome in his Study" (1514), ... and ... "The Knight " (1513) ...". (images from web museum web pages) Old Dog or Mature Dog Young Dog Newborn Lamb Lion Salamander file:///Phi2Pi/Users/tony/Documents/Durer%20Melencolia%20I/ADurer.html (1 of 23) [11/7/2004 3:22:17 AM] Albrecht Durer MELENCOLIA I (image from an abcgallery web site) file:///Phi2Pi/Users/tony/Documents/Durer%20Melencolia%20I/ADurer.html (2 of 23) [11/7/2004 3:22:17 AM] Albrecht Durer According to an alchemylab web article by John Read: "..
    [Show full text]
  • Albrecht Dürer: the Search for the Beautiful in a Time of Trials by Bonnie James
    Click here for Full Issue of Fidelio Volume 14, Number 3, Fall 2005 ART Albrecht Dürer: The Search for the Beautiful In a Time of Trials by Bonnie James the Inquisition, Reuchlin had been with works including the Talmud and the inspired by the fresh winds blowing mystical Kabbala, soon lead him into con- from south of the Alps in Renais- flict with the Inquisition, its Inquisitor sance Italy. He was associated with General Jacob Hochstraten, and his fanati- the networks of the religious reform cal acolyte, Pfefferkorn. movement, the Brothers of the Com- When defending himself for having mon Life, whose commitment he found errors in the Vulgate of Jerome, shared to discovering the truth from Reuchlin declared, “Though I honor Jerome original sources. He had travelled to as a holy angel . .Ihonor truth more.” Italy several times, including to Flo- In arguing against burning the Jewish rence, where he spent time studying books, Reuchlin ridiculed those who issued Blauel/Gnamm—ARTOTHEK at the Platonic Academy with Mar- the order without being able to read the Albrecht Dürer, “Self-Portrait as Christ,” 1500. silio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, works they condemned: “If someone wished and others. It was the passionate to write against the mathematicians, and belief of these intellectuals that were himself ignorant in simple arithmetic Foreword: knowledge, especially of the Classics, must or mathematics, he would be made a The Reuchlin Affair be open to all. laughingstock,” he wrote in the “Recom- Moreover, as Christians, their commit- mendation.” He said that, if some were The year was 1510.
    [Show full text]
  • The Physicality of Rubens‟ Human Bodies: Visuality And
    THE PHYSICALITY OF RUBENS‟ HUMAN BODIES: VISUALITY AND MEDICINE IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE AIKATERINI GEORGOULIA TWO VOLUMES VOLUME I PH.D. UNIVERSITY OF YORK HISTORY OF ART SEPTEMBER 2014 ABSTRACT This thesis presents new textual and visual source material for our understanding of Rubens‟ painted human bodies. It identifies hitherto unexamined socio-cultural contexts, as well as contests and revises scholarly assumptions. I maintain that Rubens‟ bodies were informed by early modern scientific practices and medical discourses. The central argument is that Rubens‟ understanding of human physicality and the contemporary engagement with basic biological processes converge in his painted bodies. The medical view of the body as a psychosomatic unity – a nexus of material and immaterial properties – opens a new investigative avenue to studies of cultural materialism. The exploration of the enmeshment of materiality and immateriality gives an insight into how and in what ways matter and image acquire meaning. I argue that the immaterial characteristics of the human body are visually integrated in canvas and paper, pigments, oils and chalk. By exploring visual and textual sources, this study proposes a larger methodological framework. It brings together visuality, materiality and textuality, providing a cross-referential reading of text and image, and using both of them as core primary material with an argumentative voice. The analysis of the visual case studies (portraiture, history and religious painting) does not draw on a larger pre-determined and extraneous context, but context is produced by the image. Therefore, I perceive context as multifarious and wide-ranging. My approach responds to the previous lack of a broader study of Rubens‟ bodies via a medical perspective.
    [Show full text]
  • The German Renaissance
    The German Renaissance Parallel to and influenced by the blossoming of ideas in Italy during the 13 th to 16th centuries, developments in political and religious thinking, technical advances in printing, the humanities: art and architecture, north of the Alps led to what is now regarded as an equally important Northern Renaissance. As a consequence significant changes occurred in France, England, the Low Countries, Poland and Germany. The Renaissance was largely driven by the renewed interest in classical learning, and was also the result of rapid economic development. At the beginning of the 16th century, Germany (referring to the lands contained within the Holy Roman Empire) was one of the most prosperous areas in Europe despite a relatively low level of urbanization compared to Italy or the Netherlands. It benefited from the wealth of certain sectors such as metallurgy, mining, banking and textiles. More importantly, book- printing developed in Germany, and German printers dominated the new book-trade in most other countries until well into the 16th century. In what is known as the German Renaissance many areas of the arts and sciences were influenced, notably by the spread of Renaissance humanism to the various German states and principalities, many advances being made in the fields of architecture, the arts, and the sciences. Germany produced two developments that were to dominate the 16th century all over Europe: printing and the Protestant Reformation. Most notable among the artists were the contemporaries Matthias Grünewald, (c. 1470 – 1528) Albrecht Dürer (1471 – 1528) and Lucas Cranach the Elder (c. 1472 – 1553). Matthias Grünewald (c.
    [Show full text]
  • Sebald Beham: Entrepreneur, Printmaker, Painter
    University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Faculty Publications and Creative Activity, School of Art, Art History and Design Art, Art History and Design, School of 2012 Sebald Beham: Entrepreneur, Printmaker, Painter Alison Stewart University of Nebraska-Lincoln, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/artfacpub Part of the History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons Stewart, Alison, "Sebald Beham: Entrepreneur, Printmaker, Painter" (2012). Faculty Publications and Creative Activity, School of Art, Art History and Design. 18. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/artfacpub/18 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Art, Art History and Design, School of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications and Creative Activity, School of Art, Art History and Design by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. HOME VOL 4:2 PAST ISSUES SUBMISSIONS ABOUT JHNA SUPPORT JHNA CONTACT HNA search... JHNA Home Vol 4:2 Sebald Beham: Entrepreneur, Printmaker, Painter Sebald Beham: Entrepreneur, Printmaker, Painter Alison G. Stewart The prints of Sebald Beham and his brother Barthel were the subject of a recent exhibition titled Gottlosen Maler at the Albrecht- Dűrer-Haus in Nuremberg (March 3–July 3, 2011), where this essay was included in the exhibition catalogue in German. Revised and expanded for publication in this journal in English, the essay addresses Beham’s biography and historiography and argues that Beham should be viewed as a highly creative and productive entrepreneur and as one of the first “painters” (to use terminology of the time) to specialize in prints.
    [Show full text]
  • Dürer's Melencolia I: Creating a New Archetype by Jared Bendis What Is
    Dürer’s Melencolia I: Creating a New Archetype by Jared Bendis What is the Melencolia I? “Laden with enigmatic artifacts and dominated by the saturnine figure whose aspect is the essence of melancholy” (Manning 24), Dürer’s engraving Melencolia I, has fascinated scholars and viewers for close to 500 years. Scholars from a variety of disciplines have written, theorized and debated on the meaning and iconography of the work, from its broad thematic issues, down to its finest details. Is it a mathematical treatise, piece of alchemic wisdom, lamentation over his lost mother, or it is something more? This paper analyzes many of these often-conflicting ideas, uncovers new questions about the work, and in the end demonstrates that Dürer’s intention with Melencolia I was to synthesize a variety of facts, emotions, and ideas and create a new archetype for future generations. We can find some of the meaning in Dürer’s own documentation. We know that “she looks out with the eyes of Saturn.” If she is Saturn, then she is the child of Uranus and Gaea; she is the child of heaven and the child of Earth; she is the union between the two. Following the proposition that this figure is Saturn, we can safely argue that the ladder in the background is Jacob’s ladder, which connects heaven and Earth, and is reflective of this figure’s role in the universe (Manning). The ladder’s seven rungs pose a much more difficult question. The number seven is so mystical in itself that it would be impossible to explicate what he was trying to enumerate without allowances for alternate interpretations.
    [Show full text]