A Portrait of the Human Mind: ‘Melencolia I’

The first of Albrecht Dürer’s master engravings that visually depict our mind, body, and spirit.
A Portrait of the Human Mind: ‘Melencolia I’
“Melencolia I” (cropped), 1514, by Albrecht Dürer. Engraving. 9 5/8 inches by 7 9/16 inches. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Public Domain
Yvonne Marcotte
Updated:
0:00
The human mind is what Francis Crick called, “‘the Hard Problem,’ the baffling dichotomy between our physical brain on the one hand (1.4 kg. [3.086 lbs.] of ‘grey matter’), and our human consciousness (an infinity of imagination, thought and feeling), in all its astounding and fathomless complexity on the other. Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528)  gives us an insight into the human mind through his art.

Dürer’s “Melencolia I” introduces us to the many levels of his own thinking—a self-portrait of his mind, so to speak. His copper engraving, one of his “Meisterstiche,” or master engravings, tells us what it means to be engaged in thought and how the mind works.

The title of Dürer’s engraving refers to the three levels of melancholic artistic inspiration discussed in the Renaissance: imagination, reason, and intellect.

“Melencolia I,” 1514, by Albrecht Dürer. Engraving. 9 5/8 inches by 7 9/16 inches. National Gallery of Art, Washington. (Public Domain)
“Melencolia I,” 1514, by Albrecht Dürer. Engraving. 9 5/8 inches by 7 9/16 inches. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Public Domain

Symbols and Numbers

The engraving presents an array of objects that don’t seem related, yet actually are and symbolize the many ways our mind works. The figure of a winged female, sometimes referred to as a Muse, in deep reflection, gazes out at a body of water. She wears a wreath of watercress and water parsley and holds a caliper, or compass. A keychain laden with keys and a purse hangs from her belt. At her feet are tools used in building: a hand plane, claw hammer, nails, and saw.

A ball rests in the left foreground; a sleeping dog, perhaps a greyhound, curls up around the winged female figure’s feet.  Moving up to her left, are three unusual objects: a ladder, a cherub who sits on a grindstone scribbling on a tablet, and a polyhedron.

The polyhedron, or rhombohedron, was known as “Dürer’s solid.” Mathematician Günter M. Ziegler called the three-dimensional shape a “truncated triangular trapezohedron.” Renaissance artists discovered the importance of geometry and mathematics in making their paintings. “Geometry was one of the Seven Liberal Arts, and its mastery was considered vital to the creation of high art, which had been revolutionized by new understandings of perspective,” according to art historian Erwin Panofsky.

Behind the main figure a small building structure holds several more objects: a scale, an hourglass under a sundial, and a table of numbers under a bell. The body of water in the background is lit by some bright object in the sky, perhaps a comet. The engraving’s title is flown in by a winged creature. A rainbow wraps around the water.

The Magic Square in Durer's "Melencolia I." (Public Domain)
The Magic Square in Durer's "Melencolia I." Public Domain
Just over the Muse’s wing is the “magic square,” used in alchemy, geometry, and numerology. The square has four rows, four columns, and diagonals of 4, of which equal the magic constant of 34 when added. The year of the engraving, 1514, is in the bottom row. Any two numbers symmetrically placed in the center columns added equal 17.
Magic squares were common in medieval times ... and many people owned them.  They were sold at market fairs all over Europe, and their availability was common,” according to the Albrecht Dürer blog. It’s been suggested that if the melancholy muse were to turn toward the square, she would be imbued with the order and harmony of the square, rather than the ephemeral watery landscape, perhaps a contrast of painting with imagination versus rational thought and mathematics.
The Muse sits on a slab, where Dürer’s iconic signature of the A over D is carved, under the number 1514, the date the engraving was completed.

The Mind at Work

The main figure is looking for answers. We often seek answers using the tools at our disposal. All of the objects symbolize what our minds needs to thrive in the world. The muse perhaps symbolizes the part of us that can fly, but it is still mired in concerns that keep her earth-bound.

Dürer was showing us the way to divine inspiration, and the direction lies in the objects and events in front of us. Each object provides a way to reflect on our direction in life. For instance, the keys at the figure’s waist symbolize the key to knowledge, and the purse symbolizes the wealth of knowledge available through learning. The ladder may be the last steps we need to take before our thoughts and aspirations can fly.

Nothing in “Melencolia I” seems connected, yet perhaps everything is connected, much in the same way our mind works. We may be working on building something, such as a structure, a business, or a painting, and we must use diverse skills and tools at our disposal to do the job.

The engraving also tells us that we need more than our mental skills and tools to work out our problems and fly. We need to take time to reflect, to visually see in our mind’s eye what we need to do, and to put everything together before the actual work begins. Perhaps this engraving gives us this point of creation, what the mind needs to think about before the work actually begins. The sciences, especially mathematics, play a role in our thinking.

To find his own response to “the hard problem,” Dürer immersed himself in the emerging sciences to enhance his already amazing talent as an artist. Dürer studied astrology, geometry, and the natural sciences to improve his techniques as an artist. The National Gallery of Art states: “He also rigorously studied intellectual concepts central to the Renaissance: perspective, absolute beauty, proportion, and harmony.”

Master Engraver

The Metropolitan Museum of Art describes an engraving, made on a copper or zinc plate, as “an intaglio printmaking process in which lines are cut into a metal plate in order to hold the ink.” Using the tool called a burin, the design is made by intentional cuts made into the plate.

To create depth and texture, Dürer made crosscuts or hatchings, which produced the extraordinary shadings in the print. Once the composition is complete, the artist spread ink over the plate, then carefully wiped it off leaving ink in the lines that make the image. He placed paper over the plate to make the print, then pressed the plate with paper between rollers. In order to read any script, Dürer wrote words backward, as in a mirror, to make it readable on the print.

Dürer mastered many mediums: oil paintings, watercolors, woodcuts, and engravings. Three of his engravings are deemed Meisterstiches: “Melencolia I,” “Knight, Death, and the Devil,” and “Saint Jerome in His Study.” They could be considered Dürer’s visual reflections of the mind, the body, and the spirit.

This engraving has been one of the most analyzed of Dürer’s art. Giorgio Vasari, considered the first art historian, was acquainted with Dürer’s work and said this about the artist in “Lives of the Most Excellent Italian Architects, Painters and Sculptors”: Dürer was a “truly great painter and creator of the most beautiful copper engravings.”

Dürer’s copper engraving, “Melencolia I,” has given us a portrait of the mind in symbol and number through the artistic skill of a great artist.

Would you like to see other kinds of arts and culture articles? Please email us your story ideas or feedback at [email protected]