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.
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.
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 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.
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.
