ABSTRACT
Albrecht Dürer’s cryptic engraving Melencolia I (1514) is one of the major monuments of art history (Figure 27.1). Its virtuosic chiaroscuro effects and dazzling intaglio technique mark it as the pinnacle of the artist’s output. However, it is the print’s elusive subject that fascinates us even more than its superb technical qualities. Dürer supplied a title in the words Melencolia 1, splayed across the wings of a flying bat in the upper left corner. But the main figure is an angelic muse, seated on the ground in a pose that suggests weariness or dejection – perhaps also frustration. With darkly shaded eyes and knitted brow, she gazes upward, a pair of dividers poised in her right hand and a latched book in her lap. As if to mock her mental and physical inertia, an industrious putto, seated precariously atop a millstone, works busily at something – we know not what. Other objects, many of which are associated with time and measure, share the space. A blazing comet, bound by the overarching curve of a rainbow, streaks across the sky above, providing an element of celestial drama to the scene.
