Introduction

One way to characterize melancholia is as a survivor. Of the four classical temperaments, only the melancholic persists, having long eclipsed the choleric, the phlegmatic, and the sanguine in contemporary culture. Albrecht Durer’s Melencolia I is amongst the most analyzed images in the history of art; to introduce it again can feel reductive. It is an image that is almost numbingly familiar—and five centuries after its creation, it continues to be debated and discussed, enabling new theories and much creative speculation, a lively reception that shows no signs of abating. Sigmund Freud’s essay “Mourning and Melancholia” marks the scientific grounding of melancholia and its role in modern psychoanalysis. In moving melancholia way from the doctrine of the four humours, its links to black bile and creative genius, Freud sought to distinguish the condition of melancholia from that of mourning, asserting that “the complex of melancholia behaves like an open wound.”.