Allegory of Life, 1561

Darkness dominates this dense and mysterious engraving by the virtuoso Italian printmaker Giorgio Ghisi, who spent half of his career in Antwerp and France. While the scene’s precise meaning remains elusive, the subject is thought to be an allegory about the adversities of life, as experienced by the bearded old man leaning against a blasted tree. Marooned on a rocky promontory and surrounded by various creatures, including the nocturnal owl and bat, he reaches imploringly toward a crowned woman, perhaps representing wisdom or reason, who strides in from the lower right. The symbolic passage from the darkness of despair to light-filled optimism is signified in the upper portion of the print, by the crescent moon on the left and the rising sun on the right, with a rainbow and stormy weather between them.