Currently not on view
Melencolia I,
1514
More Context
Special Exhibition
The subject of this enigmatic composition is a brooding, winged woman surrounded by a clutter of tools and scientific instruments. She personifies Melancholy, one of the four humors, or temperaments, affecting human nature, according to medieval philosophy. Although associated with insanity and considered the least desirable temperament, melancholy was linked with creative genius in Renaissance thought. The “I” in Dürer’s title <em>Melencolia I</em> probably derives from an early sixteenth-century treatise that placed artists in the first of three hierarchical groups of the melancholic condition.
Information
1514
Europe, Germany, Nuremburg
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Adam vom Bartsch, "Volume 7," Le peintre graveur ... (Vienne: J. V. Degen, 1803-05).
, no. 25, p. 47 -
Sylvester Rosa Koehler, A Chronological Catalogue of the Engravings, Dry-points and Etchings of Albert Dürer, as Exhibited at the Grolier Club (New York: The Grolier Club, 1897).
, no. 68, p. 58 - Arthur Mayger Hind, Albrecht Dürer: his engravings and woodcuts (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1911)., p. 12
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Campbell Dodgson, Albrecht Dürer (London: Medici Society, 1926).
, no .71 - Joseph Meder, Dürer-Katalog, ein handbuch über Albrecht Dürers stiche, radierungen, Holzschnitte, deren zustände, ausgaben und wasserzeichen (Vienna: Gilhofer & Rauschburg, 1932)., no. 26, p. 80
- Erwin Panofsky, Albrecht Dürer (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1945)., p. 304
- "Recent acquisitions," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 12, no. 1 (1953): p. 38-39., p. 39
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F.W.H. Hollstein, “Dürer,” German engravings, etchings, and woodcuts, ca. 1400-1700 (Amsterdam: M. Hertzberger, 1962).
, no. 26, p. 22 - "Gifts by J. Lionberger Davis, Class of 1900, to the Art Museum", Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 33, no. 2 (1974): p. 24-30., p. 30
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Rainer Schoch, Matthias Mende, and Anna Scherbaum, Albrecht Dürer: das druckgraphische Werk (München: Prestel, 2001).
, no. 68 - Priya Hemenway, Divine Proportion: Phi in Art, Nature, and Science (New York: Sterling Pub. Co., 2005), p. 111 (illus.)
