Durer 7 / Melencolia I

Cette œuvre est une réplique avec variantes d'un tableau sans doute peint vers 1618 (Venise, Galleria dell'Accademia). Cette figure a parfois été désignée comme La Madeleine pénitente mais des rapports précis avec une gravure de Dürer (Melencolia I, 1514) permettent d'y reconnaître une allégorie de la Mélancolie.

Une allégorie avec tous ses attributshttps://www.louvre.fr/oeuvre-notices/la-melancolie

La Mélancolie est représentée sous la forme d’une femme à genoux, le bras droit appuyé sur un massif de pierre. Elle soutient sa tête de la main gauche et paraît méditer profondément sur une tête de mort qu’elle tient de la main droite ; à ses pieds, se trouvent un chien attaché et différents attributs des sciences et des arts (une palette, des pinceaux, un fragment de statue, un livre). Derrière à gauche, sur un socle, une sphère, une clepsydre et dans le fond, apparaissent des ruines.
Fetti donne une interprétation très personnelle de la Mélancolie de Dürer (1471-1528) et le sujet est bien caractéristique du climat hermétique, astrologique et alchimique qui régnait à la cour de Ferdinand Gonzague au début de XVIIe siècle. Il y fait figurer les mêmes attributs tels le chien attaché, allusion probable à la fidélité, ainsi que la sphère et le compas, symboles des facultés de connaissance et de rationalité. La Mélancolie devient méditation sur la vanité et la caducité des affaires humaines qui s’opposent à l’immortalité de la science et de l’art.
En ajoutant un pampre de vigne et une vanité, l’artiste transforme la Mélancolie en une Madeleine pénitente et donne ainsi une lecture chrétienne du tableau. Enfin, il diffuse la leçon caravagesque qui se caractérise par le réalisme populaire, le goût de la mise en scène, la recherche de l’effet dramatique et par les contrastes d’ombre et de lumière.

Une rapide ascension

L’œuvre a été peinte pendant le séjour du peintre à Mantoue. On en connaît plusieurs versions dont la meilleure avec variantes, peinte pour Giorgo Contarini dagli Scrigni, est conservée à l’Académie de Venise. Fetti se forma à Rome aux côtés du peintre florentin Ludovico Cardi dit Cigoli (1559-1613) à un moment où se croisaient tous les talents novateurs du début du XVIIe siècle : Annibal Carrache, Caravage, Orazio Borgianni, Adam Elsheimer, Carlo Saraceni et Pierre-Paul Rubens. Il travailla à Mantoue comme peintre de cour au service de Ferdinand Gonzague avant de séjourner à Venise, de 1621 à 1623, à la suite d’un grave incident avec un aristocrate mantouan. Il devait y terminer sa brève carrière en peignant quelques chefs d’œuvre dont la Fuite en Egypte  (Vienne, Kunsthistorisches Museum) et ouvrait la voie à quelques suiveurs dont Johann Liss (1597-1630). Le style gras et lumineux de sa facture, la liberté d’invention de ses thèmes (les Paraboles) en font un des artistes les plus attachants du premier quart du XVIIe siècle.

Bibliographie

- LOIRE S., Peintures italiennes du XVIIè siècle du musée du Louvre, Florence, Gênes, Lombardie, Naples, Rome et Venise, Paris, 2006, p. 144-149.

Mélancolie par Albrecht DÜRER

Albrecht Dürer  1471-1528 Né et mort à Nuremberg (la Florence Allemande) Dessinateur, graveur, peintre, théoricien mais surtout connu en tant que graveur . Le plus illustre des artistes allemands. Il apprend d’abord le métier d’orfèvre, comme son père, mais très vite il travaillera dans un atelier de peintres. A voyagé en Europe du Nord, en Italie où il séjournera à Venise, très admiratif de Mantegna. A Nuremberg il sera sous le mécénat du Prince-Electeur Frédéric le sage. Dürer sera l’ami de Luther, aura connu Raphaël, (ils ont échangé leur portrait). En France il rencontrera Quentin Metsys, et Lucas Van Leyden

Mélancolie 1514 . Gravure sur cuivre 23,5 x 18 Musée Condé Chantilly . Il s’agit de l’allégorie de la mélancolie (tempérament décrit depuis l’antiquité) de la création de l’artiste. Cette gravure représente une femme  ailée assise, le visage pensif, elle semble abattue, autour d’elle des instruments des arts, à ses pied un chien à sa droite un putto. Cette oeuvre fourmille de symboles (le sablier = le temps, la balance = la justice) on y voit le carré magique, et un polyèdre (recherche géométrique liée à la perspective)

Decoding art: Dürer’s Melencolia I

by THOMAS E. RASSIEUR, MINNEAPOLIS INSTITUTE OF ART and DR. NARAELLE HOHENSEE

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Albrecht Dürer, Melencolia I, 1514, engraving, 24.45 x 19.37 cm (Minneapolis Institute of Art). Based on research generously provided by Thomas E. Rassieur at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and narrated by Dr. Naraelle Hohensee

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Additional resources:

This artwork with additional digital resources at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia)

Cite this page as: Thomas E. Rassieur, Minneapolis Institute of Art and Dr. Naraelle Hohensee, "Decoding art: Dürer’s Melencolia I," in Smarthistory, November 1, 2018, accessed February 26, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/decoding-art-durers-melencolia-i/.

An introduction to the Northern Renaissance in the sixteenth century

by DR. BONNIE NOBLE

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Albrecht Dürer, Adam and Eve, 1504, engraving, fourth state, 25.1 x 20 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

While the Renaissance was happening in Italy, great artistic and social changes occurred in Germany and the Low Countries.

A bias in favor of Italian art among earlier generalizations of scholars made Italy the focus of artistic invention and the Northern Renaissance a less sophisticated imitation of the real thing. One might debate whether the North experienced a Renaissance, but the artistic, institutional, and intellectual changes are evident.

The 16th century: Dürer

Albrecht Dürer is the indisputable rock star of the German Renaissance. In addition to being a successful painter, Dürer built his reputation on his prints, both woodcut and engravings. Because prints can be made in multiples, he had an unusually broad audience. Mechanically reproducible media such as woodcuts and engraving not only helped Dürer disperse his ideas, they also made it possible for Northern artists to see Italian art without traveling.

Dürer likely had his first exposure to Italian art in Germany, in woodcut or engraved copies of Italian works. Looking at an Italian work of art in Germany may seem unremarkable to us. However, until prints were available all works of art were one of a kind, and the only way to see a new work of art was to travel. Prints were typically far less expensive than paintings and much lighter and therefore more portable.  The switch from one-of-a-kind works of art to prints is in some ways comparable to the switch from buying or borrowing picture books to searching for images on Google.

Dürer, Melencholia I

Albrecht Dürer, Melencolia I, 1514, engraving, 24 x 18.5 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Among Dürer’s best-loved works is the engraving Melencholia I, 1514, which depicts the personification of melancholy, the temperament associated with artistic inspiration. The picture of the brooding figure, whose face resembles Dürer’s famous self portraits, may be male or female.  Some scholars believe Dürer’s self portraits are androgenous.  Though the face may be Dürer’s, the garment looks feminine.

Whatever the gender, the figure experiences the dreadful feeling of writer’s block. Surrounded by all the tools needed to create—a compass, a plane, nails—s/he sits still, head in hand, and does nothing. The wings are a painful reminder of our limitations.  Gifted with intelligence, imagination, and the desire to soar, the figure’s small wings cannot lift such a weighty and substantial body. Bound up with the idea of frustrated creativity is the notion of creativity itself—which took on its present meaning during the Renaissance.

The space is like a fun house, never offering the viewer an opportunity to become oriented. Are we inside or outside?  Where does the ladder start? Where does it lead to? The rhombohedron blocks the horizon, and all of the edges point out of the image, a seeming play of the logical system of horizon and orthogonal that create a unified space.

The printing press (images + text)

Perhaps the most influential aspect of the Northern Renaissance is the combination of printed image with text together in books. The printing press was invented in Germany around 1450. Until the printing press, books were laboriously copied and illustrated by hand, one at a time.

The combination of printed words and images created an explosion of information (rather like the change from typewriters to computers). The printing of books such as Luther’s translation of scripture and illustrated polemical pamphlets accelerated the Protestant Reformation, a movement that re-aligned religious and national boundaries, and ultimately would motivate migration to the New World.

Dürer’s Melancolia I

In 1513-14 Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) produced three well-known engravings: Knight, Death and the Devil, St. Jerome in His Study and Melancolia I. Tons of literature have been written on them, together and individually. This is not to say that I read much of it. However, I’ve been impressed by Melancolia I, and I’d like to share a few modest observations about it. (1) There is something odd about the title of the picture; I suppose that the right way to transcribe the Greek word (‘black bile’), today as well as in Dürer’s age, would be melancholia. (2) The word melancholia has many different meanings, often incompatible ones. A gargantuan discussion of the notion of melancholy is found in Richard Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy from 1621. Given that the female character which represents melancholy is holding a compass, is surrounded by sculpting and carpenting tools, and is laureled, it is clear that Dürer took melancholy to be a creative force. “Why is it that all men who have become outstanding in philosophy, politics, poetry or the arts are melancholic?” This is the question with which Book XXX of Ps.-Aristotelian Problemata starts (953a10-12). This idea is picked up by Marsilio Ficino, who wrote in his De Vita, a popular book that Dürer knew in German translation: “All men of excellence in any art have been melancholics.” (3) The female character is winged, like an angel. Arguably, this suggests that melancholy is God-sent, or that it is God’s gift to humans. (4) Sand-clock on the wall (detail). Above it is the gnomon, or sun-dial. Curiously, the sun-dial does not cast a shadow, although it should, given the direction of light. The sand in the clock is running, and it seems (thogh I’m not sure) that about a half of it is left. Moreover, the design of the sand-clock is not symmetrical, which may suggest that it is not rotatable, and that may imply irreversibility of time. Interestingly, sand-clock is present on all three engravings from 1513. (5) The magic square (detail). The sum of the numbers in all rows, columns and on both diagonals, is 34. I’m not sure if this particular number has any special significance. However, the square contains the date of Dürer’s mother’s death: 16. 5. 1514. The first number top left is 16, the next two are 3 and 2 (3+2=5), and the middle two numbers in the bottom row are 15 and 14.
I would be interested to learn the significance of other details of this engraving, such as the bell and the scale on the wall, the pentagonal sculpture at which Melancholy looks, the curled animal next to her feet, the comet in the sky, etc.