The square follows the traditional rules of magic squares: each of its rows, columns, and diagonals adds to the same number, 34. This sort of interpretation assumes that the print is a Vexierbild (a "puzzle image") or rebus whose ambiguities are resolvable. Mais il diffère plus fortement encore de Melencolia I (fìg. "[9], In 2004, Patrick Doorly argued that Dürer was more concerned with beauty than melancholy. Melencoliadans l’œuvre de Dürer La célèbre gravure, souvent reproduite, a été exécutée en 1514 : la date figure dans les deux cases centrales de la dernière ligne du carré magique placé en haut et à droite de la gravure, au-dessous de la cloche. His analysis, that Melencolia I is an "elaborately wrought allegory of virtue ... structured through an almost diagrammatic opposition of virtue and fortune", arrived as allegorical readings were coming into question. [11] Ficino and Agrippa's writing gave melancholia positive connotations, associating it with flights of genius. But Erwin Panofsky, one of the most important art historians of the 20th century, suggested that this work might be Durer's psychological self-portrait. Melencolia I has been the subject of more scholarship than probably any other print. Albrecht Dürer, Knight, Death, and Devil, 1513, engraving on laid paper, 1941.1.20, Albrecht Dürer, Saint Jerome in His Study, 1514, engraving on laid paper, 1949.1.11, Albrecht Dürer, Melencolia I, 1514, engraving, 1949.1.17, Albrecht Dürer, Self-portrait with gloves at age 26, 1498, Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain, Photo Credit: Scala / Art Resource, NY. West Building The print was taken up in Romantic poetry of the nineteenth century in English and French.[63]. Dürer ne saurait profiter de sa bibliothèque colossale sans l'aide éclairée de son ami Pirckheimer et du cercle qui l'entoure. In 1513 and 1514, Dürer experienced the death of a number of friends, followed by his mother (whose portrait he drew in this period), engendering a grief that may be expressed in this engraving. Though it is not certain that Dürer conceived of the three prints as a set, they are similar in style, size, and complexity, and represent the pinnacle of Dürer’s practice as an engraver. Albrecht Dürer, Melencolia I, 1514, engraving, 24.45 x 19.37 cm (Minneapolis Institute of Art). [59][60] They share elements with Melencolia I such as a winged, seated woman, a sleeping or sitting dog, a sphere, and varying numbers of children playing, likely based on Durer's Putto. A ladder with seven rungs leans against the structure, but neither its beginning nor end is visible. Dürer settled in Nuremberg for the next decade, a period of explosive productivity. In front of the dog lies a perfect sphere, which has a radius equal to the apparent distance marked by the figure's compass. [37] Others see the ambiguity as intentional and unresolvable. 1, 171. [34] The work otherwise scarcely has any strong lines. The other two are Knight, Death, and the Devil and Saint Jerome in His Study. » Le fait que Dürer représente sa Mélancolie avec des ailes trouve donc tout son sens. Ficino thought that most intellectuals were influenced by Saturn and were thus melancholic. A few years earlier, the Viennese art historian Karl Giehlow had published two articles that laid the groundwork for Panofsky's extensive study of the print. Melencolia I ou La Melencolia est le nom donné à une gravure sur cuivre d'Albrecht Dürer datée de 1514. [33] It has few perspective lines leading to the vanishing point (below the bat-like creature at the horizon), which divides the diameter of the rainbow in the golden ratio. Depuis son apparition sur sa gravure « MELENCOLIA § I », le polyèdre de Dürer ne cesse d'intriguer mathématiciens, historiens, philosophes, peintres et poètes. Dürer may have associated melancholia with creative activity;[2] the woman may be a representation of a Muse, awaiting inspiration but fearful that it will not return. Based on research generously provided by Thomas E. Rassieur at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and narrated by Dr. Naraelle Hohensee Melencolia I est souvent considérée comme faisant partie d'une série, Meisterstiche, comprenant également Le chevalier, la mort et le diable (1513) et Saint Jérôme dans sa cellule (1514). Melencolia I (Melancholie) is een gravure uit 1514 gemaakt door de Duitse renaissancekunstenaar Albrecht Dürer, 24 × 18,8 centimeter groot. [9] Her face is relatively dark, indicating the accumulation of black bile, and she wears a wreath of watery plants (water parsley[disambiguation needed] and watercress[20][21] or lovage). Doorly found textual support for elements of Melencolia I in Plato's Hippias Major, a dialog about what constitutes the beautiful, and other works that Dürer would have read in conjunction with his belief that beauty and geometry, or measurement, were related. The lie is in our understanding, and darkness is so firmly entrenched in our mind that even our groping will fail. The National Gallery of Art and Sculpture Garden are temporarily closed. One of Dürer’s three “master engravings,” Melencolia I has been linked by scholars to alchemy, astrology, theology, and philosophy, among other themes. Il profiterait notamment des conseils d'un prêtre astronome et mathématicien, Johannes Werner (1468-1528), réputé pour sa pédagogie. Behind the figure is a structure with an embedded magic square, and a ladder leading beyond the frame. Du 23 janvier au 25 février 2013, le musée Unterlinden de Colmar expose La Mélancolie (1514) d’Albrecht Dürer.À travers cette gravure, véritable allégorie de la mélancolie, réalisée alors que s’annonce la Réforme, Dürer s’intéresse à ce tempérament décrit dès l’antiquité. Panofsky believes that it is night, citing the "cast-shadow" of the hourglass on the building, with the moon lighting the scene and creating a lunar rainbow. In an unfinished book for young artists, he cautions that too much exertion may lead one to "fall under the hand of melancholy". Introduction Considérée toujours comme une œuvre programme, la gravure en cuivre La Melencolia I (1514), contient une somme considérable de principes philosophiques de l'humanisme européen. [15], Panofsky considered but rejected the suggestion that the "I" in the title might indicate that Dürer had planned three other engravings on the four temperaments. [6], Agrippa defined three types of melancholic genius in his De occulta philosophia. She rests her head on her left hand and toys with a caliper (resembling a compass) in her right. Other objects relate to alchemy, geometry or numerology. [6] He made a few pencil studies for the engraving and some of his notes relate to it. Domenico Fetti's Melancholy/Meditation (c. 1620) is an important example; Panofsky et al. Melencolia I ou La Melencolia est le nom donné à une gravure sur cuivre d'Albrecht Dürer datée de 1514.Le titre est pris de l'œuvre où il apparaît comme un élément de la composition. Addressing its apparent symbolism, he said, "to show that such [afflicted] minds commonly grasp everything and how they are frequently carried away into absurdities, [Dürer] reared up in front of her a ladder into the clouds, while the ascent by means of rungs is ... impeded by a square block of stone. The unusual polyhedron destabilizes the image by blocking some of the view into the distance and sending the eye in different directions. The square is rotated and one number in each row and column is reduced by one so the rows and columns add up to 33 instead of the standard 34 for a 4x4 magic square. Le titre est pris de l'œuvre où il apparaît comme un élément de la composition. At one point the dialog refers to a millstone, an unusually specific object to appear in both sources by coincidence. Cette gravure contient une multitude d'éléments symboliques en rapport avec les mathématiques. 190), en ce quil oppose une vie mise au service de Dieu a ce quon peut appeler une vie de compétition avec Dieu la jouissance paisible de la sagesse divine, à linquiétude tragique de la création humaine. Each temperament was also associated with one of the four elements; melancholia was paired with Earth, and was considered "dry and cold" in alchemy. [38], In 1905, Heinrich Wölfflin called the print an "allegory of deep, speculative thought". Le titre est pris de l'œuvre où il apparaît comme un élément de la composition. MELENCOLIA I DOINA CONSTANTINESCU† Universidad Lucian Blaga- Rumania Φ 1. [17], The winged, androgynous central figure is thought to be a personification of melancholia or geometry. ), 1943.3.3522. Il signera Albertus Dürer Noricus (de Nuremberg) ou Dürer Alemanus ou encore de son monogramme, comme vous Albrecht Dürer, Melencolia I,1514, engraving, 24 x 18.5 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) Albrecht Dürer is the rare artist who truly deserves to be called genius. In the engraving, symbols of geometry, measurement, and trades are numerous: the compass, the scale, the hammer and nails, the plane and saw, the sphere and the unusual polyhedron. [19], In Perfection's Therapy (2017), Merback argues that Dürer intended Melencolia I as a therapeutic image. [53] For example, Dürer perhaps made the image impenetrable in order to simulate the experience of melancholia in the viewer. Ironically, this anguished representation of artistic impotence has proved a shining and enduring example of the power of Dürer’s art. He eventually published books on geometry (1525), fortifications (1527), and the theory of human proportions (1528, soon after his death). Doorly interprets the many useful tools in the engraving as symbolizing this idea; even the dog is a "useful" hunting hound. As such, Dürer may have intended the print as a veiled self-portrait. H. 241 mm - L. 192 mm (?) [23] Attached to the structure is a balance scale above the putto, and above Melancholy is a bell and an hourglass with a sundial at the top. Yet struggle as she might intellectually, she is powerless to transcend the earthbound realm of imagination to attain the higher stages of abstract thought (an idea to which the ladder that extends beyond the image may allude). Erwin Panofsky is right in considering this admirable plate the spiritual self-portrait of Dürer."[50]. Peter-Klaus Schuster, Mélancolie: génie et folie en Occident, ‘Melencolia I Dürer et sa postérité’, Paris, 2005, pp 90–104, 138–39. © 2021 National Gallery of Art   Notices   Terms of Use   Privacy Policy. Melencolia I Melencolia I. C’est le titre d’une gravure de 1514 du peintre de la renaissance Albrecht Dürer, qui y dépeint la mélancolie (du grec melancholia, pour melas, noir et cholée, humeur). [22] The ladder leaning against the structure has no obvious beginning or end, and the structure overall has no obvious function. dürer, melencolia i, durer, allemand, allemagne, 1514, gravure, maître de la renaissance allemande albrecht dürer Albrecht Dürer, Melencolia I, 1514 Tote bag doublé Par edsimoneit [9] While Dürer sometimes distributed Melencolia I with St. Jerome in His Study, there is no evidence that he conceived of them as a thematic group. Il s'intéresse aussi aux proportions (proportions du cheval et proportions du corps humain). [55] Treatments for melancholia in ancient times and in the Renaissance occasionally recognized the value of "reasoned reflection and exhortation"[56] and emphasized the regulation of melancholia rather than its elimination "so that it can better fulfill its God-given role as a material aid for the enhancement of human genius". Behind her, a windowless building with no clear architectural function[22][20] rises beyond the top of the frame. Khan Academy is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. By the time of his second trip to Italy, 1505–1507, he was the most celebrated German artist of the period. [43][44] Even the distant seascape, with small islands of flooded trees, relates to Saturn, the "lord of the sea", and his control of floods and tides. The evident subject of the engraving, as written upon the scroll unfurled by a flying batlike creature, is melencolia—melancholy. Peter-Klaus Schuster, Melencolia I Dürer’s Denkbild [2 vols], Berlin, 1991. In the Baroque period, representations of Melancholy and Vanity were combined. In Plato's dialog, Socrates and Hippias consider numerous definitions of the beautiful. In 1513–1514 Dürer produced three exceptional copper engravings—Knight, Death and Devil, Saint Jerome in His Study, and Melencolia I—that have come to be known collectively as the Meisterstiche, or Master Engravings. It is also associative, meaning that any number added to its symmetric opposite equals 17 (e.g., 15+2, 9+8). He writes, the "thematic of a virtue-building inner reflection, understood as an ethical-therapeutic imperative for the new type of pious intellectual envisioned by humanism, certainly underlies the conception of Melencolia". Melencolia I ou La Melencolia, est le nom donné à une gravure sur cuivre d'Albrecht Dürer (né le 21 mai 1471 et mort en 1528 à Nuremberg ; peintre, graveur et mathématicien allemand. He presented his final major work, the Four Apostles (1526), to the city of Nuremberg, which had adopted Lutheranism 18 months earlier. Woodcut after an 1803 drawing by Caspar David Friedrich[62]. dürer, melencolia i, durer, allemand, allemagne, 1514, gravure, maître de la renaissance allemande albrecht dürer Albrecht Dürer, Melencolia I, 1514 Robe trapèze Par edsimoneit [46] Before the Renaissance, melancholics were portrayed as embodying the vice of acedia, meaning spiritual sloth. The rightmost portion of the background may show a large wave crashing over land. A putto sits atop a millstone (or grindstone) with a chip in it. wrote that "the meaning of this picture is obvious at first glance; all human activity, practical no less than theoretical, theoretical no less than artistic, is vain, in view of the vanity of all earthly things. In astrology, each temperament was under the influence of a planet, Saturn in the case of melancholia. Other art historians see the figure as pondering the nature of beauty or the value of artistic creativity in light of rationalism,[3] or as a purposely obscure work that highlights the limitations of allegorical or symbolic art. Circulated widely, these prints established his international reputation. He wrote, "The vast effort of subsequent interpreters, in all their industry and error, testifies to the efficacy of the print as an occasion for thought. La célèbre gravure, souvent reproduite, a été exécutée en 1514 : la date figure dans les deux cases centrales de la dernière ligne du carré magique placé en haut et à droite de la gravure, au-dessous de la cloche. Closed, Sculpture Garden But what Dürer intended by the term, and how the print’s mysterious figures and perplexing objects contribute to its meaning, continue to be debated. He also rigorously studied intellectual concepts central to the Renaissance: perspective, absolute beauty, proportion, and harmony. Melencolia I ou La Melencolia est le nom donné à une gravure sur cuivre d'Albrecht Dürer datée de 1514. [11] Reflecting the medieval iconographical depiction of melancholy, she rests her head on a closed fist. Merback notes that ambiguities remain even after the interpretation of numerous individual symbols: the viewer does not know if it is daytime or twilight, where the figures are located, or the source of illumination. [7][8] The prints are considered thematically related by some art historians, depicting labours that are intellectual (Melencolia I), moral (Knight), or spiritual (St. Jerome) in nature. [26][27] Dürer's mother died on May 17, 1514;[28] some interpreters connect the digits of this date with the sets of two squares that sum to 5 and 17. Beyond it is a rainbow and an object which is either Saturn or a comet. Il s'intéresse aussi aux proportions (proportions du cheval et proportions du corps humain). De gravure is een allegorische compositie , die veelvuldig het onderwerp is geweest van kunsthistorische besprekingen. [60] Dürer's Melencolia is the patroness of the City of Dreadful Night in the final canto of James Thomson's poem of that name. In the far distance is a landscape with small treed islands, suggesting flooding, and a sea. Saint Jerome and Melencolia may be informal pendants; Saint Jerome’s clarity, light, and order contrast markedly with Melencolia’s brooding angst, nocturnal setting, and disorderly arrangement. Melancholia was traditionally the least desirable of the four temperaments, making for a constitution that was, according to Panofsky, "awkward, miserly, spiteful, greedy, malicious, cowardly, faithless, irreverent and drowsy". Les différents numéros d'enregistrement attestent que le B. M. ne compte pas moins de 10 exemplaires de la gravure, parfois désignés par "Melancholia", ou même "print". In the background, a blazing star or comet illuminates a seascape surmounted by a rainbow. Download a digital image of this work, Albrecht Dürer (artist), German, 1471 – 1528, Melencolia I, 1514, engraving on laid paper, sheet (trimmed to plate mark): 24.2 x 18.8 cm (9 1/2 x 7 3/8 in. Image Download Holding her head in her hand, she stares past the busy scene in front of her. (Fig. [12] Another note reflects on the nature of beauty. Or, cette époque est remarquable par un certain syncrétisme qui rassemble des éléments venus de la chrétienté et des éléments venus de l’Antiquité gréco-romaine. Seemingly immobilized by gloom, she pays no attention to the many objects around her. Their technical virtuosity, intellectual scope, and psychological depth were unmatched by earlier printed work. Since the ancient Greeks, the health and temperament of an individual were thought to be determined by the four humors: black bile (melancholic humor), yellow bile (choleric), phlegm (phlegmatic), and blood (sanguine). Melencolia I ou La Melencolia est le nom donné à une gravure sur cuivre d'Albrecht Dürer datée de 1514. Additionally, the corners and each quadrant sum to 34, as do still more combinations. Albrecht Dürer, quoted in Erwin Panofsky. 2) Elle a suspendu son travail, non par indolence, mais parce quil est devenu, à ses yeux, privé de sens. Le goût d'Albrecht Dürer pour les mathématiques se retrouve dans la gravure Melencolia, tableau dans lequel il glisse un carré magique, un polyèdre constitué de deux triangles équilatéraux et six pentagones irréguliers. [47] The first, melancholia imaginativa, affected artists, whose imaginative faculty was considered stronger than their reason (compared with, e.g., scientists) or intuitive mind (e.g., theologians). Quand lâme voit une forme belle, ell… Stay up to date about our exhibitions, news, programs, and special offers. H. 239 mm - L. 168 mmm —> British Museum de Londres. From ancient Greek times through the Middle Ages, melancholy was considered the least desirable of the four humors that were believed to govern human temperament. Certain relationships in humorism, astrology, and alchemy are important for understanding the interpretive history of the print. 6th St and Constitution Ave NW Numerous unused tools and mathematical instruments are scattered around, including a hammer and nails, a saw, a plane, pincers, a straightedge, a molder's form, and either the nozzle of a bellows or an enema syringe (clyster). On the low wall behind the large polyhedron is a brazier with a goldsmith's crucible and a pair of tongs. Summarizing its art-historical legacy, he wrote that "the influence of Dürer's Melencolia I—the first representation in which the concept of melancholy was transplanted from the plane of scientific and pseudo-scientific folklore to the level of art—extended all over the European continent and lasted for more than three centuries."[4]. The area is strewn with symbols and tools associated with craft and carpentry, including an hourglass, weighing scales, a hand plane, a claw hammer, and a saw. Iván Fenyő considered the print a representation of an artist beset by a loss of confidence, saying: "shortly before [Dürer] drew Melancholy, he wrote: 'what is beautiful I do not know' ... Melancholy is a lyric confession, the self-conscious introspection of the Renaissance artist, unprecedented in northern art. [19] She sits on a slab with a closed book on her lap, holds a compass loosely, and gazes intensely into the distance. Centre commercial, minier et sidérurgique qui fournissait la cour de Prague, Nuremberg, en 1500 est une ville riche de 50 000 âmes et attire, tel un aimant, tous les talents dAllemagne et dEurope. The unusual solid that dominates the left half of the image is a truncated rhombohedron[29][30] with what may be a faint skull[6] or face, possibly even of Dürer. ALBRECHT DÜRER. Dürer’s take on artists’ melancholy may have been influenced by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa’s De Occulta Philosophia, a tract popular in Renaissance humanist circles. He reviews the history of images of spiritual consolation in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and highlights how Dürer expressed his ethical and spiritual commitment to friends and community through his art. Le titre est pris de l'œuvre où il apparaît comme un élément de la composition. "[35] Later, the 16th-century art historian Giorgio Vasari described Melencolia I as a technical achievement that "puts the whole world in awe".[36]. "[13] Dürer's personification of melancholia is of "a being to whom her allotted realm seems intolerably restricted—of a being whose thoughts 'have reached the limit'". Others see the "I" as a reference to nigredo, the first stage of the alchemical process. Learn more. Alors que le Saint Jérôme et Chevalier, la … He executed several commissions for paintings and began to print and publish his own woodcuts and engravings. The magic square is a talisman of Jupiter, an auspicious planet that fends off melancholy—different square sizes were associated with different planets, with the 4×4 square representing Jupiter. [6] The print has two states; in the first, the number nine in the magic square appears backward,[10] but in the second, more common impressions it is a somewhat odd-looking regular nine. [31] This shape is now known as Dürer's solid, and over the years, there have been numerous analyses of its mathematical properties. La gravure Melencolia§I 1,2 de Albrecht Dürer est l’objet d’innombrables commentaires tant sur son iconographie que sur le tempérament mélancolique 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12 Etant graveur, j’ai beaucoup scruté l’original aux Musées de Strasbourg et au Los Angeles of Art County Museum et les copies 13.Mon interrogation sur ce qui y est représenté, est restée sans réponse. They ask if that which is pleasant to sight and hearing is the beautiful, which Dürer symbolizes by the intense gaze of the figure, and the bell, respectively. Dürer's engraving is one of the most well-known extant old master prints, but, despite a vast art-historical literature, it has resisted any definitive interpretation. A magic square is inscribed on one wall; the digits in each row, column, and diagonal add up to 34. She is winged but cannot fly. Under the influence of Saturn, ... the melancholic imagination could be led to remarkable achievements in the arts". In 1991, Peter-Klaus Schuster published Melencolia I: Dürers Denkbild,[51] an exhaustive history of the print's interpretation in two volumes. Durer didn't leave us any written explanations about his intended meaning in Melencolia I. Albrecht Dürer, quoted in Erwin Panofsky, Albrecht Dürer (Princeton University Press, 1943), vol. Dürer était à la fois graveur, peintre et mathématicien. Decoding art: Dürer's Melencolia I Our mission is to provide a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere. As the art historian Campbell Dodgson wrote in 1926, "The literature on Melancholia is more extensive than that on any other engraving by Dürer: that statement would probably remain true if the last two words were omitted. Post date: Sep 10, 2013 4:27:07 PM. The new emperor renewed the pension Dürer had been granted by Maximilian I. Dürer might have been referring to this first type of melancholia, the artist's, by the "I" in the title. "[5] Panofsky's studies in German and English, between 1923 and 1964 and sometimes with coauthors, have been especially influential. A commonly quoted note refers to the keys and the purse—"Schlüssel—gewalt/pewtell—reichtum beteut" ("keys mean power, purse means wealth")[11]—although this can be read as a simple record of their traditional symbolism. The objects she has at hand are associated with geometry and measurement, fields of knowledge that were considered the building blocks of artistic creation and that Dürer studied doggedly in his quest to theorize absolute beauty. Dürer spent a year in the Netherlands (1520–1521), where he was moved by the recognition accorded him by artists and dignitaries. Media in category "Melencolia I by Albrecht Dürer" The following 37 files are in this category, out of 37 total. Instead of mediating a meaning, Melencolia seems designed to generate multiple and contradictory readings, to clue its viewers to an endless exegetical labor until, exhausted in the end, they discover their own portrait in Dürer's sleepless, inactive personification of melancholy. Closed. A set of keys and a purse hang from the belt of her long dress. The intensity of her gaze, however, suggests an intent to depart from traditional depictions of this temperament. Giehlow specialized in the German humanist interest in hieroglyphics and interpreted Melencolia I in terms of astrology, which had been an interest of intellectuals connected to the court of Maximilian in Vienna. [52] In the 1980s, scholars began to focus on the inherent contradictions of the print, finding a mismatch between "intention and result" in the interpretive effort it seemingly required. The mysterious light source at right, which illuminates the image, is unusually placed for Dürer and contributes to the "airless, dreamlike space". (Dürer wrote a treatise on human proportions, one of his last major accomplishments.) Dürer était doué d’un esprit très ouvert, curieux de tout. Melencolia - Dürer. [32], In contrast with Saint Jerome in His Study, which has a strong sense of linear perspective and an obvious source of light, Melencolia I is disorderly and lacks a "visual center". Le St. Jérôme diffère du Chevalier, la Mort et le Diable en ce quil oppose lidéal de la vie contemplative à celui de la vie active dans le siècle. As Agrippa's study was published in 1531, Panofsky assumes that Dürer had access to a manuscript. Artists from the sixteenth century used Melencolia I as a source, either in single images personifying melancholia or in the older type in which all four temperaments appear. He equated melancholia with elevation of the intellect, since black bile "raises thought to the comprehension of the highest, because it corresponds to the highest of the planets". MELENCOLIA I* THE INFINITE SYMBOLIC POETIC METAPHOR. Copy after Lucas Cranach the Elder's 1528 painting in Edinburgh[59], The Woman with the Spider's Web or Melancholy. Most art historians view the print as an allegory, assuming that a unified theme can be found in the image if its constituent symbols are "unlocked" and brought into conceptual order. In 1513–1514 Dürer produced his three “master engravings,” including Melencolia I. Carpentry tools are scattered on the ground. A ladder leans against a building that supports a balance, an hour glass, and a bell. They share elements with Melencolia I such as a winged, seated woman, a sleeping or sitting dog, a sphere, and varying numbers of children playing, likely based on Durer's Putto. He linked imagination (the first and lowest level) to artistic genius; this may account for the numeral “1” in the title and provide a key for explaining the frustration of the winged figure-cum-artist. The figure wears a wreath of "wet" plants to counteract the dryness of melancholy, and she has the dark face and dishevelled appearance associated with the melancholic. At the same time, he wrote verse, studied languages and mathematics, and started drafting a treatise on the theory of art. Born in Nuremberg, Dürer apprenticed first with his father, a goldsmith, and then with Michael Wolgemut, the leading painter and woodcut artist in the city. But what Dürer intended by the term, and how the print’s mysterious figures and perplexing objects contribute to its meaning, continue to be debated. [33], Dürer's friend and first biographer Joachim Camerarius wrote the earliest account of the engraving in 1541. Dürer était doué d’un esprit très ouvert, curieux de tout. Simultaneously inviting and resisting interpretation, Melencolia I is a testament to Dürer’s extraordinary intellectual ambition and artistic imagination.