Melencolia I is a 1514 engraving

Engraving

Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...

 by the German Renaissance master Albrecht Dürer

Albrecht Dürer

Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since...

. It is an allegorical composition which has been the subject of many interpretations. One of the most famous old master print

Old master print

An old master print is a work of art produced by a printing process within the Western tradition . A date of about 1830 is usually taken as marking the end of the period whose prints are covered by this term. The main techniques concerned are woodcut, engraving and etching, although there are...

s, it has sometimes been regarded as forming one of a conscious group of Meisterstiche with his Knight, Death and the Devil

Knight, Death and the Devil

Knight, Death and the Devil is a large 1513 engraving, one of the three "master prints" of the German artist Albrecht Dürer. The print portrays an armored Christian Knight riding through a narrow gorge flanked by a pig-snouted devil and the figure of death riding a pale horse. Death holds an...

(1513) and Saint Jerome in his Study

St. Jerome in His Study (Dürer)

St. Jerome in His Study is an engraving of 1514 by the German artist Albrecht Dürer. Saint Jerome is shown sitting behind his desk, engrossed in work. The table, on the corner of which is a cross, is typical of the Renaissance...

(1514).

Interpretations

The work has been the subject of more modern interpretation than almost any other print, including a two-volume book by Peter-Klaus Schuster, and a very influential discussion in his Dürer monograph by Erwin Panofsky

Erwin Panofsky

Erwin Panofsky was a German art historian, whose academic career was pursued mostly in the U.S. after the rise of the Nazi regime. Panofsky's work remains highly influential in the modern academic study of iconography...

. Reproduction usually makes the image seem darker than it is in an original impression (copy) of the engraving, and in particular affects the facial expression of the female figure, which is rather more cheerful than in most reproductions.
The title comes from the (archaically spelled) title, Melencolia I, appearing within the engraving itself. It is the only one of Dürer's engravings to have a title in the plate. The date of 1514 appears in the bottom row of the magic square

Magic square

In recreational mathematics, a magic square of order n is an arrangement of n2 numbers, usually distinct integers, in a square, such that the n numbers in all rows, all columns, and both diagonals sum to the same constant. A normal magic square contains the integers from 1 to n2...

, as well as above Dürer's monogram at bottom right. Suggestions that a series of engravings on the subject was planned are not generally accepted. Instead it seems more likely that the "I" refers to the first of the three types of melancholia defined by the German humanist writer Cornelius Agrippa

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim was a German magician, occult writer, theologian, astrologer, and alchemist.-Life:Agrippa was born in Cologne in 1486...

. In this type, Melencholia Imaginativa, which he held artists to be subject to, 'imagination' predominates over 'mind' or 'reason'.

Durer's image was distributed widely, and travelled as far away as India, where the Mughal miniaturist Farrukh Beg

Farrukh Beg

Farrukh Beg was a Persian born Mughal painter who served in the court of Muhammad Hakim before working directly for Mughal emperor Akbar; he thus is one of a number of artists who took the traditions of the Persian miniature to form that of the Mughal miniature, like Abd al-Samad.-External links:*...

 referenced the work in his 1615 miniature The Old Sufi.
One interpretation suggests the image references the depressive

Clinical depression

Major depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...

 or melancholy

Melancholia

Melancholia , also lugubriousness, from the Latin lugere, to mourn; moroseness, from the Latin morosus, self-willed, fastidious habit; wistfulness, from old English wist: intent, or saturnine, , in contemporary usage, is a mood disorder of non-specific depression,...

 state and accordingly explains various elements of the picture. Among the most conspicuous are:

• The tools of geometry and architecture surround the figure, unused
• The 4 × 4 magic square
  Magic square
  In recreational mathematics, a magic square of order n is an arrangement of n2 numbers, usually distinct integers, in a square, such that the n numbers in all rows, all columns, and both diagonals sum to the same constant. A normal magic square contains the integers from 1 to n2...
  
  , with the two middle cells of the bottom row giving the date of the engraving: 1514. This 4x4 magic square, as well as having traditional magic square rules, its four quadrants, corners and centers equal the same number, 34, which happens to belong to the Fibonacci
  Fibonacci
  Leonardo Pisano Bigollo also known as Leonardo of Pisa, Leonardo Pisano, Leonardo Bonacci, Leonardo Fibonacci, or, most commonly, simply Fibonacci, was an Italian mathematician, considered by some "the most talented western mathematician of the Middle Ages."Fibonacci is best known to the modern...
  
   sequence.
• The truncated rhombohedron
  Rhombohedron
  In geometry, a rhombohedron is a three-dimensional figure like a cube, except that its faces are not squares but rhombi. It is a special case of a parallelepiped where all edges are the same length....
  
   with a faint human skull
  Human skull
  The human skull is a bony structure, skeleton, that is in the human head and which supports the structures of the face and forms a cavity for the brain.In humans, the adult skull is normally made up of 22 bones...
  
   on it. This shape is now known as Dürer's solid; over the years, there have been numerous articles disputing the precise shape of this polyhedron
  Polyhedron
  In elementary geometry a polyhedron is a geometric solid in three dimensions with flat faces and straight edges...
  
  )
• The hourglass
  Hourglass
  An hourglass measures the passage of a few minutes or an hour of time. It has two connected vertical glass bulbs allowing a regulated trickle of material from the top to the bottom. Once the top bulb is empty, it can be inverted to begin timing again. The name hourglass comes from historically...
  
   showing time running out
• The empty scale (balance)
• The despondent winged figure of genius
  Genius (mythology)
  In ancient Roman religion, the genius was the individual instance of a general divine nature that is present in every individual person, place or thing.-Nature of the genius:...
  
  
• The purse and keys
• The beacon and rainbow in the sky
• Mathematical knowledge is referenced by the use of the symbols: compass, geometrical solid, magic square, scale, hourglass.

External links

• Wake Forest University - Article on the use of symbolism in Melancholia I
• http://freimaurer-wiki.de/index.php/Melencolia_%C2%A7_I- Additions and diverging definitions including a video of Dürer's Solid