Focus on this artwork and explore the Interpretations.
Dürer's friend and first biographer Joachim Camerarius wrote the earliest account of the engraving in 1541. 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." Later, the 16th-century art historian Giorgio Vasari described Melencolia I as a technical achievement that "puts the whole world in awe".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. This sort of interpretation assumes that the print is a Vexierbild (a "puzzle image") or rebus whose ambiguities are resolvable. Others see the ambiguity as intentional and unresolvable. 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. The ladder leaning against the structure has no obvious beginning or end, and the structure overall has no obvious function. The bat may be flying from the scene, or is perhaps some sort of daemon related to the traditional conception of melancholia.
Certain relationships in humorism, astrology, and alchemy are important for understanding the interpretive history of the print. 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). In astrology, each temperament was under the influence of a planet, Saturn in the case of melancholia. Each temperament was also associated with one of the four elements; melancholia was paired with Earth, and was considered "dry and cold" in alchemy. 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".In 1905, Heinrich Wölfflin called the print an "allegory of deep, speculative thought". 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. 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. Giehlow found the print an "erudite summa of these interests, a comprehensive portrayal of the melancholic temperament, its positive and negative values held in perfect balance, its potential for 'genius' suspended between divine inspiration and dark madness".
Heinrich Wölfflin Melancholia alchemy astrology plane rebus black bile four elements melancholia allegory Giorgio Vasari humorism hieroglyphics Earth Maximilian Joachim Camerarius four temperaments influence of a planet engraving humanist temperament