Focus on this artwork and analyze the Context.
Melencolia I has been the subject of more scholarship than probably any other print. 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." Panofsky's studies in German and English, between 1923 and 1964 and sometimes with coauthors, have been especially influential. Melencolia I is one of Dürer's three Meisterstiche ("master prints"), along with Knight, Death and the Devil (1513) and St. Jerome in His Study (1514). 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. 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. The print has two states; in the first, the number nine in the magic square appears backward, but in the second, more common impressions it is a somewhat odd-looking regular nine.
There is little documentation to provide insight into Dürer's intent. He made a few pencil studies for the engraving and some of his notes relate to it. A commonly quoted note refers to the keys and the purse—"Schlüssel—gewalt/pewtell—reichtum beteut" ("keys mean power, purse means wealth")—although this can be read as a simple record of their traditional symbolism. Another note reflects on the nature of beauty. 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. Dürer mentions melancholy only once in his surviving writings. In an unfinished book for young artists, he cautions that too much exertion may lead one to "fall under the hand of melancholy".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.  He suggested instead that the "I" referred to the first of three types of melancholy defined by Cornelius Agrippa (see Interpretation). Others see the "I" as a reference to nigredo, the first stage of the alchemical process.
Melancholia Cornelius Agrippa magic square Campbell Dodgson states Knight, Death and the Devil Meisterstiche state whose portrait nigredo four temperaments engraving St. Jerome in His Study temperament