Melencolia I

Melencolia I by Albrecht Dürer: A work made of engraving in black on ivory laid paper.

What to notice

Inventory the compass, polyhedron, tools, hourglass, and magic square, then return to the winged figure whose stillness resists any single solution to the symbols.

Discover

Dürer’s 1514 engraving surrounds a winged figure with tools, geometry, an hourglass, a bell, and a magic square. Its dense symbolic program has resisted a single interpretation, making intellectual labor and creative frustration part of the image’s enduring fascination.