The love of the extravagant and fantastic observable in Dürer's first
pictures never abandoned him. He has probably expressed the inspiration
of his own soul in the figure of Melancholy, who, seated on the
sea-shore, seems trying to penetrate with her gaze into infinite space.
For my part, I have this picture always before me. How could it be
possible to forget an engraving of Dürer's, even though seen but once?
I can see her proud and noble head resting thoughtfully upon one hand,
her long hair falling in disheveled tresses upon her shoulders; her
folded wings emblematic of that impotent aspiration which directs her
gaze towards heaven; a book, closed and useless as her wings, resting
upon her knee. Nothing can be more gloomy, more penetrating, than the
expression of this figure. From the peculiar folds of her dress, one
would suppose she was enveloped in iron draperies. Near her is a
sun-dial with a bell which marks the hours as they glide away. The sun
is sinking beneath the ocean, and darkness will soon envelop the earth.
Above hovers a strange-looking bat with spreading wings, and bearing a
pennon on which is written the word "Melancholia."
All is symbolical in this composition, of which the sentiment is
sublime. Melancholy holds in her right hand a pair of compasses and a
circle, the emblem of that eternity in which her thoughts are lost.
Various instruments appertaining to the arts and sciences lie scattered
around her; after having made use of them, she has cast them aside and
has fallen into a profound revery. As typical of the mistrust which has
crept into her heart with avarice and doubt, a bunch of keys is
suspended to her girdle; above her is an hour-glass, the emblem of her
transitory existence. Nothing could be more admirable than the face of
Melancholy, both in the severe beauty of her features and the depth
of her gaze.
Neither the sentiment of melancholy nor the word which expresses it had
appeared in art before the time of Albert Dürer.
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