Three particular engravings stand out from Albrecht Dürer's vast opus of engravings. They differ from others in style and technique, especially the latter is brought to perfection: they are very precisely engraved, with full focus on details, skin shade, atmosphere. Art historians usually call these the engravings - Knight, Death, and Devil, St. Jerome in His Study, and most famous Melencolia I - as Meisterstiche, "masterworks". We have no known record that Dürer ever considered these three engravings as a set, but often gave away St. Jerome accompanied by his spiritual counterpart Melencolia I. The key of this pair is the true identity of both figures, a monk and an angel. Every engraving, without exception, is dedicated to a concrete "deity" from Dürer's pantheon, that he wanted to represent in his master engravings. He picked up his four "the most important persons", and his choice is very interesting. These persons are surely persons that influenced Dürer, not just as an artist, but as a philosopher, scientist, magician. Two of the engravings are commemorating the death of a hero, clearly signified with a skull present on both engravings.
Art historians completely believe in Albrecht Dürer's straightforwardness of iconography and datings on the engravings, for it appears that they have no reason to disbelieve what is obviously seen at first glance. But Dürer is not to be trusted, his engravings are intentionally full of hints, that produced so many interpretations from so many, so called, scholars. Occult meanings are discovered everywhere, but not where they are really inserted - in things obvious, like in true identity of the figures represented on the engravings. It is well known that Renaissance artists, and artist in general, used people from their lives, times, as models for saints, prophets, Jesus Christs, or any other mythical figures. Most often was a respectable "Biblical figure" the one who paid.
Unfortunately, traditional "scientific" research, will not reveal all the subtle planes in which Albrecht Durer enjoyed so much, skillfully like a child juggling with meanings converting one into another. On the most abstract level of symbolism are all three engravings sequels in a continuous story about the basic energies of which the universe is made, compounded. Fire, Air, and Water are the building blocks of the universe since time eternal. There is also the fourth element, Earth, added to the triad in order to make it manifest. Curiously, there is only one engraving in Durer's opus that bears a strange resemblance to the excellent technique used for the master-works - The Fall of Man, dated in 1504, ten years before. But we will try to prove that Durer used these datings only for his own purposes and they do not reveal the real date when the engravings were executed. The element Earth naturally completes the four elements, and since this is a story of how a mortal being ascended towards the Godhead, we have to start from a gross substance of Earth.
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Albrecht Durer: Adam and Eve |
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The first engraving from the proposed sequence of FOUR Durer's Meisterstiche is The Fall of Man, attributed to the element EARTH. Here, in paradise that is for a true gnostic on earth, the story of the "ascent" begins. It shows only the lower part of a Biblical Tree of Life, a symbol of the beginning of the path of initiation. Adam and Eve are the protagonists of the fictive primordial "crime", which is a fundamental trauma that generates the whole story. We must not forget the importance of the snake, who the prime mover that initiated EVE first to become self-aware. That she taught also to Adam, "unfortunately". Humanity is expelled from the blissful ignorance (doesn't precisly that act of expulsin define or establishes humanity?), and the investigation must be undertaken to find the solution to this mis(t)ery. As if "being" could be only expressed through "motion".
A symbol of the Earth is a square, and it seems that the main protagonists are "squared" by Durer's composition. On the extreme right edge of the engraving are all three Zodiacal signs that fall under element Earth depicted: Capricornus, Taurus, and Virgo.
The second in a row comes Knight, Death, and Devil, showing metaphorically legendary icon of Perceval on the way to find the Holy Grail, accompanied by the faithful guide - a long-haired retriever. The hero from the engraving - as we will learn later - was burnt on stake, and this engraving is related to the element FIRE. Unlike in eden where tranquility was undisturbed by ignorance or unconsiousness of the citizens, time (Death) and desire (Devil) are introduced as two most abstract signifiers representing the world of human psyche. If this interpretation is stretched further than it seems that Durer could suggest that both "illusionary" obstacles called death and desire (but whose influence is practically very real) can be transcended with "Will", which is traditionally attributed to Fire. Khabbalisticaly these three persons represent the three paths to the Inner Sanctuary (Nun, Samekh, and Ayin), which is Tiphareth (the Christ center of Renaissance Christian khabbalists), the sixth sphere of the Tree of Life.
After a long journey a goal is reached, represented by the third engraving St. Jerome in His Study. The illuminated figure of Jerome lost in his studies transmits a notion of tranquility of the one who is not searching anymore but finding. The element that the engraving represents could be AIR (often equated with Spirit or Intellect). A gross material of Earth has been transformed by Fire into the fine substance of Air. The lion is asleep, for there is no need for his strength, the dog also rests, since the guide in times of "transmission" is also not needed. The element Air is the medium of transmission: important books containing new ideas about the nature of existence are written, important texts contributing to the stream of thought are translated to manifest in art as the Renaissance period.
Looking personally, this inner explosion of illumination requires a solitary monastic cell to come to power. Naturally the solitude of a monastic cell is again to be considered symbolycally as a station in mystical advancement of the adept that undertook the path of the initiation.
The final station, the fourth engraving in the line of Durer's mystical instructions (if you want see them this way) represents the most cryptic and the most famous of all four Melencolia I. The image represents the state of mind when somehow everything has been consumed on the path of initiation that needed to be done, and everything learned that had to be learned. The structure of the universe revealed itself to the seeker, but still a suspicion remained that without some help from the "above" the work will not be accomplished in its completeness. If the water from above might fill the vessel, it must be completely "empty". The angelic figure seated is not engaging into re-creation of the universe but remains contemplative, receptive, and most of all melancholic, whicha are all the attributes familiar to the element WATER. Beyond this point no image exists.
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