“Melencolia Nova”
If in the painting “El border del estanque” (The edge of the pond”) the inclusion of someone else’s drawing seeks to benefit from the loan of beauty and from the effect of the air contained in it as opposed and even as a relief of the repetition of a single plane across the painted surface in “Melencolia Nova“ (2013), the stamp has rather the opposite intentions, insisting on the subject of the painting and trying to be the key for interpreting it. In the upper right edge, pretending to be stuck with a pin to an easel, appears, semi bent, a paper with a bit of the recorded Melencolia I, of A. Dürer. Its use is close to Dance of peasants (1568 Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum) of P. Brueghel, where an image of the Virgin and Child nailed to a tree, on the right side of the painting, explains the meaning of the party that is being celebrated. The fragment of the engraving reproduced in this painting corresponds to the compass that is held by the mysterious protagonist winged figure and a leg of it, with the dog crouched at its side, the millstone, the “putto” and the polyhedral figure.
It is known that the purpose of this engraving is not to illustrate a mood, as today commonly indicates the word that entitles it, but it is part of the classical theory of the “four humours”. Within this classification, the “gloomy” mood (so named by derivation from the Greek term used to refer to black bile), dry and cold, was associated with the earth, the wind Boreas, the autumn, at sunset and to the old age of about sixty years1. In his classic study of Dürer, says Erwin Panofsky 2 that the custom likened the melancholic man with sadness and drowsiness, so the qualities of Melancholy assimilated with those of acedia, which also had them, so that the first will be displayed in popular images like a woman sleeping on a spinning wheel, a model from which Dürer takes both the basic structure of his engraved, and the spirit of “sad inertia“, although in the Aristotelian line rescued by Marsilio Ficino, the character of the figure changes:
“Melancholia is, if we may say so, wide awake. His gaze is a look of close scrutiny, although unsuccessful. If it is idle it is not for being too lazy to work, but because the work has lost all meaning for her; her energy is paralyzed not by sleep but by thought. (…). Instead of a housewife abandoned we have a top- be superior not only be equipped with wings, but also for their intelligence and imaginative surrounded by the tools and symbols of creative endeavor and scientific inquiry”. 3
The Melancholia appears in Dürer’s print in the midst of a peculiar set of objects taken from the models that showed the utilities of the Geometria, so that in the image there is a fusion of the tradition of the melancolici of the calendars and the TypusGeometriae of the Philosophic Treaties. As Panofsky says, the product of this mixture was, on the one side, the intellectualization of melancholy, and on the other, a humanization of geometry. As an illustration of this process, Durer shows a being endowed with intellectual potential and technical capacity for the production of an Art, “but which at the same time despairs under the cloud of “black humor”, showing an “Melancholia Artificialis” or “Melancholi of the Artist”.4
Making the figure lean its head – center of the intellective and imaginative skills – on one hand, in an attitude that appears already in the ancient Egyptian art as indicating a meditative spirit, transforms what was initially just a sign of personality or pathology, into a gesture indicating a mental attitude.
Thus, the engraving shows the production conditions of artistic expertise, which, as Panofsky reminds us, should blend the theoretical penetration with practical skills:
“the mature and wise Melancholia typifies the theoretical penetration that thinks but cannot act. The ignorant child who scribbles nonsense on his blackboard and seems almost to be blind, typifies the practical skill that acts but cannot think”. 5
Failure and sadness would be the result of this lack of integration. So it is not surprising that Dürer would write:
“So deeply are lies lodged in our reasoning and so firmly is darkness entrenched in our spirit, that even our quest gropingly fails”, 6
thus we can rightfully consider his engravings as a kind of spiritual self-portrait.
Therefore, the inclusion of this engraving of Dürer in the painting pretends to have a key role, calling for help from his powerful meaning to complete or supply the weaknesses of the painting. It is hoped, so that the miracle may happen, that the attentive viewer recognizes in the protagonist girl with her hand on her head, the usual representation of Melancholy, claimed and exalted by the trio Marsilio Ficino- Cornelius Agrippa- Albrecht Durer, giving eco and continuity to the positive vision of Aristotle. There is here, however, more defeat than in Dürer: the compass, a small mustache, is idle, hanging on the wall, and table objects, limited to modern associations of the idea of art-a viola, a puppet, a brush, a box of photographic plates 9×12 cm., an old engraving architecture- elements seem infected gloom teddy bear, looking at viewer surprised at the sight of what have stopped the dreams and hopes were. Beside them, the protagonist rests his elbow on an easel painter and, with his hand on which there rests the head holding a Rolleiflex medium format camera, with which points to a frame of reality while doubt if it makes sense to do or photography.
The contours of the leaf with a pink edge that makes reference to architecture and serves to insert a white triangle in the half tone of the still-life, they “unite”, on the one hand, the left leg of the doll with the stones of the box in the center, and on the other hand, the golden handle of the table with the end of the duster in the upper part. It introduces inside the tone the pure line of the drawing and, although it is almost parallel to the plane of the painting, it’s in fact oblique and gives that area a certain depth. To avoid an excess symmetry of the sides of that triangle, one of them is slightly bent. Likewisewas done withthesides of theprint.
Finally, let us point out that on a small piece of paper placed on the stand where the young girl leans her camera we can see the final longing words of Moses and Aaron by Arnold Schönberg: O Wort, du Wort das mirfehlt!, (Oh Word, You Word that I long).
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1 Panofsky, E, Vida y arte de Alberto Durero. Alianza Editorial. Madrid, 1982, p. 172.
2Ibid, p. 171-185.
3Ibid, p. 175.
4Ibid, p. 176.
5Ibid, p. 178.
6 Cit. Ibid, p.184.