Durer decoded - art across the curriculum

Arts & Activities, Nov, 2003 by Tara Cady Sartorius

At first glance, this engraving seems like a typical depiction of the Madonna and Child. We observe Mary benevolently looking down at her son, but quickly the details begin to intrude. As the details become more and more curious, they begin to imply a world beyond the printed page. Because of the details, there are more questions than answers here.

How did the Child catch or tame the bird? What book does the Madonna have under her left band? Whose house is that in the background? Is that a city in the distance up the river? And, last but not least, wily is there a monkey in the picture?

Clearly this is not an image of reality on earth, nor is it the usual image of Mary and the Christ child. This engraving contains symbols galore, all connected to the time and culture in which it was created: some time around the year 1498.

It is difficult to conjure what life was like back then, but consider the following. The year 1498 is a little over 500 years ago. Back then, Leonardo da Vinci had just sketched his first flying machine. Five hundred years ago is when most agree Macchu Picchu was built and the Aztec Calendar was carved on a large stone disk. Gutenberg had just printed his first Bible. There were no phones and no electricity. Also, 500 years ago Germany brought forth the great Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) who created the image you see to your left.

Before he created this engraving, Durer traveled (in 1494-95) to Venice, Italy, from his home city, Nuremberg, Germany. Such a trip was approximately 445 miles, and the road (unpaved in those days) took him over the Swiss Alps on foot or by horse and cart. It must have taken at least a month, and apparently Durer also took some time to sketch and paint some of the beautiful landscapes he encountered along the way.

In Venice, Durer studied the works of great Italian artists, such as those in Leonardo da Vinci's circle, whose styles inspired Durer to create more rounded and voluminous contours of the figures, the drapery and even the surrounding scene.

Prior to his visit to Italy, Durer's strongest influences came from the north through the anonymous "House-book Master" (c. 1470-1500) and Martin Schongauer (c. 1450-1491). Some elements from Madonna with the Monkey (the bench in the foreground and the boats in the background) seem to have been adapted from a work by Schongauer titled The Virgin on a Grassy Bench.

Adapting images originated by other artists, and even appropriating one's own imagery into new works of art, is an age-old practice. The advantage of sharing and recycling artistic ideas and techniques is that the exchange often furthers and improves both content and art making.

Durer, in Madonna with the Monkey, recycled his own image of the little house in the background. Originally produced as a delicate brush drawing and watercolor in 1495, the building was identified in an atlas published in 1595 as the "Weyerhausslein" at St. Johannis. In Durer's day the place was in the country outside Nuremberg, but today it is within the suburbs. It may have originally been a privately owned fishing house, later used as a garrison for troops guarding the city.

The placement of the house by Durer in Madonna with the Monkey gives it a new purpose and meaning in terms of protection. Literally, a house protects the human body, but in the print, the top of the Madonna's halo is still higher than the top of the building, thus God has ultimate protective powers.

Throughout the composition Durer carries the dichotomy between life on earth and of the spirit. The bird in the Child's hand is seen by some to be symbolic of the human soul. The Child tempts the bird as it tries to fly, but His grip is firm, just as God's grip is firm on the human spirit which cannot fly without His will in its favor.

Finally, the monkey. Images to some, at some times, mean totally different firings to different people. The monkey, to people of Durer's time, stood for evil, lust, and greed. In the engraving the monkey sits chained at Mary's feet, profoundly tamed by her holiness. She rests her hand on a book, most likely an edition of the Old Testament.

There is a clash of time and era in this work. Naturally Mary and Jesus did not live in Northern Europe. Architecture such as the half-timbered style house did not exist in Her time. Christianity, as evidenced in the church spires in the background, had not yet come to be.

What Durer did in Madonna with the Monkey, is what many artists still do: take a universal and timeless theme and bring it up to date for those currently living. Its values and messages are the same today as they were back then.

IT'S AN ENGRAVING

Durer's Madonna with the Monkey was engraved (gouged with an engraving tool) Onto a copperplate, and then inked, wiped and printed. Engravings, along with etchings and drypoints, are created with the intaglio process. Some engravings are made with wood blocks, with the scratched lines on the end-grain rather than on the broad side of the wood. Wood engravings are made large by laminating many pieces of wood together to create a wide end-grain surface.