Melencolia I | engraving by Dürer | Britannica (original) (raw)

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discussed in biography

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  In Albrecht Dürer: Development after the second Italian trip
  Jerome in His Study, and _Melencolia I_—all of approximately the same size, about 24.5 by 19.1 cm (9.5 by 7.5 inches). The extensive, complex, and often contradictory literature concerning these three engravings deals largely with their enigmatic, allusive, iconographic details. Although repeatedly contested, it probably must be accepted that the…
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history of Germany

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  In Germany: Cultural life
  …with his evocative engraving “Melancolia I,” in which a brooding figure with closed wings sits idly amid a chaos of scientific instruments and meditates on the futility of human endeavour. In architecture the hierarchical elaboration of the late Gothic style maintained its ascendancy and even made a notable conquest…
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