TJ McNamara: Unforgettable images from versatile genius

Albrecht Durer, Melencolia. Photo / Supplied

Nuremberg is famous for many things, including huge Nazi rallies and, later, the war crimes trials. The fine walled city had more positive claims to fame in earlier times. It was a great trading city and its medieval guilds of craftsmen who were also poets are celebrated in The Master Singers by Richard Wagner.

It is also the birthplace of the most famous of German painters, Albrecht Durer, who was born there in 1471 and lived most of his life in the city. Durer's father was a goldsmith and Albrecht, one of his three sons, was expected to follow his trade. They all became painters although two remained obscure while Albrecht was recognised as brilliant from an early age. A self-portrait drawing, made when he was 12, shows an extraordinary certainty of touch as well as an ability to catch a likeness. It was the first of a series of self-portraits reflecting the stages of his life.

As a young man Durer learned the rudiments of painting in Nuremberg and the trade of making woodcuts allied to recently invented printing.

With woodcuts, the design is left standing and the top inked in the same way as letterpress, so the woodcuts could be printed with the pages of the new books.

Durer followed the customs of the guild to which he belonged, so when he had served his apprenticeship he travelled as a journeyman from city to city in Germany and Switzerland, working with the leading painters.

When he returned to Nuremberg he married, then did an unusual thing for his time - he made the first of two visits across the Alps to Italy. He spent most of his time in Venice and knew the great Renaissance Venetian painters.

He gained two things: a sense that art could be an intellectual endeavour as much as a craft, and he learned that an artist could achieve status far and above a craftsman. His visit also led to his interest in perspective and anatomy about which he was later to write.

On his return to Nuremberg, he designed many woodcuts, mostly in series that told the life of Christ. His international fame rested mainly on his graphic work.

One particularly successful series was based on the apocalyptic writings of St John and the visions he saw on the island of Patmos. These were large woodcuts which made the strange visions real, particularly The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Durer's version shows the horsemen sweeping across the earth, trampling king, pope, bishops and ordinary people under their flying hooves. His woodcuts were sold by his wife and mother, travelling throughout Europe from fair to fair. His fame grew. His portrait paintings were in demand by merchant princes, kings and the emperor.

Woodcuts were a broad medium. Durer developed to an extraordinary degree the complex technique of engraving which required enormous skill because a chisel called a burin had to be pushed into the surface of a copper plate. When the plate was inked, the ink went into the grooves cut by the burin, and the surface was wiped clear. Paper was then put on the surface and the image was printed under pressure.

Durer's engraving technique involved a network of fine lines. Previous work by other artists used shading with parallel lines.

The most wonderful of Durer's engravings was a group of four: Melancholia, The Knight Death and the Devil, St Jerome in his Study, and Adam and Eve. These are the triumph of the print maker's art, unequalled until Rembrandt did his etchings in a slightly different medium.

Of the four, the most amazing is Melancholia. Its fascination lies in its ambiguities, atmosphere and enigmatic quality. It is ambiguous because it is gloomy yet seems to be a celebration. It is atmospheric because it breathes an atmosphere of intense melancholy. It is enigmatic because its meaning is unclear.

The giant winged figure is Melancholy herself, cold and lonely, though she wears a wreath of hot mustard cress as therapy for her depression. Her wings suggest she can take flight. Beside her on a millstone sits a cherub who is not writing but drawing. Perhaps he is Art, which might be born out of melancholy and neurosis. In the background is an exquisitely drawn coastal city, a rainbow and a comet. The effect is reinforced by the huge sad hound at Melancholy's feet.

These figures are surrounded by objects - a ladder, a balance, an hourglass, a bell, a sphere, a regular solid, a hammer, a plane, a saw and other things.

The objects in the foreground suggest the making of things; the objects on the wall suggest time and measurement. The tablet inscribed on the wall is a mathematical display. It adds up to 34, whichever way you add.

The whole is a great feat of imagination and skill in drawing and the technique of engraving in copper. Of all the explanations offered, the one that seems most convincing is the idea that all the objects in the picture have a principle which cannot be improved.

A sphere cannot be made any more round. The idea of a ladder is a simple concept that does the purpose, whatever form it takes. A balance is a balance, however elaborate. You can make a better saw but you can't improve on the principle of cutting teeth. A bell is a bell, is a bell, is a bell. The intellectual contemplation of such unchangeable principles of making and measurement induces melancholy in the artist.

Whatever we make of this extraordinary print, as an image it is unforgettable thanks to the genius of Durer.

A contemporary painting by Lucas Cranach the elder in Colmar is feeble by comparison although he was no mean painter.

His Melancholy whittles away at a bit of wood to indicate time passing. There is a sphere, a dog and a cherub - and swings to indicate mutability and change. It is a curious little painting, but powerful it is not.

To see an authentic copy of Melancholia one has to go through all sorts of administration and ceremony at the print collection in Munich, but fortunately engravings reproduce quite well. Also in Munich's great gallery, the Alte Pinakothek, one can see the most impressive of Durer's self-portraits done in 1500 as he was approaching 30. It is completely frontal. His long hair falls in curls to his shoulders. He wears a fur coat that is a sign of wealth and position, and in the foreground is the hand that created his status. Consciously he sees himself as taking part in the divine act of creation.

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