Size of the original drawing, 11½ × 15¼ inches
In the Albertina, Vienna
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Beginning with the Death of Orpheus, engraved by some anonymous North Italian master working in the Fine Manner of the Tarocchi Cards, the next step is Dürer’s pen drawing, dated 1494. The figures of Orpheus and of the two Thracian Mænads remain unchanged, as does also the little child running towards the left. Dürer has, however, changed the lute into a lyre, as being more suited to Orpheus, and has added the beautiful group of trees which reappears, little changed, in his engraving of Hercules. There is a drawing of the Mantegna School which Dürer may, or may not, have seen; but the face of Orpheus in his drawing shows certain unmistakable Mantegna characteristics, far removed from the North Italian Fine Manner print. From Mantegna’s engraving, the Battle of the Sea-Gods (right-hand portion), Dürer has borrowed the figure of the reclining woman to the left and the Satyr. That he was acquainted with this engraving by Mantegna is attested by a drawing of 1494. The man standing to the right, with legs spread wide apart, wearing a fantastic helmet in the shape of a cock, recalls the work of Pollaiuolo, by whom there exists a similar drawing, now in Berlin. From these various elements Dürer builds up his composition. Its full meaning he alone knew. It has remained an unsolved riddle from his time to our own.
The Carrying Off of Amymone belongs to this same period. Here Dürer has again used the motive taken from Mantegna’s engraving, the Battle of the Sea Gods; but in this instance he follows his original much more closely. Dürer alludes to this print in the diary of his journey to the Netherlands as The Sea Wonder (Das Meerwunder); and although the interpretations given to it are many and various, its true meaning, as in the case of the Hercules, remains a matter of conjecture.
By 1503, the year to which belongs the Coat-of-Arms with the Skull, and also, in all probability, the magnificent Coat-of-Arms with the Cock, Dürer seems to have overcome successfully all technical difficulties and is absolute master of his medium. From this time onwards, although his manner undergoes certain modifications in the direction of fuller color and of a more accurate rendering of texture, his language is adequate for anything he may wish to say, and he is free to address himself to the solution of scientific problems, such as are involved in the elucidation of his canon of human proportion, or the still deeper questions which stirred so profoundly the speculative minds of his time.
With the exception of Hercules, Adam and Eve is the only engraving by Dürer of which trial proofs, properly so-called, exist, whereby we can study Dürer’s method. First the outlines were lightly laid in; then the background was carried forward and substantially completed. In the first trial proof Adam’s right leg alone is finished; but in the second trial proof he is completed to the waist. This method of procedure is significant, in view of the endless controversies, based upon an incomplete study of Dürer’s technique, regarding the use of preliminary etching in many plates of his middle and later period.
ALBRECHT DÜRER. ADAM AND EVE
Size of the original engraving, 9¾ x 8⅝ inches
In the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
ALBRECHT DÜRER. APOLLO AND DIANA