Four artists and nine pieces of jewellery celebrating and investigating one of the most enigmatic and fascinating works in the history of Western Arts: the “Melencolia I” engraving by Albrecht Dürer.

Conceived as a second step of an ideal cycle that links past and present and which started with “The Alchemical Egg” in 2017, “Melencolia or The Saturnine nature of the Artist” is a project related to the German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) and specifically to his engraving “Melencolia I” (1514). Thus, the four Artist -jewellers involved in this project have been invited to create their own works inspired by the theme of “Melencolia I” as a meditation about this vague, indefinite, unclear and yet insuppressible feeling, and about the role and the nature of the artist himself.

The exhibition project is curated by Nichka Marobin, in collaboration with Hannah Gallery by Klimt02.

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Quatre artistes i nou peces de joieria celebren i investiguen una de les obres més enigmàtiques i fascinants de la història de les arts occidentals: el gravat “Melencolia I” d'Albrecht Dürer.

Concebut com a segon pas d'un cicle ideal que enllaça passat i present i que va començar amb "L'ou alquímic" l'any 2017, "Melencolia o La natura saturnina de l'artista" és un projecte relacionat amb l'artista renaixentista alemany Albrecht Dürer (1471-1471). 1528) i concretament al seu gravat “Melencolia I” (1514). Així, els quatre Artistes-joiers implicats en aquest projecte han estat convidats a crear les seves pròpies obres inspirades en el tema de “Melencolia I” com a meditació sobre aquest sentiment vague, indefinit, poc clar i alhora insuprimible, i sobre el paper i la naturalesa. del mateix artista.

El projecte expositiu està comissariat per Nichka Marobin, en col.laboració amb Hannah Gallery de Klimt02.

 
“Was aber Schönheit sei, daß weiß ich nicht”
(But what beauty may be, that I know not)^[1]
 
At the top of his artistic career (1506-1514)^[2], Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) is no longer a simple craftsman, but an artist who is now not only a Humanist but also an intellectual and wealthy man. He masters equally painting, engraving and woodcutting: his technical and formal solutions and skills on painting, watercolours and engraving are great; by this time, he starts writing essays and texts (in German) that could give to German artists and craftsmen a solid theoretical basis of their practical skills to their activity.^[3] Thanks to his close friendship with the Humanist Pirckheimer^[4], Dürer starts his own path as a committed intellectual.
 
However, precisely at this time of serenity and fertile artistic creativity and just a few years before the storm of Reformation, Dürer reached the awareness of the limits of Art and at that moment he writes “Was aber Schönheit sei, daß weiß ich nicht” (But what beauty may be, that I know not).^[5]
He is fully aware of the inner contrasts of his own time; of the divergence between the ideals of Humanism and reality. He keeps on looking and studying a mathematical canon of proportion to describe Beauty, but without success; at the same time, he is fully conscious of the striking conflicts between the myth of the Humanistic concept of the “man as a measure of all things” and the increasing religious discomfort. He is always careful and accurate about what surrounds him and, exactly during the years from 1513-1514, he creates the corpus of the three great engravings called Meisterstiche (Master Engravings).
 
The “Master Engravings” that are “The Knight, the Death and The Devil” (1513), “St. Jerome in his Studio” (1514) and “Melencolia I” (1514) form a unique corpus of works bound together by similar size, as an ideal triptych symbolizing the vita activa (active life – The Knight), the vita contemplativa (contemplative life – St. Jerome) and a different alternative to life depicted by Melencolia I (art?).
Upon looking to three works, it seems that Dürer finds three ways for the salvation of men’s soul: the moral one symbolized by the Knight; the religious one embodied by St. Jerome and the intellectual one portrayed by Melencolia I.^[6]
 
But how can one define melancholy? Is it a malaise or a feeling? And what kind of feeling is it? Is it for a brief moment of for an entire life? Is this a temperament or rather a disposition of the soul? Is it perhaps a state of mind? Or is it an illness? Whether vague, unclear and yet relentlessly present and real in his objective intangibility, this feeling has been part of ourselves for centuries. From the Ancient times melancholy was associated to the theory of humors and specifically to the black bile^[7], and during Medieval and Renaissance times it has been ascribed to that temper typical of artists and poets. Those who were “born under Saturn”^[8], in fact, were characterized by eccentricity, love for solitude and irritability. The Saturnine temper of the artist evokes those non-aligned conducts enriched by an uncommon sensitivity, as well as uncommon intellectual capacities not easily ascribed to ordinary people.
 
However, whether multiple the definitions might be, melancholy acts like a lens, both as a microscope and as a telescope: particular, subjective and yet, at the same time, universal.
And, if the culmination of Dürer’s artistic maturity coincides with this Master Engraving and with the pivotal question about Beauty, we can assume also that he was questioning himself about the awareness of being an artist and the nature of the artist himself.
Making a step back and meditating on Dürer’s question about what Beauty really is, several questions arise: what is the difference between a work of high craftsmanship and Art? What makes you recognize a work of Art instead of a good piece of jewellery? How do we detect quality in a piece of jewellery?
When does quality become art?
When a craftsman is no longer an artisan, but an artist? The awareness of the status of the artist is suitable for jewellers and for makers?
And far and foremost important question in this specific context: is jewellery art? 
Looking at Dürer’s life, a special thread links his life events to goldsmiths: his father first of all, his apprenticeship, his first journey to Basel hosted by the brother of Martin Schongauer, a goldsmith too; in the Netherlands where he is honoured as a great artist. This gold thread presides over his entire artistic life, granting him the preciousness of his engravings; the preciseness of his signs; the peculiarity of the chiaroscuro of his all prints.
After more than five centuries, Dürer’s “Melencolia I” releases an incredible yet magical spell, not only under the technical aspect, but above all for its fascinating subject.
If according to Erwin Panofsky -in his still unsurpassed biography- this work represents the saturnine nature of the artist and a spiritual portrait of that “melancholic mood” and temperament typical of all artists^[9], there have been numerous interpretations of this subject along the years.
Nonetheless, whether we consider the different interpretations provided by the scholars along the years on “Melencolia I”, the tools, the magic square, the winged figure, the child, all this landscape which stands in front of our eyes is filled with esoteric, mathematical, philosophical references bound together as a symbolic enigma endlessly ready to be decoded, interpreted and meditated by the artists goldsmiths invited in this exhibition project, as an homage to Albrecht Dürer, the son of a goldsmith.
 
“Squaring the width of a circle, his art was built to last”.^[10]
 
Nichka Marobin, Exhibition curator
This text is an excerpt of the exhibition catalogue.