Lot Essay
This print is the subject of Panofsky's detailed iconographic analysis in his chapter Albrecht Drer and Classical Antiquity in Meaning in the Visual Arts (1955). The author names the source of this engraving as the Repertorium Morale of Petrus Berchorius, printed by Drer's godfather Anton Koberger in 1489, in which there is a lengthy description on the early Christian concept of Christ as the 'Sun of Righteousness'. This identity between Christ and the Sun dates back to the late Antiquity when 'the religious experience (...) was so closely allied to astral mysticism, and so thoroughly imbued with the belief in the omnipotence of the sun-god, that no new religious idea could gain acceptance unless it was either invested with solar connotations from the outset (...) or else acquired such solar connotations ex post facto - as was the case with Christianity'. Under Auralian (born circa 212 A.D.), the 'never vanquished sun' (Sol invictus) became the most important divinity of the Roman Empire. The early Church sanctioned the union between the sun and Christ but replaced the old cosmological god with a moral one 'the Sun of Righteousness', sitting in judgement, as described in the Book of Malachi.
The subject of Drer's engraving with the lion, the fiery halo, and flames bursting from his eyes, is conceived as the Apocalyptic avenger rather than the merciful judge. A passage in Berchorius' Repertorium seems like a literal paraphrase of Drer's image:
'Further I say of this Sun that He shall be inflamed with exercising supreme power and that is to say when He sits in judgement, when He shall be strict and severe ... because He shall be hot and bloody by dint of justice and strictness. For as the sun, when in the centre of his orbit, that is to say, at the midday point, is hottest so shall Christ be when He shall appear in the centre of Heaven and Earth, that is to say, in Judgement ... In summer, when he is in the Lion, the sun withers the herbs, which have blossomed in the spring by his heat. So shall Christ, in that heat of the Judgement, appear as a man fierce and leonine; He shall wither the sinners and shall destroy the prosperity of men which they had enjoyed in the world.'
Hence Drer in this engraving fuses the Biblical and Pagan Sol to produce an Apocalyptic figure immersed in the spirit of the late Middle Ages.
The subject of Drer's engraving with the lion, the fiery halo, and flames bursting from his eyes, is conceived as the Apocalyptic avenger rather than the merciful judge. A passage in Berchorius' Repertorium seems like a literal paraphrase of Drer's image:
'Further I say of this Sun that He shall be inflamed with exercising supreme power and that is to say when He sits in judgement, when He shall be strict and severe ... because He shall be hot and bloody by dint of justice and strictness. For as the sun, when in the centre of his orbit, that is to say, at the midday point, is hottest so shall Christ be when He shall appear in the centre of Heaven and Earth, that is to say, in Judgement ... In summer, when he is in the Lion, the sun withers the herbs, which have blossomed in the spring by his heat. So shall Christ, in that heat of the Judgement, appear as a man fierce and leonine; He shall wither the sinners and shall destroy the prosperity of men which they had enjoyed in the world.'
Hence Drer in this engraving fuses the Biblical and Pagan Sol to produce an Apocalyptic figure immersed in the spirit of the late Middle Ages.