Lot Essay
The originality of this print lies not only in the subject Drer depicts, rarely treated at the time, but also in the unprecedented interpretation of the scene. The parable, in Luke 15:11-32, tells the story of the prodigal son who takes his inheritance and leaves home, squanders it, and goes to work in the fields with the swine. Here he reflects on his wasted life, and then decides to return home, condemning his previous decadent existence. Rather than presenting a given moment from the biblical text, Drer made two significant iconographical changes in the story telling. Panofsky writes,
'On the one hand, the scene is staged, not in the fields but in a farmyard, the masterly characterization of which creates an atmosphere of genuine, yet intensely poetic rusticity. On the other hand, this extraordinary emphasis on genre values - a dangerous thing in religious art - is balanced by an increase in pathos: the prodigal son no longer stands by the swine with mournful composure, but has gone on his knees in their very midst, wringing his hands in bitter remorse: and while he thus, quite literally, abases himself to the level of the beasts, he raises his eyes and his thoughts to the heaven of God. It was precisely this combination of the rustic with the emotional that won the admiration of the Italians.'
Both this engraving and The Virgin and Child with a Monkey were indeed particularly popular in Italy, influencing artists such as Giulio Campagnola.
In the meticulous attention to detail and the masterly display of the various textures, we see the beginnings of what was to be Drer's enduring concern with the scientific depiction of nature.
'On the one hand, the scene is staged, not in the fields but in a farmyard, the masterly characterization of which creates an atmosphere of genuine, yet intensely poetic rusticity. On the other hand, this extraordinary emphasis on genre values - a dangerous thing in religious art - is balanced by an increase in pathos: the prodigal son no longer stands by the swine with mournful composure, but has gone on his knees in their very midst, wringing his hands in bitter remorse: and while he thus, quite literally, abases himself to the level of the beasts, he raises his eyes and his thoughts to the heaven of God. It was precisely this combination of the rustic with the emotional that won the admiration of the Italians.'
Both this engraving and The Virgin and Child with a Monkey were indeed particularly popular in Italy, influencing artists such as Giulio Campagnola.
In the meticulous attention to detail and the masterly display of the various textures, we see the beginnings of what was to be Drer's enduring concern with the scientific depiction of nature.