拍品專文
No single interpretation has clearly shed light on the subject matter of this engraving. One explanation, introduced by Hermann Grimm in 1875, and pursued by Wölfflin and Panofsky, is that the scene was inspired by Erasmus's Enchiridion Militis Christiani ('Handbook of the Christian Soldier'), first published in 1504, and that the horseman is therefore a Christian Knight, threatened by Death and the Devil. A passage in Drer's Netherlands Diary provides a possible clue as to how to read the print. On hearing the unfounded rumours that Luther had been kidnapped, the artist wrote in emotional fervour
'O Roderodame, where wilt thou take thy stand? Look, of what avail is the unjust tyranny of worldly might and the powers of darkness? Hark, thou Knight of Christ (Du Ritter Christi), ride forth at the side of Christ our Lord, protect the truth, obtain the crown of the Martyrs!'
This appeal seems to evoke the image of the Knight, Death and the Devil, which Panofsky suggests was inspired by such passages in Erasmus's Enchiridion as:
'In order that you may not be deterred from the path of virtue because it seems rough and dreary, because you may have to renounce the comforts of the world, and because you must constantly fight three unfair enemies, the flesh, the devil and the world, this third rule shall be proposed to you: all those spooks and phantoms which come upon you as in the very gorges of Hades must be deemed for nought after the example of Virgil's Aeneas'.
Unlike other contemporary images of similar subjects, of Christian soldiers facing a hostile world, Drer's enemies of man, Death and the Devil, are 'spooks and phantoms', and do not seem real. The Knight rides past his foes, ignores them and pursues his course, fixing his gaze steadily ahead.
Knight, Death and the Devil, Saint Jerome in his Study (1514), and Melencolia I (1514), are known as Drer's Meisterstiche (Master Engravings), and are often considered together, though they were not conceived as a triptych. The subjects of these works are however often interpreted as complementary. They are certainly related in treatment, all three characterized by a multiplicity of detail, their similar size, and by the narrowing of the range of light and shadow which was to culminate in the monochrome treatment of his portrait engravings of the 1520s. Panofsky suggests that the three Meisterstiche are related in complex iconography which symbolize the three modes of the life of man - moral, spiritual and intellectual:
'The Knight, Death and the Devil typifies the life of the Christian in the practise world of decision and action; the Saint Jerome, the life of the Saint in the spiritual world of sacred contemplation; and the Melencolia I the life of the secular genius in the rational and imaginative worlds of science and art.'
Drer's studies of the ideal proportions of the horse reach their apogee in this engraving. In the same way that his knowledge of Italian theories on human proportion had influenced his figure style, Drer is likely to have been influenced here by such Italian conceptions of the horse as Verrocchio's Colleoni and one of Leonardo's studies for the Sforza equestrian monument.
Fig. 1: Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Wien
'O Roderodame, where wilt thou take thy stand? Look, of what avail is the unjust tyranny of worldly might and the powers of darkness? Hark, thou Knight of Christ (Du Ritter Christi), ride forth at the side of Christ our Lord, protect the truth, obtain the crown of the Martyrs!'
This appeal seems to evoke the image of the Knight, Death and the Devil, which Panofsky suggests was inspired by such passages in Erasmus's Enchiridion as:
'In order that you may not be deterred from the path of virtue because it seems rough and dreary, because you may have to renounce the comforts of the world, and because you must constantly fight three unfair enemies, the flesh, the devil and the world, this third rule shall be proposed to you: all those spooks and phantoms which come upon you as in the very gorges of Hades must be deemed for nought after the example of Virgil's Aeneas'.
Unlike other contemporary images of similar subjects, of Christian soldiers facing a hostile world, Drer's enemies of man, Death and the Devil, are 'spooks and phantoms', and do not seem real. The Knight rides past his foes, ignores them and pursues his course, fixing his gaze steadily ahead.
Knight, Death and the Devil, Saint Jerome in his Study (1514), and Melencolia I (1514), are known as Drer's Meisterstiche (Master Engravings), and are often considered together, though they were not conceived as a triptych. The subjects of these works are however often interpreted as complementary. They are certainly related in treatment, all three characterized by a multiplicity of detail, their similar size, and by the narrowing of the range of light and shadow which was to culminate in the monochrome treatment of his portrait engravings of the 1520s. Panofsky suggests that the three Meisterstiche are related in complex iconography which symbolize the three modes of the life of man - moral, spiritual and intellectual:
'The Knight, Death and the Devil typifies the life of the Christian in the practise world of decision and action; the Saint Jerome, the life of the Saint in the spiritual world of sacred contemplation; and the Melencolia I the life of the secular genius in the rational and imaginative worlds of science and art.'
Drer's studies of the ideal proportions of the horse reach their apogee in this engraving. In the same way that his knowledge of Italian theories on human proportion had influenced his figure style, Drer is likely to have been influenced here by such Italian conceptions of the horse as Verrocchio's Colleoni and one of Leonardo's studies for the Sforza equestrian monument.
Fig. 1: Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Wien