Perhaps Dürer’s most enigmatic composition, Melencolia I is grouped with his two other “master” engravings of 1513 and 1514, Knight, Death and the Devil, and St. Jerome in His Study, which represent the pinnacle of his engraved art. These prints are noted in technical terms for their achievement of grays and planes of shadow, the result of innumerable fine marks of the burin, an effect that in this case contributes greatly to the somber mood of the subject.

Dürer presents the personification of Melancholy surrounded by a collection of tools for creative and intellectual pursuits such as goldsmithing (the crucible and scales), geometry (the polyhedron and sphere), and woodworking (the plane, ruler, and saw). Most important are the dividers she holds, placed at the very center of the composition; this instrument, used by geometricians and architects, symbolizes the ultimate creative act—God’s shaping of the world.

In Renaissance humanistic thought, people of melancholic temperament were seen as the most creative members of society; however, it was believed that their genius also made them able to see a still higher level of achievement that they could not attain and were therefore frequently subject to depression. Dürer’s figure of Melancholy, and by extension Dürer himself, broods while symbols of the artist’s success, keys for power and a purse for wealth, dangle in a useless jumble from her waist.