Durer's Melencolia I (1514) and The Magic Square

As we were studying Dürer's Saint Jerome in His Study last week, I discovered that it was one of a set of three large prints he made in 1513–14 known as his Meisterstiche or "master engravings."  Another of the three is called Melencolia I. (The third one is Knight, Death, and the Devil). The prints seem to correspond to the three kinds of virtue in medieval scholasticism—moral, theological, and intellectual. Melencolia, being the depiction of intellectual scholasticism, has many interesting elements -tools of geometry and architecture, the polyhedron truncated rhombohedron (which, by the way, is now known as "Durer's solid"), an hourglass, a scale or balance, and compass.

The most interesting part of the engraving, however, is the "Magic Square" in the upper right hand corner of the engraving.  A magic square is a grid of numbers in which you may find the same sum when adding the numbers within it in many different patterns and combinations. Durer's square is a  4 × 4 magic square with its rows horizontally, vertically, angles down, the four quadrants, (the four squares in each of the corners), corners and as well as the sum of the middle four numbers equal the same number, 34, which happens to belong to the Fibonacci sequence. You can even connect the numbers to form a parallelogram by connecting the numbers 3, 5, 14 and 12 to form 34. Another charming touch is that the numbers 15 and 14 appear in the middle of the bottom row, indicating the date of the engraving, 1514.

Then we made our own Magic Square. 

First start by making a 4 × 4 grid and filling it in with the numbers 1-16 in order. Take the numbers in the diagonal from the top number 1 to the bottom number 16 and erase them and then fill them back in, in the opposite order.

Now do the same with the other diagonal -from 4-13.

Now start adding. See how many sums of 34 we get?

Then we compared it to Durer's square, to see how is it the same and how it is different?

Why don't you try it and see what you think?

Can you make more magic squares using the same method with different outcomes?

St. Jerome in His Study (1514), Albrecht Durer

St. Jerome in His Study. 1514. Engraving


There is so much in this piece to talk about. We talked about symbolism. We talked about perspective in the room.



worksheet from Homeschool Journey's Renaissance History Portfolio

We talked a bit about engraving. "Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself is engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, for printing images on paper as prints or illustrations; these images are also called engravings." (Wikipedia) We looked at the illustrations here of how intaglio printing is done, but I thought they might understand it better if we actually made an intaglio print ourselves.

123...I Can Make Prints!...Get Into the Groove!

Wrap a piece of flat clay with aluminum foil.

A pencil carves a design in the foil over clay...

which make grooves to hold the paint.

Wipe off any extra paint with a damp cloth, leaving just the paint in the grooves.

The paint in the grooves becomes the painted parts of a print.

This is called an Intaglio Print.

Paint your web spun by the spider and any other decorations on the spider.

Quentin got a little frustrated in getting his print on paper so he added a spider cut from a muffin cup.

Since this is our last week of looking at the work of Durer, we compared and contrasted his works.

We talked about them in terms of mediums, themes, style. We compared the mediums of watercolors, tempera on linen, pen and ink, intaglio printing and woodcuts. Some of his themes were religious, some were not.

A Young Hare, Albrecht Durer (1471-1528)

Albrecht Durer (1471-1528)

A Young Hare

This is one of my very favorite pictures of all time. Not surprising for someone who loves rabbits.

There is so much to look at in this picture...contour...texture...color. (I love his signature, too.)
We particularly liked the picture, too, because it looks so much like our bunny.

I encouraged the older students to sketch pictures of hares.

Here is a sketch that Sam did today. Not the hare, of course, but another sketch.

Meanwhile the little boys enjoyed making more printing projects.

1,2,3...I Can Make Prints
On The Fold

Praying Hands, 1508, Albrecht Durer (1471-1528)

Praying Hands, 1508
Brush and ink

For my older children, I encouraged them to draw hands, but it was a little too hard for Alex, so he ended up joining the younger kids with their projects.

James'

 For my younger children, we did another printing project...
Pressed on Patterns.

Self-Portraits, Albrecht Durer (1471-1528)

Albrecht Durer {1471-1528}

This week we looked at Durer himself. We knew from last week that Durer was a master at woodcuts but we learned this week that he was a multi-talented man as he made watercolors, tempera on linen, pen and ink, and drypoint (type of intaglio) printing in addition to his woodcuts. He, therefore, was an accomplished  painter, printmaker, matematician, engraver and theorist from Nuremberg. Nuremberg was then an important and prosperous city, a centre for publishing and many luxury trades. It had strong links with Italy, especially Venice, a relatively short distance across the Alps. Dürer's godfather was Anton Koberge, a successful publisher in Germany, most famous for his publication of the Nuremberg Chronicle in 1493.

Self Portraits, 1500 & 1498

They added Durer on the history timeline and the older boys made a notebook page on him.

More resources about Durer here.

Rhinoceros, woodcut {1515}, Albrecht Durer {1471-1528}

Albrecht Durer {1471-1528}

 Today we began our study of Albrecht Durer with a look at his woodcut, Rhinoceros. Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges. The areas to show 'white' are cut away with a knife or chisel, leaving the characters or image to show in 'black' at the original surface level. The surface is covered with ink by rolling over the surface with an ink-covered roller or brayer, leaving ink upon the flat surface but not in the non-printing areas.

Rhinoceros, woodcut 1515

Rhinoceros, woodcut 1515

Look at all the texture he has created on this rhino! Thinking of how it was made just makes you appreciate this piece even more.

There are many relief printing projects students can do. Older students can use an actual linoleum block and carve it with lino knives. Kids Artists  and Sea Kettle Diaries have tutorials on how to make lovely block prints. Below are a sample of how they turn out on several mediums using this method.



at Kids Artist



Also, One Crafty Mumma has a tutorial on how to make stamps out of erasers.

 

For younger students, the classic potato prints can be done to show the method of chipping away what you don't want, leaving what you want to print.

To prepare the potatoes, wash them and then slice them in half through the widest part. The easiest way to make the raised part is to use a small cookie cutter and push it into the cut part of the potato until it is all the way in. Pull it out and then, using a knife, cut away the part you do not want, leaving the part you do want raised. If you child is old enough to have good knife skills, then you can give him a butter knife and let him cut the potato parts away. Otherwise, you can do that part (with a regular knife).

Another option is to draw on the potato with a pencil whatever design you wish and then cut away the parts you don't want as above. Remember, though, that the less complicated the print is, the better.

Don't forget, too, that you can make these prints on all kinds of surfaces. You can use fabric paint, and make the potato prints on fabric.



For potato printing, it is best to stick with simple shapes.



You can use the shapes to make interesting designs.