Formal Analysis of Durer’s Knight, Death and the Devil

Uriah Funk Leila Armstrong Art 110 7 February, 2013 Formal analytic thinking of Durers Knight, Death and the Devil My first impression upon looking at Durers Knight, Death and the Devil is one of impending doom met with endurance and a feeling of resigning to ones fate. The figure of the Knight is adjoin by the figures of Death on his sickly long horse and the beast set about Devil, along with a treacherous landscape that seems to fold in upon itself and clutch other unseen dangers.The entitle marches forward seeming to drop the threats, as he leaves the pencil eraserty of the city behind he is safe in his armor upon his loyal steed, for now. This etching was done on pig bed giving it a warm earthy tone. The absence of other color in gives the piece a dark feeling. Durers etching uses light really realistically, giving the figure of the horse especially a very convince sheen. The absence of light behind the figures lends an abyssal element of danger connecting the true dangers of Death and the Devil in the upper part of the work to the implied dangers in the lower part of the etching.With the abundance of hatching and cross hatching, lines appear from the food grain of the objects and figures themselves, while other line work is direct and bold such as along the armor work of the sawbuck. The eye is drawn to the left-hand(a) along the work at first by the implied motion of the knight and his dog. other directional forces like the knights pike and brand as well as the trees in the background and the devils horn and beam draw the eye back across the space.The magnificent etching makes rise use of shape, volume, shading, mass, size, scale, and texture to create an almost scientific realism that would not be out of place in biology textbooks. Durer uses space in the piece to create a signified of closing in round the knight with all of the darkest parts being immediately around the horse and rider. The further open space, or escape, is the sky above and behind the knight and he is not heading in this direction, further increasing the sense of danger. Atmospheric and linear perspective while pitch is minimal and only serve to reinforce the claustrophobic feel of the foreground.At first, the composition seems quite changeless, the knight presenting a strong vertical line and his horse firmly base the rider, yet the relationship with background characters creates precarious unbalanced shapes. Overall these elements present a foreboding scene for the knight no matter how stable the stance of his horse and rigidity of his spine. The piece gives a very humanistic feel, with texture, shading, and mass of the figures and objects having a down to earth almost touchable quality. Other elements like the lizard and skull suggest symbolism that intrigues the viewer to further investigation.Created by Albrecht Durer in 1513 Germany, the piece, according to the metropolitan Museum of Art, has a connection to a apparitional lit erary work titled Handbook of a Christian Soldier. The engraving is 9. 6in x 7. 5in on copper. The small size probably allowed for detail in the work as well as to be useful in book illustration. Works Cited Albrecht Durer Knight, Death, and the Devil (43. 106. 2). In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000. http//www. metmuseum. org/toah/works-of-art/43. 106. 2 (October 2006)