Albrecht Dürer, Knight,
Death and the Devil, a copperplate
engraving
Germany, signed and dated AD
1513
The Christian knight in a northern
forest
‘Though I walk through the valley of the shadow
of death, I will fear no evil' (Psalm 23), could be a
caption for this engraving. The horseman is the 'knight of
Christ', a phrase that Dürer was to use of his contemporary
Erasmus of Rotterdam, who had written a
Handbook of the Christian
Soldier in 1501. Death is at the
horse's feet in the form of a skull, beside the plaque with
Dürer's
monogram.
Death is also the ghastly corpse without nose or lips, who holds a
hourglass up to the knight as a reminder that his time on earth is
limited. The knight rides on, looking neither to the right, left,
nor backwards, where the Devil, with an ingratiating grin, seems
powerless while ignored. High above this dark forest rises a safe
stronghold, apparently the destination of the knight's
journey.
Dürer engraved
three copper plates in 1513 and 1514 which have been called his
Meisterstiche, or master
prints, for their unequalled excellence. This print was the first,
while St Jerome in his
Study and Melancholia
I followed in 1514. They share a similar size
and format and an overall silvery tone with brilliant whites and
blacks. Together the
Meisterstiche represent
Dürer's supreme achievement as an
engraver.
E. Panofsky, The life and art of Albrecht D (Princeton University Press, 1945, 1971)