Docenting at The High

So, as many of you know, I am in training to be a docent. This does not mean that I will be become one. I should have this attitude like " why would they not want to hire me", but the reality is maybe they won't feel like I am a good match. I thought I would post the rough draft of my docent tour. In fact, I thought would blog some of my favorite pieces. Seriously, the best part about this training is the opportunity to meet the curators of the museum and get up close and personal with the works of art. I am also loving meeting other docents in training as well. I was very intimidated at first, but after spending some time with the docents I realized there were others just like myself.  I am simply copying and pasting what I am saying on my tours. Perhaps, if was being paid to blog...I might actually make an effort to write something amazing :)

Albrecht Durer, Knight, Death and the Devil , 1513

Engraving

Gift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation

*There is a lot going on in the picture. What do we see in this picture? It is a knight on a horse riding past the Devil and Death. Death is shown with an hourglass in his hands.

* Looking at this painting in more detail what else do we see? We see a dog, a skull on the ground in front of him, a foxtail wrapped around the knights’ lance, a lizard, and oak leaves.  We also see a castle in the background of the painting. What is the significance of these symbols?

 Hourglass: Transience of life
Fox tail: Lies
Dog: Truth and loyalty
Lizard: Impending danger
Oak leaves: The return from a successful hunt
Roots of trees: Precariousness of life

* Where do you think the Knight is traveling to? The German artist Albrecht Durer’s image has been associated with “Erasmus’s Manual of the Christian Knight”, which urges all Christians to live as soldiers in the service of God and traverse the road to salvation fortified by the weapons of faith. Desiderius Erasmus was one of the most important reformers of the sixteenth century next to Martin Luther.

*Looking at the faces of the various characters in this painting what would we say would be going through their minds? What is the knight thinking? What is the dog thinking? What are the Devil and Death saying to him as he rides by on his journey?

* This engraving is amazing. The process of engraving is extremely arduous. One takes a large piece of smooth copper and uses a tool called a burin. How hard the engraver pushes the burin down into the copper will depend on how thick the engraver would like to produce the lines. So, pressing down hard with the burin will produce thick lines and lighter will produce thinner lines. When the engraving is complete the artist applies ink to the copper. He pushes the ink into the various lines and polishes the rest of the ink off with a cloth. Paper is then applied on top of the picture and blankets placed on top of that. The artist then passes over the blankets with rollers so the image is printed on the paper. Durer was able to make many prints of this etching.

* By learning the process of engraving you can now very much appreciate the intense labor that was taken into producing such a masterpiece.

* So, not only was this etching difficult to make, but it’s a fine example of the Northern Renaissance period. It is a great example for three reasons. First the symbolism that Durer used. Second the technology Durer used to make this etching and last would be the appearance of the characters. Unlike paintings or drawing from the past these figures are all three dimensional. Their bodies are not flat but actually anatomically correct.

* If you notice the left hand corner on the board against the rock what is written on it?  It reads S 1513 A and D. The painting was painted in 1513 and the AD are the in initials of the artist. Why do you think the A is so big? Durer actually left his initials on all of his art like this.

*In a sense he might have created his first trademark. Unfortunately, his monogram was easy to imitate and he had problems with an artist named Marcantonio Raimondi who copied his works and marked them with the “AD” monogram and published it without his permission. In which Durer had to take legal action against him. Because of the legal issues Durer obtained the very first copyright for a work  1511 called “Life of the Virgin”. 

Tomorrow is A Portrait of Anne by George Wesley Bellows....