THE CULT OF MELANCHOLY AND ‘SATURNIANISM’ IN THE EARLY MODERN IMAGERY OF WESTERN EUROPE
The paper deals with the concept of ‘Melancholy’ – one of the four humors in Hippocratic medicine, practiced in Europe and Middle East from Antiquity till the very end of the Modern time. Being a “daughter of Saturn” in the late-medieval world view, it went through a curious conceptual metamorphosis along with mythological Saturn himself during the 15th – 17th centuries. In that period, a peculiar trend of Hermetic Natural Philosophy gave rise to an utterly new type of intellectuals. Model of the enlightened genius and poet-philosopher was continuously connected with the character of Melancholy among them. Its effect on the human nature was modeled not upon the gloomy anticipations of the Aristotelian school, but the solemn definitions of Plotinus, G. Piko della Mirandola, and Agrippa von Nettesheim. Seen previously as a ‘God of death and inexorable time’, ‘the Reaper’, Saturn had been transformed to become a patron of wisdom and a mentor of melancholical ‘heroic enthusiasts’. Rich iconological diversity of practically identical motives in the art of the 15th – 17th cc. illustrates these theses.
Keywords: Saturn, melancholy, humors, astrology, hermetism, iconology, Renaissance, post-medieval, Vanitas
References:
Aristotle 1927 – The Works of Aristotle. Transl. under the ed. of W. D. Ross. Vol. VII: Problemata (by E. S. Forster). Oxford, 1927. URL: https://archive.org/details/p2workstranslat09aris.
Arnaldus 1970 – Arnaldus de Villa Nova. Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum (Code of Health of Salerno). Transl. into Russian by Yu. Shulz. Moscow, 1970.
Beecher 1987 – Beecher D. A. Everyman’s Saturn. FLORILEGIUM. 1987. 9. P. 169–180.
Burno 2013 – Burno M. E. “Melancholy” by Dürer and “Hamlet” by Shakespeare. 2013. URL: http://characterology.ru/creatologia/philology/Durer_Melancholy_and_Shakespeare_Hamlet. In Russian.
Butuzov 2006 – Butuzov G. Gold apples of dr. Mayer. Notes on the “Runaway Atalanta”. Butuzov G. Alchemy and Tradition. Moscow, 2006. URL: http://latebra.narod.ru/auru.html. In Russian.
Duits 2011 – Duits R. Reading the Stars of the Renaissance. Fritz Saxl and Astrology. Journal of Art Historiography. 2011. 5 (December). P. 1–16. URL: http://arthistoriography.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/duits.pdf.
Finkelstein 2005 – Finkelstein D. R. The Melencolia Code. School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology. 2005. URL: http://www.citizenarcane.com/files/2005/April/21/melencolia_code_by_finkelstein.pdf. In Russian.
Gorfunkel 1980 – Gorfunkel A. Kh. Renaissance Neo-Platonism. Philosophy of the Renaissance. Moscow, 1980. P. 91–99. In Russian.
Gowland 2006 – Gowland A. The Worlds of Renaissance Melancholy: Robert Burton in Context. Series. Ideas in Context. N 78. Cambridge University College, 2006.
Haskell 2009 – Haskell Y. The languages of melancholy in early modern England. The British Journal for the History of Science. 2009. 42 (2). Р. 275–280.
Johannisson 2011 – Johannisson K. The history of melancholy. About fear, boredom and sadness in former times and now. Transl. into Russian by I. Matytsina. Moscow, 2011.
Kasak, Veede 2001 – Kasak E., Veede R. Understanding Planets in Ancient Mesopotamia. Folklore. Vol. 16. Tartu, 2001. P. 7–33.
Klibansky and oth. 1964 – Klibansky R., Panofsky E., Saxl F. Saturn and Melancholy. Studies in the History of Natural Philosophy, Religion, and Art. New York, Basic Books, 1964.
Lawrence 2005 – Lawrence M. Hellenistic Astrology. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ISSN 2161-0002. 2005. URL: http://www.iep.utm.edu/astr-hel.
Losev 1997 – Losev A. F. Kronos. Myths of the peoples of the world. Vol. 2. Moscow, 1997. P. 18. In Russian.
Melancholy 2015 – Encyclopedia of Cultures. Melancholy. 2015. URL: http://ec-dejavu.ru/m/Melanholia.html. In Russian.
Nesselstraus 1961 – Nesselstraus Z. G. Albrecht Dürer: 1471–1528. Moscow, 1961. In Russian.
Nesterov 2003 – Nesterov A. V. Astrological contexts of Elizabethan poetry. Power. Fate. Interpretation of cultural codes. Saratov, 2003. P. 210–261. In Russian.
Nesterov 2015 – Nesterov A. V. Wheel of Fortune. The representation of man and world in the English culture of the beginning of the New Age. Moscow, 2015.
North 1989 – North J. Stars, minds, and fate: essays in ancient and medieval cosmology. London, 1989.
Panofsky 1972 – Panofsky E. Father Time. Panofsky E. Studies in Iconology: humanistic studies in the art of Renaissance. Oxford, 1972. P. 69–94.
Panofsky, Saxl 1933 – Panofsky E., Saxl F. Classical Mythology in Mediaeval Art. Metropolitan Museum Studies. 1933. Vol. 4. 2. Р. 228–280. URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=1556-8725%28193303%294%3A2%3C228%3ACMIMA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-C.
Perlow 2006 – Perlow K. The image of Melancholy and the development of Baroque idioms. Transl. into Russian by V. Proskuryakov. 2006. URL: http://archive.li/z6yYu.
Plato 1993 – Plato. Collected works. Vol. 2. Transl. into Russian. Moscow, 1993.
Plotinus 2003 – Plotinus. Enneads V 1: About the three original substances. Transl. into Russian. URL: http://psylib.org.ua/books/ploti01/txt37.htm.
Staerman 1997 – Staerman E. M. Saturn. Myths of the peoples of the world. Vol. 2. Moscow, 1997. P. 417. In Russian.
Starobinski 2016 – Starobinski J.L'Encre de la mélancolie. Transl. into Russian by S. Zenkin. Moscow, 2016.
Preester 2007 – Preester H. de. The Odd Position of the Melancholic – The Loss of an Explanatory Model? Art and Science. Vol. V: Proceedings of a Special Focus Symposium on Art and Science. The 19th International conference on systems research, informatics and cybernetics. Ed. by G. Lasker, H. Schinzel, K. Boullart. 2007. URL: https://helenadepreester.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/depreestertheoddposition.pdf.
Seznec 1961 – Seznec J.The survival of the Pagan Gods: the mythological tradition and its place in Renaissance Humanism and Art. NY, 1961.
Su 2007 – Su Tsu-Chung. An Uncanny Melancholia: The Frame, the Gaze, and the Representation of Melancholia in Albrecht Dürer’s Engraving Melencolia I. Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies. 2007. Vol. 33. 1. P. 145–175.
Voss 2007 – Voss A.‘The Power of a Melancholy Humour’: Divination and Divine Tears. Seeing with Different Eyes: Essays in Astrology and Divination. Ed. Patrick Curry and Angela Voss. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007. Р. 150–169. URL: https://www.academia.edu/472454/Divination_and_Divine_Tears_the_power_of_a_melancholy_humour.
Warburg 1999 – Warburg A. Italian Art and International Astrology in the Palazzo Schifanoia, Ferrara. Warburg A. The Renewal of Pagan Antiquity. Los Angeles, 1999. P. 563–592. URL: http://www.docfoc.com/aby-warburg-1999-italian-art-and-international-astrology-in-the-palazzo-schifanoia.
Yates 1981 – Yates Fr. A. Chapman and Dürer on Inspired Melancholy. University of Rochester Library Bulletin. 1981. Vol. XXXIV. URL: http://rbscp.lib.rochester.edu/3566.
Yates 1979 – Yates Fr. A. The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age. London, 1979.
Yates 1999 – Yates F. A. The Rosicrucian Enlightenment. Transl. into Russian. Moscow, 1999.
Yates 2000 – Yates F. A. Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition. Transl. into Russian. Moscow, 2000.
Yuzhakova 2010 – Yuzhakova E. V. “Melancholy I” by Albrecht Dürer: the history of interpretations. Izvestia. Ural State University Journal. Series 2: Humanities and Arts. 2010. 4 (82). P. 206–217. In Russian.
( 4.21 MB ) 
( 4.17 MB )
Issue: 4, 2016
Series of issue: Issue 4
Rubric: ARTICLES
Pages: 32 — 52
Downloads: 1931