The work has been the subject of more modern interpretation than
almost any other print.
The most straightforward interpretation
is that it represents the stultifying effects of depression on the human
creative spirit:
One interpretation suggests the image references the depressive or
melancholy state and accordingly explains various elements of the picture.
…one of those elements is the
hour class which tells of time running out whilst the melancholic figure is
immobilized by a depressed mood; there is so much to achieve in a world rich
with significance and yet apathy hamstrings progress. Many artists who thrive on the creative effort
will know this disabilitating condition.
However, as the Wiki article says
interpretations surrounding this work abound, so here is another interpretation
offered by the same article. This one focuses on the “I” in Melencolia I:
Instead it seems more likely that the "I" refers to the
first of the three types of melancholia defined by the German humanist writer
Cornelius Agrippa. In this type, Melencholia Imaginativa, which he held artists
to be subject to, 'imagination' predominates over 'mind' or 'reason'.
This interpretation is very
apposite in the light of what I will now share. In 1996 I felt inspired to write
an essay called The Great Plan, an
essay that I would definitely class as one where I allowed my imagination to
predominate over reason. This essay can be downloaded from here. I actually have no regrets over
this piece of imaginative theatre because imagination is, after all, the fuel
of creative production. However - and this is important - the products of
creative production must ultimately subject themselves to the purifying fires
of criticism. Accordingly, since the writing of The Great Plan I have tried to get its ideas on a more rigorous footing.
The Great Plan flowered out of a software
project which attempted to simulate word association, a project which also inspired
my excursion into quantum gravity. (See here). This project helped me understand
the difference between the procedural and declarative programming
models, an understanding which in turn inspired The Great Plan. I consciously and deliberately executed this essay with
unbridled imaginative excess – I wanted to give my imagination a free reign to
see how far it would go without the potentially destructive effects of
criticism.
As well as Melencholia Imaginativa my essay on The Great Plan has another connection with Durer’s print; this is
the magic square
which can be seen in the top right hand quadrant of the engraving. In my essay
I used this square to illustrate the teleological nature of the declarative
programming paradigm.
This essay represents a kind of
manifesto of the conceptual paradigm I have been trying to develop since the
early nineties and I feel the time is ripe to publish it on this blog. This
paradigm is in contrast to the default dualist thinking that habitually and
unquestioningly contrasts so-called “natural forces” over and against God’s
creative power. I have for a long time sensed that something is fundamentally
wrong with Western Thought of which dualistic theological categories are the
primary manifestation; these theological categories are manifestly present in
the thinking of atheist and theist alike. The
Great Plan is my attempt to think round and past dualism and break the
mold of Western conditioning.
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