A beautiful building housing one of the UK's finest collections of fine and decorative art.
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A beautiful building housing one of the UK's finest collections of fine and decorative art.
Dürer and Italy
An exhibition at the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight, 28 May - 26 September 2010
Go to our zoomify feature to get up close to 'Melancholia' and see the fantastic detail of this work by Dürer.
'Melancholia' is as mysterious as it is influential.
Against a landscape backdrop, the artist has
assembled objects and instruments connected with
making things, especially scientific aids for drawing in
perspective. Melancholy is personified by a darkfaced,
winged woman, crowned with laurel as a poet.
It is an image that is said to reflect the neo-Platonic
belief of Marsilio Ficino, in his 'De Vita Triplici' (Florence,
1489), that melancholy is an essential element of
intellectual creativity.