Death and the Bishop, from The Power of Death (Allegory of Original Sin and Death) 1541

Heinrich Aldegrever made this tiny, yet powerful, engraving sometime in the first half of the 16th century. As a print, its lines are not drawn, but rather cut into a copper plate with a tool called a burin. The density of these lines, and the pressure exerted by the artist, create the image. In this print, the figure of Death, clutching an hourglass, appears to be leading a Bishop away from his flock. The image is tiny, but there is a lot going on. The level of detail Aldegrever achieved is really remarkable. Look closely, and you can see how the marks of the burin create a sense of volume and texture. Notice how Aldegrever uses hatching and cross-hatching to build up the darker areas of the print, like the Bishop's robes and Death's skeletal form. Each one of those lines had to be individually cut into the metal. The printmaking tradition in which Aldegrever was working was closely allied to the rise of mercantile capitalism. Prints were a relatively inexpensive medium, and allowed for the wide dissemination of imagery and ideas. By understanding the technical skill and labor that went into the creation of prints like this one, we can start to appreciate their importance in shaping the visual culture of the time.