Melancholie 1524 - 1590

This print, titled ‘Melancholie,’ was made by an anonymous artist using etching, a printmaking technique. Here, the artist would have coated a metal plate with a waxy, acid-resistant substance, and then scratched an image into the coating with a needle. Immersing the plate in acid would bite into the exposed metal, creating recessed lines. The plate is then inked and pressed onto paper, resulting in a print. The depth and width of the lines, and the time spent on the etching process, dictate the image's texture and tonal range. The work involved in creating such prints—the labor invested in each line—was considerable. Prints like these democratized images, making them accessible to a wider audience. As modes of production and consumption shifted, so did the creation and distribution of art, influencing artistic expression. The artist's choice of such relatively available medium reflects these broader social and economic shifts. It reminds us of the amount of work involved in the production process and its tie to wider social issues of labor, politics, and consumption.