Christ Driving the Merchants from the Temple 1511

Albrecht Durer created this woodcut, ‘Christ Driving the Merchants from the Temple’, a powerful, graphic medium which flourished in the late fifteenth century. The stark contrast of black lines on white paper creates a dramatic scene, charged with energy. Dürer’s technique involves meticulously carving away the woodblock around each line, leaving a network of raised areas to receive ink. The force used in printing on paper gives the image a tactile quality and visible texture. Here, Christ is not a figure of gentle forgiveness, but of righteous fury. The subject is the diametrical opposition of the spiritual and the material, which is rendered vividly through the labor-intensive process of woodcut. The sharp lines almost have the effect of a violent whipping, reinforcing the sense of Christ’s purification of the sacred space. Dürer’s choice of woodcut emphasizes the moral message; it's a medium of the people, a form of imagery widely disseminated during the Reformation. This print's raw visual power reminds us that materials and making are integral to an artwork’s meaning.