The Deluge after 1548

Melchior Lorichs created this print, The Deluge, using etching and engraving techniques, and it’s now part of the Art Institute of Chicago’s collection. The scene depicts the biblical flood, with desperate figures clinging to a mountain and Noah's Ark floating in the distance. Prints like this played a crucial role in disseminating religious and moral narratives throughout 16th-century Europe. Religious upheaval, particularly the Protestant Reformation, influenced art, and popular imagery reflected anxieties about divine judgment and social morality. Lorichs, working in the German lands, taps into this cultural milieu, using the story of the flood as a warning. The detailed rendering of human suffering and the contrast between the doomed masses and the solitary ark speak to contemporary concerns about salvation, sin, and communal responsibility. Understanding this work requires delving into religious texts, social histories, and the printmaking traditions of the period. Art historians piece together these contexts to reveal the rich layers of meaning embedded in such images.