, 2008. Fibreglass stone and airplane. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Purchased 2011. Photo © Roman März](/images/content/menuSeeGallery.png)
Benjamin West
The Death of General Wolfe (Detail), 1770
oil on canvas
152.6 x 214.5 cm
Transfer from the Canadian War Memorials, 1921 (Gift of the 2nd Duke of Westminster, England, 1918)
National Gallery of Canada (no. 8007)
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Melancholia, 1514
Albrecht Dürer
German, 1471
- 1528
engraving on laid paper
24.2 x 19 cm; image: 23.9 x 18.6 cm
Purchased 1922
National Gallery of Canada (no. 2068)
In this intense image, Dürer depicts Melancholy as one of the four human temperaments - the choleric, phlegmatic, sanguine, and melancholic. This complex allegory is rooted in a Neoplatonic concept that emerged during the Renaissance, which held that melancholy was to be found particularly in great thinkers and artists. Thus Melancholy, here in the guise of a huge winged woman, is surrounded by the attributes of intellectual creativity and scientific research.
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