Adoration of the Magi

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Adoration of the Magi: Albrecht Durer

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Art Type: Oil Painting
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Albrecht Durer Oil Painting - Adoration of the Magi

Keywords: Adoration, Magi

Work Overview: Adoration of the Magi
Albrecht Dürer
100 × 114 cm
Oil on wood
Uffizi, Florence

The Adoration of the Magi is a 1504 oil-on-wood painting by Albrecht Dürer. It was commissioned by Frederick the Wise for the altar of the Schlosskirche in Wittenberg, and is considered one of Dürer's best and most important works from the period between his first and second trips to Italy (1494-5 and 1505).[1][2]The second king is a selfportrait of Dürer .¨This painting was very influantial for other renaissance painters like Pieter Coecke van Aelst.

In 1603 Christian II of Saxony presented the painting as a gift to the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II.[3] It remained in the imperial collection in Vienna until 1792, when Luigi Lanzi, the director of the Uffizi, acquired it in exchange for Fra Bartolomeo's Presentation in the Temple.[4]

Some art historians suggest that this painting could have been the central panel of the Jabach Altarpiece.

Dürer's Adoration of the Magi has an unusual setting – an impromptu stable offering shelter to the ox and ass erected against one of many ruins and arches. The air seems crisp.

The magi are richly clothed and their offerings impressive. The baby boy accepts a chest of gold from the oldest of the three. On the right, a servant appears to be taking more gifts from a bag. Joseph is missing.

Dürer's Adoration was an altar-piece, commissioned by Friedrich III for the Schlosskirche at Wittenberg. This king, who came to be known as Frederick the Wise, later acted as patron to Martin Luther.

The elector Frederick the Wise of Saxony ordered this painting for the Schlosskirche (the church in the castle) in Wittenberg. It was once believed to be the central part of a polyptych, with, on the side wings, the story of Job, in Frankfurt and Cologne. However, this hypothesis has already been called into question. The elector of Saxony then donated the painting to Emperor Rudolph II in 1603. An exchange with the Presentation at the Temple by Fra Bartolomeo brought it in 1793 from the gallery in Vienna to the Uffizi.

This altarpiece was probably conceived without the lateral panels, in contrast with the actual practice in Nordic countries, and at variance with the situation of the Paumgartner altarpiece (Alte Pinakothek, Munich). Dürer framed and delimited a large space by an architecture composed of arches of a very refined perspective. The three kings arrived at this slightly elevated space from the back and after having climbed two steps. A single figure, sharply foreshortened, followed in their footsteps from the distant background. Only the upper half of his body is shown where he now stands at the bottom of the two steps. He is Oriental and wearing a turban. The heavy traveling bag he holds probably contains precious gifts for the infant Jesus.

The Madonna is clad in azure clothes and cape, a white veil covering her head. She is holding out the infant, who is wrapped in her white veil, to the eldest king. He is offering the infant a gold casket with the image of Saint George, which the infant has already taken with his right hand. This is the only action that unfolds in the principal scene, except for the Oriental servant's gesture of putting his hand in his bag. All the other characters are motionless; immersed in thought, they look straight ahead or sideways, creating the effect of a staged spectacle set with immobile characters.

The architecture of the fictive ruins behind the Madonna is beautiful and imaginative. Dürer had previously experimented with this design in drawings and engravings. The background is stupendous: the limpid sky, in which the cumulus clouds chase one another; the light Nordic city, climbing up the cone-like mountain; the road bending into the archway where people stop, following behind the three kings. These are represented with much imagination and variety, as far as the fashion and colour of their clothes and the differences in their expressions. In the far right are a lake and a boat.

This imagination and variety continue in the extraordinary depiction of the kings, in lavish clothing, with their precious jewels, and with the beautiful goblets and caskets that they bear as gifts. It is telling here that Dürer was also an expert goldsmith. According to the Nordic tradition, also adopted previously by Mantegna in Italy, one of the kings is a Moor. The physiognomy of the young king with long blond curly hair, standing in the middle of the painting, bears, according to recent interpretation, a resemblance to a self-portrait of Dürer.

Dürer was passionately devoted to the study of animals and plants, which he reproduced faithfully from life. He often distributed these images in his landscape passages, and particularly in his drawings and engravings of the Madonna. We find some here as well: in the foreground, to the right, a flying deer, already known from various watercolours, which here symbolizes Christ; the plantain (plantago major) seen directly behind, whose healing properties were once much appreciated, recalls the spilled blood of Christ; in the foreground, now to the left, on the millstone beside the carnation, a small coleopterum surrounded by a few butterflies, the ancient symbol of the soul, which here may be a symbol of the resurrection.

The panel of the Uffizi represents the richest and most mature actualisation of all Dürer's altarpieces, before his second trip to Italy, and therefore before the Feast of the Rose Garlands, painted in Venice (Národní Galerie, Prague).

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In 1517 when Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Albrecht Dürer’s magnificent painting, Adoration of the Magi, hung just inside the church mere feet away. Thirteen years earlier Frederick the Wise had commissioned Dürer to paint the masterpiece for the Schlosskirche altar. The painting remained in Wittenberg until 1604 when it was taken to Vienna and gifted to Rudolf II, the Holy Roman Emperor. Today it resides at the Uffizi in Florence, Italy. The painting is oil on wood and measures 100 cm by 114 cm.

Art critics talk of perspective and proportions, but we will view the Epiphany scene through the lens of Holy Scripture with the eyes of faith. In Albrecht Dürer’s exquisite Adoration of the Magi we become participants in the Matt. 2 account giving opportunity to worship the Christ Child alongside Wise Men from the East. Dürer’s style is inviting. He deliberately draws you in and gives you a place so that you are an eye witness to this holy event. Do you see the flat moss covered stone next to Mary? On it Dürer’s distinctive “AD” monogram can faintly be seen. This is your place to sit and adore the Incarnate God. Dürer stations you so close that you can almost touch “The Word Made Flesh” and caress His chubby arms. Here you see the embodiment of the Nicene Creed, “who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven.”

In the foreground corners we see ancient icons that give a concise synopsis of Christ’s redemptive work. At the right, picturing the first promise of a Savior in Genesis 3:15, the crab symbolizes being bitten in the heel and the green plantain, known for its healing powers, portrays the shed blood of the Savior, who “was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried.” On the left, butterflies, icon of the resurrection, flit above the millstone suggestive of the stone at the empty tomb. “And the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures.”

Durer_Adoration_of_the_Magi_1504At the center of the painting, a crumbling architectural ruin reaches to the sky. This symbolizes not only the decay of our world, but also the brokenness of our very own bodies and souls brought about by man’s deliberate choice to obey Satan and not God. It is to this sin sick world that the Creator humbled Himself to be born a creature, “and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary and was made man.”

Do you see the billowing cloud in the upper right? It is a Renaissance icon for the presence of “God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.” The turquoise sky sets off the richness of the golds, greens, and reds creating a luxurious glow of soft mellow light in the center of the painting. But where is the star? Do you see it? The Morning Star is in the virgin’s arms! “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God!” Baby Jesus is not passively nestling in the safety of His mother, but is deliberately embracing the earthly gift offered by the kneeling Magi, as if to say, “I Am The Gift who will freely give you eternal treasures of forgiveness, life and salvation through My holy body and blood.” In the background Dürer paints a visual prophecy of the death of Christ as Herod’s horsemen rally in their quest to kill the Infant King. But surrounding God the Child there is only sublime peace and joy of the Gentile Christmas. Even the animals are rejoicing. The ox nuzzles Mary’s back attempting to touch the One who will free all creation from bondage. The ass brays his song of jubilation! In the gathering of the Magi we see “one holy Christian and apostolic Church.” All peoples and all nations are represented by the old man on bended knee, Albrecht Dürer standing behind him, the African in dark green, and the turbaned Oriental still unpacking his gift. And you! And me!

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Albrecht Durer

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