Visitation (Dürer)
Visitation is 1503 a woodcut engraving by the German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer, held in the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich. The work recounts an episode form the biblical tale of when Mary, heavily pregnant, travels to see her much older cousin Elisabeth, who is now also late with child.
Visitation shows the women as they embrace at the house of Elisabeth's husband Zacharias, who is shown standing at the doorway to the left of the woodcut. Both Zacharias and his wife are old; and he is struck into silence[1] by the fact of his long barren wife having finally conceived a child.[2]
The highly detailed landscape shown in the background is generally regarded to be a climax in Dürer's work, and was likely inspired by the artist's two journeys through the Alps during 1494–95.
Notes
- ↑ According to Benedictus Chelidonius he appears as if a "weak faith had closed his tongue".
- ↑ Nürnberg, 67
Sources
- Nürnberg, Verlag Hans Carl. Dürer in Dublin: Engravings and woodcuts of Albrecht Dürer. Chester Beatty Library, 1983
