Matthäus MERIAN I (1593 - 1650): Anthropomorphic landscape
Price: 2800 €
Engraving, 111 x 170 mm. Wüthrich 576 II; Hollstein 405, 2nd state/2.
Impression of the 2nd state (of 2) with Peter Aubry’s address (1596-1666).
Very fine impression printed on laid paper, trimmed on the borderline; tiny pinhole at the bottom, otherwise in very good condition.
Very rare.
Merian's engraving bears witness to the vogue for anthropomorphic landscapes in the early 17th century, inspired by the success of the portraits of vegetables, fruit and other plants painted by Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527-1593). Landscape and architectural elements make up a man's face: the eye is represented by a shooting target, the mouth and nose by an ancient castle and a small house, the ear by a small staircase, the beard and moustache by shrubs, the hair by rocks. A few characters, busy with various tasks, animate the landscape, and this animation prevents the inanimate elements from being reduced to neutral forms, so that the viewer has to assume both interpretations at the same time, and feels embarrassed, if not uneasy.
This engraving was itself very successful and was copied several times, notably by Wenceslaus Hollar, and by an anonymous artist. Dali may well have drawn inspiration from it for his Paranoid Face (1935).