Knight, Death and the Devil
[8] According to Elizabeth Lunday the "skeletal figure of death stands ghostly pale against the darkness of a shadowy crag, while the devil, a multihorned goatlike creature, skulks amongst straggly tree roots.
It is believed by some art historians to be linked with publications of the Dutch humanist and theologian Erasmus's Enchiridion militis Christiani (Handbook of a Christian soldier).
[10] Erasmus' book builds on the well-known biblical metaphor of the Christian soldier[11]: 47 in Ephesians 6:13-17[12] "put on the full armour of God."
[13] Knight, Death and the Devil is dated and signed by the artist; the bottom left of the tablet is scribed "S. (=Salus/in the year of grace) 1513.
Art historian Erwin Panofsky has suggested a direct influence of Erasmus (Dürer's future friend) about steadfastly looking past the enemies:[15]: 221 In order not to be deterred from the path of virtue because it seems rough and dreary, and because you must constantly fight these three enemies: the flesh, the Devil, and the world,…all those spooks and phantasms which come upon you as in the very gorges of Hades must be deemed for nought.…In this interpretation, the dog is a symbol of faithfulness to God.
The New York Times art critic Holland Cotter noted that the composition followed soon after Dürer's beloved mother had died a painful death.
[17] Austrian 19th-century art historian Moritz Thausing suggested that Dürer had created Knight, Death and the Devil as part of a four-work cycle, each designed to illustrate one of the four temperaments.
[13] In particular, the horse is skillfully rendered in geometric shapes that call to mind Leonardo da Vinci and reflect the Renaissance interest in natural sciences and anatomy.
[27] After the First World War, writers Thomas Mann and Ernst Bertram described the work as close to what Nietzsche could teach about the fate of Germany; the embodiment of the Renaissance and the teachings of Martin Luther, and as described by Gary Shapiro, they believed it was "invoked in order to intensify the sense of resolute determination in the absence of all hope.
[citation needed] At a 1927 Nazi rally the philosopher, Nazi theorist and ideologue, and later convicted war criminal Alfred Rosenberg compared the assembled stormtroopers to the warrior in Knight, Death and the Devil, exclaiming that "in everything that you do, remember that for the National Socialists only one thing counts: to cry out to the world: And even if the world is full of devils, we must win anyway!
[35] Among the authors asked to write was the Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges, who wrote a poem entitled "Ritter, Tod, und Teufel (I)".
Borges later wrote another poem named "Ritter, Tod und Teufel (II)", published by Atlántida.
Another author who wrote for Variations on a Theme was Marco Denevi, in his story A Dog in Dürer's Etching "The Knight, Death and the Devil".
