page_title: Knight, Death and the Devil
section_title: Composition
hierarchical_section_title: Knight, Death and the Devil / Composition
context_page_description: Knight, Death and the Devil is a large 1513 engraving by the German artist Albrecht Dürer, one of the three Meisterstiche completed during a period when he almost ceased to work in paint or woodcuts to focus on engravings. The image is infused with complex iconography and symbolism, the precise meaning of which has been argued over for centuries.
  An armoured knight, accompanied by his dog, rides through a narrow gorge flanked by a goat-headed devil and the figure of death riding a pale horse. Death's rotting corpse holds an hourglass, a reminder of the shortness of life. The rider moves through the scene looking away from the creatures lurking around him, and appears almost contemptuous of the threats, and is thus often seen as symbol of courage; the knight's armor, the horse which towers in size over the beasts, the oak leaves and the fortress on the mountaintop are symbolic of the resilience of faith, while the knight's plight may represent Christians' earthly journey towards the Kingdom of Heaven.
  The work was mentioned by Giorgio Vasari as one of "several sheets of such excellence that nothing finer can be achieved".
context_section_description: As with the two other of his Meisterstiche, it contains a skull, dog, and hourglass, while all three are identical in size. The engraving is heavily indebted to the Gothic style. Many of the forms blend into each other. The outline of the horse is built from a series of interlocking curves, while the knight's chin is woven into the line of his helmet. These two central figures are surrounded by a tangled mass of branches, harness and hair, which according to art historian Raymond Stites contrast with the relatively solid figure of the knight and his horse to set them as a "tangible idea in a world of changing forms". The man is shown looking doggedly straight ahead; he does not allow his line of vision be interrupted or distracted by the demons beside him.
  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." Death is shown with his horse in the left background and rendered without nose or lips in lighter shades than the other figures. A skull is seen in the lower foreground, directly in the Knight's path, whilst a dog is running between the two horses.
  Death, the Devil, and the landscape are all rendered in a bleakly northern manner. The surrounding characters are threatening to the knight, who is seemingly protected by the literal and figurative armor of his faith. 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). The engraving draws from Psalm 23; "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil". 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."
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