Four Temperaments in Art

The doctrine of the four temperaments goes back beyond memory.
Durer pictured the temperaments as rabbit, elk, ox and cat in his photo of Adam and Eve:




http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/world/images/s27.jpg

Durer and the Fall


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any one of those mysterious fluids to which we still allude when we use such expressions as "sanguine," "phlegmatic," "choleric," and "melancholic."


Before Adam had bitten the apple, man's constitution was perfectly balanced ("had man remained in Paradise he would not have noxious fluids in his body," to quote St. Hildegarde of Bingen), and he was therefore both immortal and sinless. It was believed that only the destruction of this original equilibrium made the human organism subject to illness and death

and the human soul succeptible to vices--despair and avarice being engendered by black gall, pride and wrath by choler, gluttony and sloth by phlegm, and lechery by the blood. The animals, however, were mortal and vicious from the outset. They were by nature either melancholic or choleric or phlegmatic or sanguine--provided that the sanguine temperament, always considered more desirable than the others, was not identified with perfect equilibrium. For in this case no sanguine animal could be admitted to exist, and it was assumed that man, originally sanguine pure and simple, had become more or less severely contaminated by the three other "humors" when biting the apple.

"An educated observer of the sixteenth century, therefore, would have easily recognized the four species of animal in Dürer's engraving as representatives of the "four humors" and their moral connotations, the elk denoting melancholic gloom, the rabbit sanguine sensuality, the cat choleric cruelty, and the ox phlegmatic sluggishness.













"The Fall is presented in the context of the four humors or temperaments of man: choleric (the cat, soon to pounce on the mouse), melancholic (elk), sanguine (rabbit), and phlegmatic (ox). "







Just as Chinese art had the common theme of Ying and Yang, in European art we find the theme of the four temperaments:


The Bath House, probably 1496 Woodcut; https://scontent.fmel5-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/1779103_10201315784399818_2081838606_n.jpg?oh=717f75a6298e97f7d0bf4f7d10f55f14&oe=59DB90F1

In addition to being a scene from daily life and a realistic study of the male nude, The Bath House has also been interpreted as an allegorical depiction of the four humors or temperaments, each represented by one of the four men in the foreground: one holds a flower (sanguine), another a scraper (choleric), one takes a drink (phlegmatic), and the last leans on a post (melancholic).


Melancholia 1

Albrecht Durer's Melencolia



"The Roman numeral "I" following the engraved title suggests at once that Durer had it in mind to design and execute a series of four copper-engravings illustrating the Four Temperaments: melancholic, phlegmatic, choleric, and sanguine. These were linked in the medieval mind with the Four Elements of the alchemists and certain other mystical groups of four, a magical number inherited from the early civilizations that flourished long before the time of Pythagoras."


The historian Frances Yates did a lot of research on the Melancholia series (Jerome is the last of the series) and how it shows the stages of the melancholic temperament.

The second stage of Melancholia is Durer's Knight & the Devil, according to Prof. Yates. She goes into detail on this. She also tells us about the changing role of Saturn (the planet of Melancholia). In the past it was consider to be the planet of Death, but in the Melancholia 1 you can see various tools representing various trades. Saturn had an another aspect, and that was making that which was spiritual, physically manifest.


I previously showed how Bosch depicted the lower stages of the temperaments:


http://www.comparative-religion.com/...orns-7551.html


I once saw a book on Catholic education which was about using the temperaments.


I note that Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) taught it:


Hildegard of Bingen


Check out these pages on Durer:

He said "Purse means wealth, keys mean power."

Arab scholars associated the temperaments with the planets.

Benjamin Franklin, was among those interested in magic squares.

The Chinese also recognized magic squares.


In Renaissance times it was considered healthy to have the influence of the "Three Graces" (Sun,Venus, Jupiter) around one's person.

http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/art...es-1503-04.jpg

In Melancholia 1, Durer has employed the Jupiter Magic Square to overcome the heavy Saturnine influence. The keys and purse, are are Jupiter influence.

The metal of Saturn is lead.


"mensula Jovis a 'Jovian device used to counteract the unfavorable influence of Saturn.'"

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Marsilio Ficino said that the magic square of one through sixteen had the power to "turn evil into good" and "dispel all worries and fear." I later discovered that this magic square was used in facades of buildings in medieval Europe as well.

The founder of the Mormons, Joseph Smith, also carried a Jupiter talisman with him. He even had it when he was killed:

Jupiter talisman:

Pages 31-33--Joseph Smith's 1826 Trial and Magic Talisman, A Response to the Anonymous LDS Historian, Jerald and Sandra Tanner, D. Michael Quinn, pendant, masonry, masonic, LDS Scripture, Mormon history, church historians, Mormons, Mormonism, LDS, ch

You'll observe that the numbers here are in Hebrew.


"That is not to say that one should dismiss the qualities that one is endowed with, however at the bottom of one's lower nature there is a serpent, a slug, a dragon, vulture, and so forth, to be contended with."




-The Elder Brothers