Melencolia I, Albrecht Dürer, 1514, engraving

Resolution

An exhibition · Institute for Image Studies · 14 March – 2 August 2026

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Cell 48 PX

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Depth 1 BIT

Plate PL.04

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Algorithm — Bayer

Institute for Image Studies14 March – 2 August 2026Admission free

Every image you have ever seen of a Renaissance painting is a copy of a copy. This exhibition is about what survives that journey — and what a picture becomes when the last machine to touch it can only say black or white.

You have just watched one happen. The plate above is not a video and not a sequence of pre-made images — it is Dürer's engraving, reduced to a single bit and redrawn on your machine at whatever resolution your scroll position asked for.

Work the apparatus

Eleven plates

Everything in the show, at once

Scroll to spread the pile · hover to read a label

Portrait of a Man (Il Condottiere), Antonello da Messina — *Portrait of a Man (Il Condottiere)* Antonello da Messina · 1475

Portrait of a Young Man, Bronzino — *Portrait of a Young Man* Bronzino · 1530s

Marble bust of Herodotos, Roman, after a Greek original — *Marble bust of Herodotos* Roman, after a Greek original · 2nd century AD

Melencolia I, Albrecht Dürer — *Melencolia I* Albrecht Dürer · 1514

Knight, Death and the Devil, Albrecht Dürer — *Knight, Death and the Devil* Albrecht Dürer · 1513

Saint Jerome in His Study, Albrecht Dürer — *Saint Jerome in His Study* Albrecht Dürer · 1514

The Vitruvian Man, Leonardo da Vinci — *The Vitruvian Man* Leonardo da Vinci · c. 1490

Portrait bust of the emperor Gaius, known as Caligula, Roman — *Portrait bust of the emperor Gaius, known as Caligula* Roman · AD 37–41

Battle scene (detail), from the Legend of the True Cross, Piero della Francesca — *Battle scene (detail), from the Legend of the True Cross* Piero della Francesca · c. 1452–66

Portrait bust of a woman, Roman — *Portrait bust of a woman* Roman · 1st century AD

Portrait of a Young Man (detail of the face), Bronzino — *Portrait of a Young Man (detail of the face)* Bronzino · 1530s

Plate 04

Melencolia I

Albrecht Dürer, 1514
Engraving

Drag the seam. On the left, one bit per pixel. On the right, the engraving as photographed. Dürer cut this image into copper so it could be repeated exactly; the irony of it surviving into a medium that cannot hold a grey is the reason it opens the show.

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1-bit · Atkinson Photograph

The exhibition

Room I

The Original

What the thing was, before anyone needed a second one. Paint on a panel; marble cut once and nev…

Room II

The Copy

Dürer's engravings are not reproductions of paintings. They are originals designed from the…

Room III

The Grid

Proportion, ruled. The Vitruvian figure is a body forced into a square and a circle because the …

Room IV

The Loss

Craquelure, erosion, a fresco that has shed half its surface. These works were degraded long bef…

A reproduction does not fail by losing detail. It fails by keeping the wrong detail and being believed. From the curator's essay

The show gathers eleven works — three engravings, four paintings, four pieces of Roman marble — and puts each through the same indignity: reduction to one bit. Black, or white. Nothing between.

What survives is not what you would expect. Dürer survives almost entirely, because he was already drawing in lines. The marble barely survives at all.

Read the essay