Three Men in Conversation

Whether or not this engraving refers to contemporary peasant uprisings, as some suggest, Albrecht Dürer treats us to a little absurdity. The man on the left has a sword, prerogative of the nobility but cannot even maintain its sheath. The center man is dressed as an ordinary German peasant but has the beard an turban of a Turk. The assertive man on the right carries a basket of eggs, but his spurs suggest that he may be a knight. This may be a microcosm of the “the world turned upside down, ” a notion stemming from the same strain of thought that bought fear of witches and an impending apocalypse as the year 1500 loomed closer.