Dürer's Therapeutic Drummer

I just finished reading a biography of the German master painter and engraver, Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528). I noticed a drummer in one of his altarpieces. The drummer is on one of the four surviving panels of the Jabach Altar, which was commissioned by Frederick the Wise for the chapel of a bathhouse above a mineral spring.

The Jabach altarpiece was originally parts of two wings that were later sawn apart. One panel depicts Job sitting in a dung-heap, a man afflicted with boils through a test devised by Satan in a challenge to God. The painting may have marked the end of the plague in 1503. His wife is depicted in the panel as pouring slop on him as a form of castigation or water as a form of healing. The "healing waters" of the painting may be a more appropriate interpretation of Job's wife's action in that the image connects to the therapeutic springs of the bathhouse where the painting resided.

This interpretation would also be reinforced by the adjacent panel with the pipe player and drummer. They appear to be seeking to comfort Job in his suffering with their own "music therapy." Dürer paints a drummer as providing "therapeutic" music to a suffering Job. A "therapeutic" drummer for Job? Drums for healing?

Drumming has been part of the healing rituals and practices of various religions and cultures of the world. In his book The Healing Drum: African Healing Teaching, Yaya Diallo tells stories of drummers in the Manianka culture of West Africa who use their music in healing psychological, spiritual, and physical sickness. Shamanic drumming has been used as a healing practice for centuries. In more recent years drumming has found a place within music therapy. Christine Stevens, a Director of Music Therapy and Wellness Programs for Remo, Inc., co-created HealthRHYTHMS, a drum circle facilitation for integrative medicine. Psychotherapist Robert Lawrence Friedman has written extensively about the use of drumming in spiritual, emotional, and physical therapy in his book The Healing Power of the Drum.

So, I guess Dürer's image of a drummer beating rhythms with a pipe player to bring healing to a suffering Job is not so far fetched after all.