Emblematica, Vol. 17

"Emblems, Frames, and Other Marginalia: Defining the Emblematic," by Daniel Russell (1-40)

understanding the emblematic as part of a broader cultural move toward mobile/circulating signs/fragments

"emblems remain frustratingly marginal in relation tot he historical narratives of the various disciplines" (1) -- literally at the margins of many tapestries

emblema -- attached but removable ornament

"That kind of emblem was always a somewhat foreign object attached to, inserted in, or grafted onto something else and retained at best an ambivalent and marginal relation to that host." (2)

in descriptions of tapestries, marginal emblems slowly move to the center

"The number of emblem books produced during the early modern period and the number of editions printed shows very clearly taht emblematics certainly played an important role in that culture; the challenge arises in trying to explain how this came about and what that role may have been. It is the goal of this study to exploit the positive potential of that marginality for understanding the role of the emblem in the evolution of the episteme of the time." (3)

"Originating from a Greek verb meaning to throw, to put in, or insert, the Latin emblema referred to a detachable ornament, a graft, a mosaic or other inlaid work." (3)

was transmitted through legal meaning, and literary/rhetorical; see Dennis Drysdall (2005)

legal meaning: dates back to the Digest and "generally referred to detachable oranments on silverware as described in the legal documentation for the transfer of property by inheritance or sale", or to a container and its contents (3)

literary/figurative sense recovered by humanists in 15c; referring to "detachable rhetorical ornaments and commonplaces" -- stile a mosaic (4)

another related word, “Pegma”, word Coustau used to title his 1555 collection of emblems; see Hayaert [in French] – “pegme” entered French around 1550 from the Greek by way of Latin; in Latin it referred to furniture, like staging or bookcases; but also theatrical machinery designed to lift actors; later referred to framing and foregrounding – reliquary, shrine, niche, setting (5)

"Costau uses the singular form, pegma, suggesting that he was thinking of a library or gallery, or museum in which images and artifacts are arranged along with the texts in the frames on each page." (5)

both Alciato and Costau are jurists

parergon

"The emblematic process, then, may be seen as a framing practice used for cutting [7]fragments from traditional works or corpora and shaping them into new configurations of meaning as determined by the framing text. The standard model for the construction of an emblem sets the picture between the text of the inscriptio and te text of the subscriptio. As such, the typeset composition of the emblem adn its layout or mise en page made its text into a literal, physical frame as much as that text provided a new context and metaphorical frame for the modified interpretation of the image." (67) --cf's to dual language texts

Derrida, uses "parergon" to describe "Remarks" in Kant's third Critique

"A parergon is osmething that is situated at the extremities of the work. It is a limit or border. To the extent that the parergon is a frame, it defines and limits the artistic work. The frame is detachable, but not easily so. It is really part of both what is intrinsic and what is extrinsic to the work; it is both outside and inside. It can be ornamental, but it can be so in two contrasting ways: it can enhance the value of the work or it can distract, or detract, from it." (7)

"All early emblems were parerga in some sense, that is, either physical ornaments to be used by craftsmen or rhetorical ornaments of the truths they framed or carried or highlighted while remaining peripheral and unessential to the expression of those truths: interpolation was the tool with which they were made." (9)

"If this emerging configuration of terminology is partially synonymous with the emblematic, then the emblematic must to be [sic] viewed in a somewhat different way from the one that informs modern emblem studies. The emblematic does not turn on formal distinctions, but can take many forms. I tis above all parasitic, marginal, and always in need of a host. It is parasitic to the extent that it takes from the original host and transforms the borrowed material into something new or different. It is marginal because it lodges at the boundaries of the new host. The emerging understanding of the emblematic casts a new light on emblems as they are presented in anthology sand theme-oriented emblem books." (10)

pursues royal entries as an example of emblematic culture

"Interpolation occurs whenever two cultural corpora -- for example, ancient mythology and royal entries, as in this case -- collide. In the shock of this encounter, a fragment is detached from one of the two bodies to become, by interpolation, an emblem ornamenting some element of the other corpous to which it is attached by a process of adaptation of the fragment to a new use, without, however, completely losing its relation to the corpus from which it has been detached and borrowed, because it is so well known. The tension thus created by the fragment temporarily belonging to two corpora produces the interest of the new interepretation." (14)

connects emblem books to wunderkammer or kunstkammer -- "with no center and no structural organization" (18)

because emblem is a fragment, it becomes polysemous (old and new context); added text helped anchor it to a single meaning, which Russell sees all emblems as intending; framing helped reinforce and bind together the connection between text and image (19)

"The border of the space thus cut from the reader's field of vision frame text and image and bind a text or quotation grounded in one cultural corpus with an image from another corpus ... An emblem, then, is put together within a system of frames, since the idea of the 'book' was still not very clear, and books were often still anthologized collections of varied texts, often put together for largely commercial reasons" (20)

printed frames became less prominent in 17c emblem books; collections did in fact begin to have "clear unifying theme" and "the marginal emblems of earlier collections became the partially internalized components of a central unity" (21)

assembled paintings evolving into genre paintings -- citing Stoichita on how paintings began relegating main subject to the margins, and the margins to the center; biblical scenes in frames behind kitchen still lifes

connects mobility of emblems to technology of moveable type, moveable framed paintings (not frescos and wall paintings); commonplaces; mobility of the woodcut image (31)

"there was a tension between the immobility of the past and the mobility that increasingly dominated the relation between text and image in early modern Europe. This tension was produced by the rivalry between relief printing with wood blocks or movable type and intaglio copperplate printing. Relief printing was used almost exclusively in producing block books, early emblems, and the like Intaglio printing was known and practiced in Europe since the late 15c, but it was not much used in France in the first two-thirds of the sixteenth century. There seem to be two reasons why this happened. Since woodcuts used the same kind of relief printing as the new movable type, text and image could be produced in the same shop with the same techniques and perhaps some of the same equipment. That meant the entire process could be controlled by a single printer or publisher. This centralization reinforced the metaphor of the unity of picture and text. And since the art of the small woodblock was more highly developed in France than anywhere else in Europe at the time, it is quite natural to find the emblem idea developing mainly in France in the mid 16c." (33)

first French emblem book produced with copperplates -- Georgette de Montenay's Emblemes ou devises chrestiennes (1567)

• used uncommon italic font, making it look like both text and image were engraved on the same plate; only printed on the recto not verso (verso was blank) -- looks like block book
• four names attached to publication of this work: de Montenay (author), Philippe de Castellas (publisher/bookseller), Jean Marcorelle (publisher/printer), Pierre Woeriot (artist); "suggests a decentralization of control in the production of a book and a dvision of labor with increased power accruing to the artist."

text and image engraved on a single plate realized in Crispin de Passe's editions of Gabriel Rollenhagen's emblems of early 17c

copperplate engravings "came to dominate the production of illustrations in France after the influx of Flemish printers in Paris following the sack of Antwerp in 1576" (34)

"When both text and image occupied a single block, there must have been an impulse to understand the image as linked to the text in some absolute, inextricable way. But when the copperplate illustration was combined with a text printed in relief, as was more and more often the case, that union was much less evident , and thus began the slow decline of the emblem idea. To take root and flourish, the emblem needed a set of conditions that were present only for a few years in France in the middle of the sixteenth century." (34)

"The emblematic image is a detachable rhetorical ornament. That is, it adds nothing [35] substantial to the discourse to which it is attached. Although it may help to understand that discourse better, its main function is to attract attention to the message being presented and bring it into sharper focus. As such, it is a secondary and marginal component of the body to which it is attached. Since it has been detached from some other corpus and is expected to continue to refer implicitly to that corpus, it needs a frame to keep from being absorbed into the new site." (34-5)

"An Emblematic Embroidery in the Burrell Collection," by Michael Bath (181-190)

set of five emblems worked in wool on linen in cross-stich with outlines worked with silver or gold in chain stitch

each is symbolic image and Latin motto

close to Mary Queen of Scots emblem embroideries from Hardwick

see note 4 for other studies of emblems in embroideries: "Daly, "England and the Emblem"; Swain, "The Needlework of Mary Queen of Scots"; Leisher, Whitney's A Choice of Emblemes and Its Relation to the Emblematic Vogue; also Arthur 1995 pl. 17-18