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Summaries/Samenvattingen
Andrea van Leerdam - Talking heads. The visual rhetoric of recurring scholar woodcuts in a sixteenth-century handbook on chiromancy
Dit artikel bestudeert een opmerkelijk fenomeen in een handboek over handlijnkunde, fysionomie en astrologie dat in 1536 verscheen bij de Utrechtse drukker Jan Berntsz onder de titel Chyromantia Ioannis Indagine Ende dit boec leert van drie naturlike consten. Verspreid door het boek komen tientallen kleine houtsneden voor die geleerden voorstellen. In tegenstelling tot de illustraties van onder meer handpalmen en gezichtstypen die Berntsz (of althans zijn illustrator) uit de Latijnse editio princeps van 1522 kopieerde, is voor de geleerdenfiguurtjes niet direct duidelijk wat hun functie en hun relatie tot de tekst is. Waarom voegde Berntsz de geleerden toe, en hoe beïnvloeden zij de leeservaring? Deze vragen zijn relevant omdat de geleerdenfiguurtjes, en ook allerlei andere illustraties die veeleer decoratief dan instructief lijken, in veel Nederlandstalige vroege drukken voorkomen. In dit artikel betoog ik dat we tot nieuwe inzichten kunnen komen als we dergelijke afbeeldingen benaderen vanuit het perspectief van informatiedesign. De casus van de Chyromantia laat zien hoe ook afbeeldingen die niet noodzakelijk zijn om de tekst te begrijpen, bijdragen aan een visuele retorica waarin betrouwbaarheid, herkenbaarheid en interactie centraal staan. Bovendien maak ik duidelijk hoe de plek van deze afbeeldingen in de paginalay-out cruciaal bijdraagt aan de constructie van hun betekenis.
Mijn analyse richt zich op een set van zes halffiguurtjes van geleerden, die in totaal dertig keer voorkomen binnen de Chyromantia. Dezelfde en vergelijkbare geleerdenfiguren komen ook voor in andere instructieve en informatieve boeken uit de vroege zestiende-eeuwse Nederlanden. Hoewel ze in de Chyromantia vrijwel nooit in de tekst geidentificeerd worden, blijkt uit andere boeken dat ze fungeren als visuele equivalenten van tekstuele verwijzingen naar geleerden. De Antwerpse drukker Jan van Doesborch lijkt rond 1518 de toon te hebben gezet voor deze veelvuldige toepassing. Hun iconografie is onder meer verwant aan de honderden halffiguurtjes van Bijbelse en historische personen in Hartmann Schedels Weltchronik van 1493. Het zijn multi-inzetbare afbeeldingen, niet bedoeld om bij één specifieke tekst te passen of één specifiek individu te
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verbeelden. Ze hebben niettemin een functie: Van Doesborch en andere drukkers benadrukken er telkens opnieuw mee dat de kennis in hun boeken een geleerde grondslag heeft. De geleerdenfiguren dragen autoriteit en betrouwbaarheid uit.
Deze manier om herbruikbare geleerdenfiguurtjes toe te passen werd als het ware een visuele conventie in de Nederlanden. Dat suggereert dat de figuurtjes een tweeledig, zichzelf versterkend effect kregen: ze dragen betrouwbaarheid uit niet alleen doordat ze auctoritas verbeelden, maar juist ook doordat ze dat op een herkenbare manier doen die hen in een Nederlandse context situeert. Diverse parateksten in Berntsz' Chyromantia weerspiegelen deze twee retorische strategieën van vertrouwen creëren: het benadrukken van autoriteit en van lokale elementen. Een opmerkelijke zinspeling op de lokale context is dat in de proloog een lovende verwijzing is toegevoegd naar de schilders Jan van Scorel en Jan Gossaert, die beiden connecties hadden met Utrecht, de stad waar dit boek verscheen.
Om te begrijpen welk effect de paginalay-out heeft op de mogelijke betekenissen van de geleerdenfiguurtjes, pas ik de concepten van text-flow en page-flow toe. Deze concepten zijn in 2008 geïntroduceerd door taalkundige John A. Bateman voor de analyse van hedendaagse multimodale documenten, oftewel uit pagina's bestaande communicatiemiddelen die informatie presenteren via een combinatie van verschillende tekstuele en visuele modaliteiten (bijvoorbeeld tekst, foto's, diagrammen). Text-flow is in Batemans definitie een eendimensionaal stramien om betekenis op een pagina te creëren: de lineaire volgorde van geschreven of gedrukte tekst vormt het belangrijkste ordeningsprincipe. Page-flow daarentegen werkt tweedimensionaal: een pagina bestaat uit bouwstenen (stukjes tekst, beelden, tabellen etc.) die in hun ruimtelijke samenhang betekenis creëren. Bij page-flow heeft die ruimtelijkheid dus een retorische functie.
Wanneer we deze concepten toepassen in een vergelijking tussen de Latijnse en de Nederlandse Chyromantia-edities, valt op dat juist de geleerdenfiguurtjes een vorm van page-flow introduceren in de Nederlandse editie die in de Latijnse ontbreekt. Deze page-flow ontstaat door de combinatie van de kijkrichting van de geleerden, hun spreekgebaren, hun positie op de pagina, en hun veelvuldige voorkomen op meerdere pagina's binnen het boek. Samen zorgen deze factoren ervoor dat de figuurtjes niet alleen een interactie aangaan met de tekst, maar ook met elkaar en met de andere illustraties. Zo krijgen ze meerdere betekenislagen, die niet door alleen de tekst of door één enkele geleerdenafbeelding gerealiseerd kunnen worden. Met de verschillende niveaus waarop de geleerden interactie uitdrukken, nodigen ze de lezer uit om ook deel te nemen in die interactie.
Mijn analyse laat zien dat text-flow en page-flow bruikbare concepten zijn voor de bestudering van vroegmoderne boeken, maar dat het vruchtbaar is om ze niet als dichotomie te beschouwen, maar als uitersten van een spectrum waarbinnen veel gradaties mogelijk zijn. In aanvulling kan bovendien een concept als document-flow behulpzaam zijn om te analyseren hoe ruimtelijkheid als retorisch element ook ‘driedimensionaal’, door een heel boek heen, kan werken.
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Irene Schrier - ‘Boeckvercooper ende constdrucker’. The Books and Prints of Nicolaes de Clerck (ca. 1599-1623)
Book and print industry have been closely connected from the start. Over the centuries, a wide range of works featuring a combination of printed image and letterpress came from the presses: from illustrated books, bound print series, to single-sheet prints with typographical text. Publishers, printmakers, and printers all collaborated in the production of these works. In addition, various publishers and sellers were involved in the production and distribution of both books and prints. A fascinating figure when it comes to the interface between book and print industry is Nicolaes de Clerck, who was active in Delft during the first quarter of the seventeenth century. De Clerck not only operated as a bookbinder, bookseller, book publisher, writer and translator, but also acted as a printer of engravings and etchings, print publisher and print seller.
In 1599 Nicolaes de Clerck published his first books, a Dutch translation of a Protestant work on the Catholic Mass by Bertrand de Loque, a catechism for children written by Philips of Marnix, and a collection of refrains and songs by several Dutch chambers of rhetoric. After having published these books, De Clerck tried to obtain a privilege for a church history, and intended to publish a new edition of the herbal of Rembert Dodoens. These two ventures, however, came to nothing. Nicolaes had more success with the publication of his Const-toonneel in 1609. For this small volume, he printed forty old copperplates engraved by Johannes Wierix and wrote descriptions to accompany the prints. From 1610 onwards, Nicolaes de Clerck focused on publishing portrait prints for contemporary historical works. He supplied his fellow book publishers in Dordrecht, The Hague, Arnhem and Amsterdam with illustrations for their books. De Clerck commissioned the required portraits of emperors, kings, princes, dukes, army commanders, popes, and reformers from various anonymous printmakers. His fellow publishers could either: hire the copperplates and have them printed themselves, supply De Clerck with the printed text and have him insert the images in the text, or order prints on loose sheets that were then bound as illustrations outside the collation. Nicolaes also included portrait prints in works he composed and published himself and there are also indications that the portraits were individually sold to private persons.
One of De Clerck's major print publishing projects was a monumental ensemble print in honour of Maurice of Nassau and the Nassau family. In 1601 De Clerck joined forces with book publisher and printer Henrick van Haestens and merchant Pieter van der Dycke. Together, these men published a large ensemble (c. 2×2m) featuring the genealogy of the House of Nassau, surrounded by the portrait of Maurice and images celebrating his military triumphs between 1590 and 1600. No complete copy of this grand ensemble has survived the ravages of time but prints and texts belonging to the assembly can be identified. The individual prints of the assembly were also issued separately. The book publisher Jan Jansz Orlers used most of the prints belonging to the original work as book illustrations.
Other print publishing projects of De Clerck included a large Bird's Eye View of The Hague by Johannes van Londerseel - issued with a Latin and Dutch letterpress descripti- | |
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on - and two prints of the mausoleum of William of Orange in the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft. He also published a wide range of ‘constprenten’: prints with biblical subjects, mythological, classical and allegorical representations, humorous scenes from everyday life and landscapes.
The books and prints of Nicolaes de Clerck (i.e. books with only text, books with text and images, prints with accompanying texts, and prints without letterpress text) were produced in various ways. For some of his projects, De Clerck sought a partner to share the costs and risks. When necessary, specific tasks were outsourced. This worked two ways. On the one hand, De Clerck collaborated with book publishers who were in need of illustration materials or a plate printer. Whilst on the other hand, he himself needed assistance: De Clerck was many things, but not a printmaker. He acquired older, existing copperplates from various sources and hired skilled designers and engravers to make new single-sheet prints and book illustrations. What Nicolaes also lacked was a press to print letterpress texts, and so he commissioned book printers to print the texts for his books and prints. He also collaborated with book and print sellers to distribute his publications and to build up an attractive stock of books and prints for his shop. All in all, the case study of Nicolaes de Clerck facilitates new perspectives on early modern print culture. Various projects of his illustrate how the book and print industries should be studied in conjunction with each other.
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Jeroen Jansen - Three decades of book care. Cornelis vander Plasse and Gerbrand Bredero
At the time of Gerbrand Adriaensz. Bredero's death in 1618, many of his songs, much of his poetry and a few (unfinished) plays were left behind unpublished. Cornelis Lodewijcksz. Vander Plasse (1585-1641), an Amsterdam book seller and publisher, became fascinated, like many of his fellow citizens, by the literary world that Bredero had shaped. He made great efforts, during Bredero's lifetime and especially after his death, to gather all the texts that remained, to complete them, and to publish the material, even the smallest pieces.
This article concerns the ways in which this Amsterdam publisher took decisions both to comply with the work by his deceased friend and to derive maximum benefit from publication of his work. Which problems did he encounter and which solutions did he come up with?
After Bredero's jocular songs had proved to be successful, Vander Plasse decided to publish the third edition of Bredero's little songbook. It contained only his songs, witty and funny little stories in songs about farmers and silly servants and maids. In an introduction Bredero announces the publication of a larger song book with amorous songs, but due to Bredero's death, it did not appear. The fourth edition is the earliest existing one, the Geestigh liedt-boecxken (Merry Song Book) from 1621, a slim, small-format volume. This posthumous book contains songs in accordance with Bredero's choice, as far as it is in agreement with the content of the third edition. But the influence of Vander
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Plasse is apparent in a final part ‘new religious songs’. It is not quite clear whether this addition is meant to make this compilation even more varied or that Vander Plasse wanted new readers. In any case, the next year the expensive Groot lied-boeck (5th edition) appeared, a status symbol, richly ornamented with varied typography and illustrations. Many songs were added and it is divided in the same three volumes: ‘Boertigh, Amoreus, en Aendachtigh’, witty songs, love songs and devotional songs.
The combination of a great rush and the publication of what the publisher could find of Bredero's writings, led to errors and mistakes. Vander Plasse also published songs and poems that were not made by Bredero, or that the latter had not written for publication. Moreover, some of it was never intended for public consumption in such a volume. At the end of his life, the publisher presented a monumental edition: the complete work (1638), even with a completely new play by Bredero, which had never been printed before. It was the culmination of decades of intensive preparation and efforts involving, in some cases, large numbers of people in a network of other writers, engravers and printers.
The introductory part of the complete work has a remarkable focus on the classical tradition. The dedication describes the valuation of drama in Antiquity, a characterization of classical tragedy and comedy, and a judgment about Bredero's talent in comparison with classical comedy authors. It foreshadows a large introduction, translated from a French text, about the history of theatre in Antiquity, the classical genres, locations, actors, theatre clothes, and the design of the stage and the scenery. Apparently, Vander Plasse used this ‘erudite’ discourse about the classical theater to give Bredero's oeuvre a special cachet by suggesting that it belonged to the same classical tradition. Bredero was a ‘Terence redivivus’.
It has been demonstrated how paratexts reflect the personal relation of publisher and poet, next to usual commendations that remind us of commercial self-interest. Vander Plasse wanted to introduce his readers to the person Bredero whom he had spoken, with whom he had made agreements.
On the basis of the analysis of title pages, paratexts and laudatory poems, it has become clear that thoughtfulness and commitment are keywords in this relationship, next to fanatism and negligence. Where this vice of Vander Plasse was caused by force majeure, due to the little systematic character of the manuscripts deposited, it seems less culpable than where the publisher makes false or misleading claims about literary work yet to be published, e.g. in an introduction that he took unchanged from an earlier publication.
From the paratexts we may draw the conclusion that the commitment to his friend concerned the publisher himself, but he also imposed it on his readers. They were bombarded with book announcements, explanations of his actions and decisions. Vander Plasse's devotion to collect all texts has supplied us about half of Bredero's oeuvre after August 1618, including all farces and the songbook. One of his strategies was to let the new material reach the faithful group of readers little by little. With that he proved himself to be an expert in marketing and advertising, as well as the one who has laid the foundation of Bredero's reputation as one of our main seventeenth-century poets.
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The overall picture seems to be that Vander Plasse took on the role of advisor during Bredero's life. He launched initiatives, consulted and decided on publication, from within his network. After the death of the author he was, in a different way, organiser and curator. As such, he kept an overview of the whole process of production, distribution and consumption of Bredero's legacy for over two decades.
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Wouter de Vries - ‘One can't imagine they have ever read the Bible!’ On accuracy and knowledge in the prints of Willem Goeree
De uitgever en auteur Willem Goeree (1635-1711) wordt tegenwoordig voornamelijk herinnerd om zijn kunsttheoretische werken. In zijn latere werk richt hij zich echter met name op Bijbelhistorische onderwerpen. In al zijn werken besteedt hij veel zorg en aandacht aan de prenten en zowel expliciet als impliciet verraden zij veel over zijn opvattingen over de rol van beeldmateriaal in de kennisoverdracht. Nog explicieter dan anderen als Van Hoogstraten reflecteert Goeree uitvoerig op zijn contacten met uitgevers, onvolkomenheden in andermans prenten en de gedachtegang achter het in zijn werken aanwezige beeldmateriaal. Daarmee biedt zijn werk ons een uitgelezen kans om de epistemologie van de prenten in het Bijbelhistorische werk van Goeree te onderzoeken.
Dit gebeurt in de eerste plaats door een onderzoek van de productie van zijn werken, aan de hand van manuscripten en zijn opmerkingen over de productie van zijn werken. Daarnaast wordt de relatie tussen beeld en tekst onderzocht door een grondige lezing van Goeree's bewerking van Petrus Cunaeus' De Republyk der Hebreën (1683). De conclusie luidt dat ‘naauwkeurigheid’ een van de belangrijkste eisen is die Goeree aan zijn prenten stelt, en dat deze nauwkeurigheid slechts bereikt kan worden door een grondige architectonische, cultuurhistorische of natuurfilosofische kennis van het afgebeelde object. Bovendien is zij het gevolg van een intensieve aandacht voor beeld in alle fasen van de productie: van het initiële manuscript tot de uiteindelijke publicatie, waar deze nauwkeurigheid de prenten een belangrijke rol in overdracht en productie van kennis verschaft.
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Nelke Bartelings - Bernard Picart's Épithalames and the teamwork of image and text
Van 1715 tot 1729 vervaardigde de tekenaar en prentmaker Bernard Picart (1673-1733) twaalf huwelijksprenten (Épithalames) met een Latijns motto om boekjes met huwelijksgedichten te versieren. De prenten vormen een samenhangende groep van speciale titelprenten, het merendeel vervaardigd voor rijke doopsgezinden uit Amsterdam en Haarlem. Samen met de titelpagina en het titelprentgedicht zijn de huwelijksprenten het raamwerk of de peritekst van de huwelijksgedichten in het boekje.
De prenten waren niet alleen bestemd voor de familie en vrienden van de opdracht- | |
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gevers, maar werden ook los verkocht aan liefhebbers. Voor hen werd een speciale brochure met een toelichtende tekst gedrukt die ook nu veel verheldert over wat er precies is verbeeld op de huwelijksprenten.
Ik heb mij geconcentreerd op een selectie van zes Épithalames die Picart vervaardigde. De hamvraag is hoe de voorstellingen zich verhouden tot de raamteksten, in het bijzonder tot de titelprentgedichten. De motto's zijn korte uitdrukkingen die verwijzen naar de essentie van het specifieke huwelijk. De titelpagina heeft een ondubbelzinnige, identificerende functie: de namen van de bruid en bruidegom worden vermeld, de plaats en datum van het huwelijk en soms het uitgeversadres. De relatie tussen de titelprentgedichten en de huwelijksprenten is gecompliceerder en daarom erg interessant. Al in de zeventiende en achttiende eeuw was men zich bewust van het verband tussen beeld en tekst. Lairesse legt immers in zijn Groot Schilderboek (1707) uit hoe belangrijk boekprenten zijn en dat ze een tekstuele uitleg nodig hebben.
Om het proces te conceptualiseren dat zich afspeelt tussen tekst en beeld in boeken, introduceerde Lawrence Sipe het begrip ‘synergie’. Toegepast op titelprenten betekent synergie dat prent en tekst elkaar aanvullen en een completer beeld geven dan de informatie van iedere discipline afzonderlijk.
Picarts huwelijksprenten zijn visuele huwelijksgedichten (epithalamia) met kenmerken uit de klassiek traditie. Het zijn allemaal allegorieën met personificaties, gesitueerd in een gecultiveerde natuuromgeving. Bruid en bruidegom zijn gekleed á l'antique en worden naar de bruidskamer of de huwelijkstempel geleid door Hymen, de god van het huwelijk. Cupido's helpen hem daarbij, maar worden ook gebruikt om bijvoorbeeld het beroep van de bruidegom te verbeelden. Allegorieën met personificaties waren de eenvoudigste manier om concepten visueel te verduidelijken, omdat de zeventiende- en achttiende-eeuwer bekend was met de traditionele attributen die bedoeld waren om de verschillende figuren of concepten te karakteriseren. Hoewel de composities op de prenten variëren, zijn ze sterk gestandaardiseerd. Het voordeel hiervan was dat iedere prent voor elk willekeurig huwelijk gebruikt kon worden, maar ook dat ze konden worden verkocht als aantrekkelijke voorstellingen. De titelprentgedichten daarentegen relateren de persoonlijke informatie van de bruid en de bruidegom aan de voorstelling op de prent. Picarts huwelijksprenten vormen samen met de titelprentgedichten een geheel dat is afgestemd op het specifieke huwelijk van de opdrachtgever(s). In dit opzicht vormen tekst en beeld een synergetische relatie.
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Marja Smolenaars - Eighteenth-century apprentice pieces. The book trade guild in Haarlem
In the sixteenth and early seventeenth century, Haarlem printers and bookbinders were supposed to be members of the guild of St. Luke, but in 1616 a separate guild was established for those working in the book trade. The new guild immediately published their Keure, or rule book, which stipulated that anyone who wanted to set up a business independently in the book trade had to present proof of their ability, be it several bindings or
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a printed specimen. In the seventeenth century, the registration book of the guild, the Ghildt Boeck, only listed the names of apprentices and masters, but from 1707 onwards, they included information about the apprentice pieces the aspiring master submitted in order to obtain his freedom. Sometimes the entry only stated that the apprentice had presented his proof, without going into details - this is especially the case with binders - but in a number of cases the information is detailed enough to identify exactly which work had been printed.
This article aims to identify the apprentice pieces submitted by printers from 1707, when the first detailed mention of the guild's proof was entered, to 1795 when the last entry was made. The guilds were abolished during the Batavian Republic (1795-1806) and permission to start a business was from then on to be requested from the city authorities directly. About a quarter of the apprentices listed in the Ghildt Boeck obtained their freedom and became ‘gildebroeder’ (brother of the guild, that is: master printer or bookbinder). There are various reasons why the 144 masters listed in the book are not all also listed as apprentices (started before 1616, came from outside Haarlem, took over from their father) and also why not all apprentices became masters (died, moved away, never aspired to their own business). A contributing factor in the low rate of apprentices becoming masters was also the decision in 1788 to allow any book trade worker, that is, other than apprentices, to enter their name in the book. The majority of those workers never started an independent business, at least not before 1795.
Of the 62 new masters entered from 1707, 20 supplied bindings, one woman did not have to submit an apprentice piece as she took over her father's business, 13 were entered without any details other than the simple fact that they had met the requirements, which leaves 28 possible candidates for identification. Eleven print works have been identified with certainty, and of a further ten a possible title, although not necessarily a correct edition, has been identified. That leaves seven printers' apprentice pieces with insufficient information to determine the output. The appendix to the article lists all 62 new masters with the information from the Ghildt Boeck and, where possible, the identification of the apprentice pieces.
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Emilie Sitzia - Picturing Sleeping Beauty: Illustrations as modern storytellers
This article investigates how illustrators, through the choices they made, re-interpreted classical stories and offered sometimes-alternative tales for the modern era. Illustration is considered here as reception and criticism of texts and studied through specific case studies taken from late 19th and early 20th-century European literary fairy tale illustrations. In particular, this article reassesses illustrations of Sleeping Beauty. Sleeping Beauty was chosen because it is a tale where the illustrator can equally employ all the key functions of the fairy tale (escape, education or entertainment), yet it is also a tale where social values and prescribed gender roles are at their most visible, making it a fascinating case study.
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First the article investigates why illustrated books hold such a unique place in the word/image relationship. It traces a brief history of the place of the image in the book and the increased role of images in daily life due to increase in readership, access to printed material and ease of production. The role of illustration and the role of the illustrator are investigated through the frameworks proposed by Klimowski and Male. Three key analytical elements emerge from this first part of the study: the intended image reader/viewer, the text-image relationship and the aesthetic, social and cognitive choices.
The article continues focusing on why fairy tales and Sleeping Beauty in particular are especially interesting material to analyse when it comes to the word/image relationship, as there are many textual variations and visual representations abound. Illustrations of Sleeping Beauty from Gustave Doré, Edmund Dulac and Arthur Rackham are analysed to illustrate the various relationships the images can have with the source text. The three sets of illustrations represent three distinct visions of the tale.
Doré's illustrations focus on the adventures of the prince. Doré's intended readership is layered, which is visible in his choice of scenes and the variety of his visual references. The text-image relationship in this case is ambiguous as Doré seem to refer more to visual sources than literary ones. Doré's aesthetic, social and cognitive choices complexify further the illustrations. The dominant aesthetic influence of the series of images is Romanticism with touches of realism throughout. The social indicators (representation of space, clothing, etc.) bear an ambiguous relationship to the fictional text. On the cognitive level, Doré creates a theatrical distance between the viewer and the characters. The focus however is firmly on the prince's adventure. All this creates extremely layered visual images. The tale is allowed to float between the three core functions of the fairy tales: entertainment, education and escape. Doré, in his illustration, transforms the tale of Beauty into the adventures of the prince.
Dulac's illustration present Sleeping Beauty as a rococo love story. His intended readership, children and early readers, is visible in his choice of scenes: Dulac closely follows the narrative of the princess and focuses on the fantastic and magical aspect of the story. Here, captions underneath each image make sure the reader/viewer follows along, almost summarizing the tale. The text-image relationship and which text is being illustrated is quite clear. The tale is firmly set in a French Rococo setting and Perrault stays the main and clearest reference text. The visual references to French painting reinforce the link to Perrault as a source. The aesthetic, social and cognitive elements in Dulac's illustration confirm this positioning. In a typical Dulac style, the images clearly refer to the French Rococo period; in particular, to paintings by François Boucher or Jean-Honoré Fragonard. The social indicators also place the tale in a luxurious and rarefied aristocratic world. In terms of cognitive elements, there is very little space for questioning between the text and the decorative and narrative images.
In contrast, Rackham's illustrations present a young woman's bildungsroman. Rackham's choice concerning the intended readership is interesting. His selection of scenes (22 scenes) mostly follows Beauty's biography and coming of age. Identifying the text-image relationship in Rackham's adaptation is difficult. Rackham, by not giving the tale a specific location or time, mixes the source texts and illustrates a universal story
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about growing up. As for the aesthetic, social and cognitive choices, they reinforce this indeterminacy and focus. His technique of pen and ink and watercolour creates expressive lines and a very personal visual identity. The social indicators are minimal in the images. In terms of cognitive impact, such illustrations create plenty of space for interpretation, projection and critical thinking. In terms of gender representation Beauty is shown throughout the images as active (she draws, climbs stairs, plays music, sings, etc.). The prince is not the hero of the story here but a secondary character that helps Beauty along the way.
The three case studies show how the choices made by the illustrator translate various reading of the tales and convey specific values. Sleeping Beauty continued to be illustrated throughout the 20th century. Later or contemporary versions by Rie Cramer, Harry Clarke, Dorothy Lathrop, Jean Lébédeff, Gustaf Tenggren and Johann Georg van Caspel are just as rich as the images analysed here. The persistence of Sleeping Beauty as a topic of illustration proves the richness of potential interpretations of the tales
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Jos van Waterschoot - De beeldminnende boekwetenschap, ofwel het nationaal striperfgoed in boekhistorisch perspectief
This article aims to give an up-to-date overview of research on Dutch comic history and tries to show why comics are an interesting topic from a book-historical perspective. Foremost an inventory of the ‘institutes’ in the Netherlands where comics are collected for research purposes is presented. The oldest collection examined in the article is from the University Library of Amsterdam, where in 1970 a comic documentation centre was set up in cooperation with Het Stripschap, an association of comic lovers and collectors. This centre was meant to be a central point in scientific comic research, as well as for other interested parties. The early 1970s seems to be a crucial era: the first comic anti-quarians started their trade in this period, the first exhibitions on comics took place and the first specialized publishers started their activities. Following this, the importance of collectors and their search for canonization is stressed, and the importance of their work for institutionalized research. Their attempts to standardization turn out to be useful still. Genres in comics pass by as well as fashion in comics. Also the manifestation of comics, and exploration of the boundaries of copyright are presented. An inventory is made of the archives of comic publishers and specialized comic book shops. What are the available sources for research and where can they be found? Not much research has been done yet, and this article tries to show that there is a lot of work that can be done probably with a very interesting as well as surprising outcome. Still, comics are a niche in the Dutch book trade.
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Arthur Crucq - Image as text and structure: recent artists' books from the Netherlands
Over the last several decades the artists' book has evolved into a recognized genre. Artists' books produced in the Netherlands have become part of Dutch book history. No longer are these books solely initiated and supervised by the autonomous artist, but they are increasingly the product of a collaboration between visual artist, graphic designer and art institutes. Many of these books are today even initiated by curators of art institutes. For the graphic designer the artists' book proves to be a fruitful platform for collaborating with the visual artist and for the integration of fine and applied arts.
The history of the artists' book is often situated in late 19th century France where so-called Livre d'Artistes were produced on the initiative of publisher who either wanted to reach a larger audience or wanted to make special editions for collectors. In the course of the 20th century a new self-aware generation of conceptual artists started to make books with which these artists consciously reflected on the book's medium specific qualities. The Dutch-Mexican artist Ulises Carrión conceptualized the book as a sequence of spaces and the experience of reading a book as a sequence evolving in both time and space. As a consciously chosen form the artist would exploit these medium-specific qualities in the sense that the artwork evolves by means of a sequential structure that is akin to the structure of the bookwork itself. The book Twentysix Gasoline Stations by Edward Ruscha is often regarded as the first book which consciously exploits the medium for such artistic purposes. At the same time this book was independently published by Ruscha, deliberately at low costs, as a small pocket edition in relatively large numbers. The artist as both creator and publisher supervises the entire project. The autonomy of the artist as publisher formed an important precondition for artists like Carrión to define a book as an artists' book. However, since the eighties many artists' books in the Netherlands were initiated within the context of art institutes and galleries and resulted from a collaboration between artist, graphic designer and curator.
Rob Knijn, a Dutch artist and former curator of The Hague art institute Heden, explains that within the context of a book published by an art institute, the artist to a certain extent sacrifices the control over the project and their work. That does not necessarily mean that the result from such a process can no longer be accounted for as an artists' book. One example being, An index of cloudless skies which is a collage artwork, and part of the book Boys don't cry by Twan Jansen. It refers both to the sequence of a book, as well as to books as indices. It follows the structure of the book. However, the artistic idea resulted from the collaboration between visual artist Twan Jansen and graphic designers Carvalho-Berneau.
In some cases, even misinterpretations or mistakes can prove to be fruitful for the emergence of the artists' book. This is the case with the book violet, geel, oranje, blauw, groen, rood by Piet Dieleman; the bookbinder misinterpreted the idea of a children's picture book, a medium which is usually thick and solid, and pushed it to its limits resulting in a book that weighs one-and-a-half kilos. However, its solidity emphasizes the book as a concrete and material object. Additionally, its structure and sturdiness exem- | |
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plifies the paintings of Dieleman which revolve around the sequential placement of clear and sometimes roughly applied colour patches in a limited palette.
The potential importance of the graphic designer in the making of artists' books comes to the fore in the work of Dutch graphic designer Renate Boere. Despite her obvious artistic influence, Boere argues that designing an artists' book means to capture the essence of the work of an artist. This is a mutual process based on intense interaction between artist and designer. In the case of Lizan Freijsen, whose work is based on a collection of stains, it resulted in a kind of taxonomy of stains in the book The Living Surface where the concept of a surface as a potential space is amplified.
In a booklet made both with and for the artist Joncquil, the medium specific qualities of the book form are exploited in yet another way. This booklet contains a number of polaroid's made in a fifties' office building, as well as essays by authors invited by the artist to describe their feelings on the building. It has been printed with an ink that disappears when heated above a certain temperature. By heating the book with a hair-dryer or rubbing the pages with one's finger, the content of the book temporarily disappears. This concept alludes to the ultimately transient nature of both the book itself, and the contents of the book. Thus showing the book is a stack of empty pages on which signs and figures are printed in a medium..
In Sproken/Fairy Tales by Christie van der Haak, the book as a stack of pages is again approached as a sequence of two-dimensional spaces. Van der Haak's work revolves around the use of patterns and colour patches in which figurative and abstract motives are woven to form a single work of art. For a long time that work has been painting, but more recently Van der Haak started to create fabrics for furniture and wall-papers for decorative purposes. Her work revolves around the mutual influence between the decorative and the fine arts, therefore she often draws from the history of art. In Sproken/Fairy Tales each page is a virtual space compiled by one of Van der Haak's pattern designs in which an element or work from her autonomous oeuvre is captured. This allows the viewer-reader of the book to travel from space to space without the necessity of an imperative order. As a work of art this book can be regarded as a sequence of spaces, and as such its structure both exploits and coincides with the form of the book.
These examples make clear that an artists' book is no longer solely the product of an individual artist. The practice of artists, and how the profession of being an artist has been conceived in general, has changed over the years. Today artists are increasingly involved in networks and cooperative forms of art production. As a medium the book appears to be an excellent form for both artists and designers to experiment with image, text and structure, and thereby also extend the boundaries of their successive disciplines. However, the artists' book conceived as a work of art is of a permanent character. Whether or not created within a joint collaboration, it is still a book compellingly determined by a single artistic idea. As such it does not point to the art, it is the art itself.
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