06 August 2014
A very Dutch fire
Earlier this year, ITV (other television channels are available!) announced its decision to commission a four-part period drama based on the events of the Great Fire of London. The forthcoming series (imaginatively entitled The Great Fire!) will no doubt present the occurrences of September 1666 as a great human tragedy that was received with universal sorrow. However, as a document in the British Library’s Dutch Language Collections reveals, there were those who rather than lamenting the fire took an altogether different view.
On 7 August 1666, during the course of the conflict between England and the Dutch Republic that would later become known as the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the English government wrote to Sir Robert Holmes, Admiral of the Restoration Navy, giving him detailed instructions for a raid upon the West Frisian islands of Vly and Terschelling, where some 150 Dutch ships were lying. As well as destroying the ships, Holmes was to take 500 men, land upon the island of Terschelling (on which was located the town of West-Terschelling) and ‘appoint such a number of men to rise and plunder the town as you shall think fit.’ Two days later, on 9 August, the instructions were carried out to considerable effect and Sir Robert was able to write to none other than King Charles II himself, narrating how he had ‘with little trouble set the fair town on fire, which consisted of at least 1000 houses.’ It may have been that the king was already well aware of this, for, as various Englishmen noted in their journals, columns of smoke were visible well out to sea.
In England, news of Holmes’ exploits was greeted with great enthusiasm, including by Charles II himself who, in a somewhat insensitive gesture, ordered celebratory bonfires to be lit. Indeed, the burning of West-Terschelling quickly became known as ‘Holmes’ Bonfire’ on the basis that, in order to signal to fellow Englishmen watching from afar that the mission had succeeded, Holmes had set-alight the town ‘as bonfires for his good success at sea.’ Unsurprisingly, there was a less celebratory reaction in Amsterdam, where various pamphlets and prints were published condemning the attack as a barbaric atrocity. An example is the print below, attributed to the well-known engraver, Harmen de Mayer.
Holmes’ Bonfire, engraving attributed to Harmen de Mayer (1650-1701). (Image from Wikimedia Commons)
If Holmes’ raid had been designed to bring about a Dutch capitulation it failed, for when just weeks later fire broke out at Thomas Farriner’s now infamous bakery on Pudding Lane, the two nations were still at war. News of the fire was quick to reach the Dutch, who were no doubt following events in England with great interest.
A sense of the Dutch reaction to the Great Fire can be gauged from a lengthy pamphlet printed in Rotterdam soon afterwards entitled, Londens Puyn-hoop. The pamphlet, copies of which are held by the British Library, is unequivocal in its explanation of events. After dismissing everyday causes it presents the fire as divine retribution against the English – and Charles II in particular – for the attack on the Vlie, as well as a warning to sinners everywhere: London had not so much been destroyed as purified.
Whilst the contents of Londens Puyn-Hoop are undoubtedly propagandist in part, they also appear to reflect a genuine belief that the Great Fire was an act carried out by God on behalf of a latter day children of Israel. Such a mind-set might well explain the relative restraint shown by Dutch forces on the towns they encountered in the Medway – something on which the diarist Samuel Pepys remarked – during the now legendary raid the following summer that brought the conflict to a conclusion in the Republic’s favour: there was no need for the Dutch to take revenge, God had already taken it for them.
The Great Fire, from S.V.V.H. Londen’s Puyn-hoop 3rd ed. (Rotterdam, 1666) 8122.ee.8.1(1.)
The image above appears as a fold-out page in one of the copies of Londens Puyn-hoop held by the British Library. (You can see another version from the Rijksmusem in Amsterdam here.) The way in which fire is represented in these prints is potentially very illuminating. In some, fire is presented in factual, almost scientific terms, the process of combustion and the idea that something is actually on fire being clearly visible. In others, the flames appear to hover miraculously above their apparent source without consuming it, in a fashion that recalls biblical fires, such as the burning bush and the pillar of flame. This duality reflects the somewhat conflicted world-view that characterised the 17th century: on the one hand a time of tremendous scientific progress and a growing recognition that the world was governed by discernible, universal laws with physical explanations but on the other an époque still dominated by superstition, powerful religious fervour and a belief that the forces of both evil and the divine were capable of interfering in everyday life. In this way, Londens Puyn-hoop – together with its associated imagery – has a great deal to tell us about the early-modern mind-set.
Robin Jacobs
References:
Downton, Peter, The Dutch Raid (Rochester, 1998)
Beer, E.S. de (ed.)The Diary of John Evelyn (Oxford, 2000). YC.2002.a.8453; Vol. 3 p. 452
Jones, J.R., The Anglo-Dutch Wars of the Seventeenth Century (London, 1996) YK.1996.a.20068
Latham, Robert (ed.), The Diary of Samuel Pepys (London, 2003) YC.2003.a.14343, entry 15 August 1666. Also available online at http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1666/08/15/
Ollard, R.L., Man of War: Sir Robert Holmes and the Restoration Navy (London, 1969) X.631/831 and W50/4391
Powell, J.R. / Timings, E.K., The Rupert & Monck Letter Book – 1666, (London, 1969) Ac.8109. [vol. 11 -2.]
Robin Jacobs is a barrister who specialises in education law. He recently completed a Graduate Diploma in Art History at the Courtauld Institute and wrote a dissertation on representations of fire in broadside prints from the Second Anglo-Dutch War.
02 July 2014
The Triumph of Mannerism – Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino in Florence
De Triomf van het Maniërisme (The Triumph of European Mannerism), a mammoth (518 items) Council of Europe exhibition in Amsterdam in 1955 was the first comprehensive examination of Mannerism – the dominant, and previously overlooked, artistic style between the High Renaissance and the Baroque, roughly between 1520 to 1600. It was followed, a year later, by the Mostra del Pontormo e del primo manierismo fiorentino at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, on Pontormo and early Florentine Mannerist art. In 1972, L’École de Fontainebleau, an exhaustive (705 items) examination of French Mannerism, largely indebted to Italian artists working for Francis I, completed the trio of major exhibitions that led to a proliferation of monographs, conference proceedings and exhibitions on Mannerism which continues unabated. In the first half of 2014 alone there was a rich crop of Mannerist shows: El Greco in Toledo and Madrid (one on his library and one on his influence on modern art), Pontormo drawings in Madrid, and Baccio Bandinelli and Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino in Florence.
Pontormo & Rosso Fiorentino: diverging paths of Mannerism revisits the subject of the 1956 Florence exhibition. It follows the stylistic development of these two leading artists of early Florentine Mannerism in roughly chronological order but with separate sections on their portrait paintings and their drawings (they were both remarkable draughtsmen). They had much in common, both temperamentally and artistically. They were ‘born under Saturn’ (i.e. they were eccentric, restless, and anguished) and were influenced by Michelangelo’s paintings and by Northern Renaissance prints, especially Dürer’s.
The exhibition, as its title indicates, also aims to demonstrate that, after their common beginnings in the workshop of Andrea del Sarto, the careers of the two artists took different directions. Pontormo enjoyed the protection of the Medici family for the rest of his life,whereas Rosso, thanks to his republican inclinations, was forced to lead a peripatetic existence, working in various artistic centres in Tuscany and also in Rome and Naples before going to France, where he spent his last ten years in the court of Francis I, becoming one of the key figures of the School of Fontainebleau. This last period of Rosso’s output, though examined in the catalogue, is largely omitted in the exhibition as it was the subject of a major show in the Château de Fontainebleau last year which demonstrated the far-reaching influence Rosso’s allegorical decorations exerted, through prints, on subsequent generations of artists. The present exhibition includes, nevertheless, two contrasting, examples from Rosso’s French years, his Pietà and Bacchus, Venus and Cupid, the first tragic and austere, the second erotic and voluptuous.
Rosso Fiorentino, Pietà (ca 1538-40). Paris, Musée du Louvre. Image from Wikimedia Commons
Rosso Fiorentino Bacchus, Venus and Cupid (ca 1535-39). Luxembourg, Musée National d’Histoire et d’Art. Image from Wikimedia Commons
The exhibition is a feast for the eyes. It opens spectacularly with three enormous detached frescoes, by Andrea del Sarto, Rosso, and Pontormo, from the atrium of the Church of SS Annunziata, all newly restored for the exhibition. Numerous other works have also been cleaned recently, sometimes with unexpected results – the cleaning of Rosso’s The Marriage of the Virgin has made St Joseph, traditionally depicted as an elderly man, look even more youthful whereas the head of a donkey, previously obscured by layers of grime, has been revealed in the background of Pontormo’s magnificent Visitation.
Rosso Fiorentino, The Marriage of the Virgin (Ginori Altarpiece) 1523. Florence, Basilica di san Lorenzo (Image from Artemagazine)
Pontormo, Visitation (ca 1528-29). Carmignano, Pieve di San Michele Archangelo. (Image from Wikimedia Commons)
The Mannerist treasures in churches and museums in Florence and surroundings are
overwhelming. They include Pontormo’s most famous work, his otherworldly Deposition/Lamentation, in the church of Santa Felicita and his beautiful lunette fresco decoration of Vertumnus and Pomona, in the Medici country villa at Poggio a Caiano. Palazzo Pitti has the world’s most important collection of Andrea del Sarto paintings, the Uffizi an incomparable collection of paintings by Bronzino, Pontormo’s pupil and himself the subject of a memorable exhibition at Palazzo Strozzi four years ago. Bronzino’s frescoes for the Chapel of Eleonora da Toledo are in the Palazzo Vecchio where several rooms were decorated by Giorgio Vasari, Johannes Stradanus, and Francesco Salviati and other artists of the second generation of Florentine Mannerists.
Chris Michaelides, Curator Italian and Modern Greek
A Select Bibliography of Florentine Mannerism and the École de Fontainebleau
Pontormo, Rosso and Mannerism in Florence
Pontormo e Rosso: atti del convegno di Empoli e Volterra progetto Appiani di Piombino. [Congress held on Sept. 22, 1994 in Empoli and on Sept. 23-24, 1994 in Volterra]. (Florence, 1996). YA.1998.b.216.
L’Officina della maniera: varietà e fierezzanell’arte fiorentinadel Cinquecento fra le due repubbliche, 1494-1530. (Venice, 1996). YA.2000.b.284.
Pontormo, Bronzino, and the Medici: The Transformation of the Renaissance Portrait in Florence (exh. cat., ed. by C. B. Strehlke; Philadelphia, PA, Mus. A., 2004–5). m04/.37453
Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino: diverging paths of mannerism / edited by Carlo Falciani and Antonio Natali. (Florence, 2014). LF.31.b.10009.
Pontormo
Mostra del Pontormo e del primo manierismo fiorentino : [tenuta al] Palazzo Strozzi, Firenze, marzo-luglio 1956. (Florence, 1956). YV.1989.a.419.
Pontormo: disegni degli Uffizi / catalogo di Carlo Falciani. (Florence, 1996). WP.4334. v.79.
Pontormo, dibujos (Fundación Mapfre, Madrid, 12 de febrero-11 de mayo de 2014) [comisariado, Kosme de Barañano] (Madrid, 2014). LF.31.b.11064
Rosso Fiorentino
Cecile Scaillierez, Rosso. Le Christ mort. (Paris, 2004). YF.2014.b.2174
Antonio Natali, Rosso Fiorentino: leggiadra maniera e terribilità di cose stravaganti. (Cinisello Balsamo, Milan, 2006). LF.31.b.3723.
Le roi et l'artiste: François Ier et Rosso Fiorentino : Château de Fontainebleau, du 23 mars au 24 juin 2013 / commissariat, Thierry Crépin-Leblond, Vincent Droguet. (Paris, [2013]) YF.2014.b.420.
Bronzino
Janet Cox-Rearick, Bronzino’s Chapel of Eleonora in the Palazzo Vecchio. (Berkeley, 1993). YK.1994.c.10.
Bronzino: artist and poet at the court of the Medici / edited by Carlo Falciani and Antonio Natali. (Florence, 2010). LC.31.b.8601.
Pontormo, Bronzino, and the Medici: the transformation of the Renaissance portrait in Florence / Carl Brandon Strehlke; with essays by Elizabeth Cropper ... [et al.]. (University Park, Pa, 2004). LC.31.b.2261.
Cellini
John Pope Hennessy, Cellini (London, 1985). L.45/3693.
École de Fontainebleau
L’École de Fontainebleau [catalogue of the exhibition in the Musée du Louvre and the Galeries nationales d'exposition du Grand Palais]. (Paris, 1972). X.410/5309.
Primatice: maître de Fontainebleau: Paris, Musée du Louvre, 22 septembre 2004-3 janvier 2005. (Paris, 2004). YF.2006.b.1071
Dominique Cordellier, Luca Penni, un disciple de Raphaël à Fontainebleau. (Paris, 2012). LF.31.a.4504.
Xavier Salmon, Fontainebleau, le temps des Italiens ([Heule?], 2013)]. LF.31.b.9839
Francesco Salviati
Francesco Salviati et la bella maniera: actes des colloques de Rome et Paris. (Rome, 2001). Ac.5233.a/284.
Francesco Salviati (1510-1563) ou, La bella maniera / sous la direction de Catherine Monbeig Goguel. (Paris, 1998). LB.31.b.17992.
Andrea del Sarto
Andrea del Sarto, 1486-1530: dipinti e disegni a Firenze : [catalogo della mostra a] Firenze, Palazzo Pitti, ... nov. 1986-mar. 1987. (Milan, 1986). YV.1987.b.798.
Giorgio Vasari
Patricia Lee Rubin, Giorgio Vasari: art and history. (New Haven; London, 1995). YC.1995.b.4896.
Giorgio Vasari disegnatore e pittore, a cura di Alessandro Cecchi. (Skira, 2011). LF.31.b.8051
Pontormo, Vertumnus and Pomona ( 1519-21) Poggio a Caiano, Villa medicea. Image from Wikimedia Commons
30 June 2014
Early Photography in Spain
The Spanish National Library in Madrid (Biblioteca Nacional de España; BNE) has mounted a small, but representative exhibition drawn from its photographic collections, entitled ‘Fotografía en España (1850-1870)’. In that period, demand for photography grew rapidly as a means of documenting events and of capturing images of landscape, famous buildings, city landmarks, and art works. Photography also became a new medium for portraits of leading contemporary figures and of the family. It was also important for recording infrastructure projects.
Several of the photographers who worked in Spain were foreign. One of them was a Welshman, Charles Clifford (1819-1863), who set up business in Madrid in late 1850. He produced a considerable body of material over a short period of time, including the album Voyages en Espagne (1856), consisting of some 400 images of famous civil and ecclesiastical buildings and monuments.
Charles Clifford. Palacio de la Reina, Barcelona (1860). BNE.
Clifford’s success brought him the patronage of the Queen Isabel II. He recorded some of the construction projects being undertaken in her reign, notably that of the canal which brought a secure supply of fresh water to Madrid and which bears her name. In fact ‘Canal de Isabel II’ is still the name of the water utility of the Madrid region. He also accompanied the Queen on her royal journeys around Spain.
Another leading photographer, the Frenchman Jean Laurent (1816-1886), began his career in Madrid before Clifford. He too specialised in city views, buildings and monuments, and also in photographing works of art. The BNE exhibition includes his photograph of the Congreso de los Diputados and also of Velázquez’s Las Meninas.
Jean Laurent. Congreso de los Diputados, Madrid (1855-60). BNE.
Both Laurent and Clifford produced images of the Alhambra, considered probably the most picturesque (in the literal sense) site in Spain and an undoubted draw for the growing number of travellers in the second half of the 19th century. Another favourite destination was Santiago de Compostela, and the exhibition includes a photograph of the Pórtico de la Gloria by another British photographer, Charles Thurston Thompson (1816-1868).
The exhibition includes a number of other subjects. There are portraits, e.g. of Pedro Antonio de Alarcón (author of The Three-Cornered Hat), the actress Adelaida Fernández Zapatero and the painter José María Castellanos; a female nude; and various ethnographic scenes.
The British Library does not systematically collect photographs. However, a number of special collections are held. Among these is a relatively little-known collection of photographs of Spain by British photographers. There are 230 photographs by Clifford, gathered in three albums, two of topographical and architectural views and the other of images of armour from the Real Armería in the Royal Palace in Madrid. It is probable however that some of the photographs contained in this last album were the work of his wife, Jane, although they are generally attributed to Charles Clifford. Jane Clifford was an accomplished photographer in her own right and maintained the studio after Charles’s death. One of the albums of views (1785.c.1) was part of the bequest to the British Museum in 1900 of Henry Spencer Ashbee, the noted collector of works both of Miguel de Cervantes and of erotica.
Charles Clifford. Calle de Alcalá, Madrid , with the Cibeles fountain (ca. 1857) 1785.c.1, no. 57.
Charles Clifford. West door of Salamanca Cathedral (ca. 1858). 1704.d.9, no. 65.
The Library also holds 39 photographs by Charles Thurston Thompson, some of the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, the rest of the monastery church of Santa Maria da Vitória, Batalha, in Portugal. These are held in two albums. Thompson held a post as photographer of art works at the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A). In 1866 he travelled to France, Spain and Portugal on a photographic expedition on behalf of the Department of Science and Art.
Charles Thurston Thompson. Pórtico de la Gloria, Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, with the statue of the Saint (1866). 1811.a.18, no. 4.
Geoff West, Lead Curator Hispanic Studies
Bibliography
Lee Fontanella, La historia de la fotografía en España (Madrid, 1981). LB.31.b.6876
Lee Fontanella, Clifford en España. Un fotógrafo en la Corte de Isabel II (Madrid, 1999). LF.31.b.5746
See also the British Library’s historic photographs feature: http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/features/photographicproject/index.html and the online catalogue of photographs: https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/photographyinbooks/welcome.htm
02 June 2014
One for the gentlemen?
A visit to the current BL exhibition Comics Unmasked put me in mind of an ancestor of the graphic novel from Spain: Eusebio Planas’ Historia de una mujer.
Lithographed title page of Eusebio Planas Historia de una mujer: album de cincuenta cromos (Barcelona, [188?]) RB.37.c.45
The narrative is carried in 50 chromolithographs, with only the briefest of captions (usually a piece of dialogue).
Eusebio Planas (1833-1897) trained as a lithographer in Paris and his works have a whiff of gay Paree about them. He illustrated novels (such as the Spanish translation of La Dame aux Camélias) and journals and also did commercial work such as party invitations. Historia de una mujer seems to be his invention alone.
It is claimed that in its original form this ‘Story of a Woman’ was issued from 1880 on as a series of 102 cards included in packets of cigarettes made by the Mexican firm ‘El Buen Tono’. Publication in book form, in a much larger format (the plates measure 27 x 20 cm) followed later that year. The plates are signed and dated 1878 to 1880.
Clara on the stage
The tale follows Clara’s progress from dressmaker to vaudeville actress to the mistress of a series of men who take her to the watering places of Europe: Santander, El Salinero (in the Canary Islands), Vienna, Baden, St Petersburg...
Clara entertains some admirers
In plate 45 she discovers a grey hair and plate 50, set in a convent hospital, is entitled ‘What a difference between yesterday and today!’ ‘What a difference...’: Clara in the Convent
Obviously aimed at the gentleman, it’s all in the best possible taste. However, an internet search (not advisable) reveals that much of Planas’s output was explicitly pornographic: indeed, his studio was raided by the police and his stock confiscated.
It’s a terribly modern story: Clara visits the Paris Exhibition, possibly that of 1878 (‘What is most exhibited at the Exposition are the women, amigo mío’, [30]), where she travels on a magnetic boat (28).
Clara goes bathing - in an unusually modest costume
Needless to say, Clara appears in a variety of skimpy costumes, all à la mode. As her lovers are international, so too are her dresses: I’m reminded of the poem ‘Divagación’ by Rubén Darío (1867-1916), Nicaragua’s naughtiest symboliste, with its stanzas ‘¿Te gusta amar en griego? […] ¿O un amor alemán? […] ‘Amame en chino […]’ (Do you like to love in Greek? Or a German love? Love me in Chinese …); ’nough said.
Just the stuff to enjoy with a cigar.
Barry Taylor, Curator Hispanic Studies
References:
Pilar Vélez, Eusebi Planas (1883-1897): il•lustrador de la Barcelona vuitcentista (Barcelona, 1999) YA.2000.a.15749
21 April 2014
‘Church, not Chocolate’: Easter eggs in Eastern Europe
The British are not, it must be said, especially inventive when it comes to Easter egg traditions. Possibly the most ancient of these is the Lancashire custom of ‘pace-egging’ (‘pace’ deriving from the Latin Pascha, not an allusion to the speed with which the decorated eggs roll down the hill in Avenham Park, Preston, where crowds still gather on Easter Sunday to watch the ritual). The Wordsworth Museum in Grasmere houses a collection of elaborately decorated eggs which the poet (or more probably Mary and Dorothy Wordsworth and Sara Hutchinson) prepared for young John, Dora and William junior. Originally these eggs were wrapped in onion-skins and boiled to give the shell a rich golden marbled colour which, sadly, would have been ruined when they were rolled to see whose would go furthest without cracking. Now, unfortunately, this tradition, like that of the ‘pace-eggers’ with their disguises and blackened faces, performing a mumming play in return for eggs or funds to purchase them, has largely died out, though those eager to hear the original ‘pace-egg’ song can do so through various versions in the British Library’s sound archives.
Elsewhere in Europe, though, things are very different. The sumptuous creations of Carl Fabergé for the Russian Imperial court are famous, but in confecting these masterpieces in jewels, pearls and fine enamelling he was continuing a much older tradition found not only in Russia but in Ukraine and throughout Central Europe. Nor were eggs the only items decorated at Easter; in Northern Europe, as in Bohemia, birch or pussy-willow boughs were gathered and festooned with ribbons and feathers for use in playful switching rituals which originated in much older fertility rites and Christian penitential practices, a tradition still observed on ‘Whipping Monday’ in the Czech Republic, where the boys who run from house to house with their pomlázky are rewarded with Easter eggs from the girls (who take revenge by dousing them with water the following day).
Over the years the methods used to decorate these eggs have become increasingly complex and sophisticated. Those wishing to experiment for themselves can consult Marie Brahová’s České kraslice (‘Czech Easter eggs’; Prague, 1993: BL shelfmark YA.2002.a.1656), which gives illustrated instructions on how to achieve striking effects with batik, beads and relief as well as the more familiar techniques of painting, etching patterns with a nail on a fine coat of wax or paint, or even the use of humble mud or clay, readily available in even the poorest village. As well as flowers and abstract patterns, favourite motifs included pictures of Christ and the saints, or views of local scenes, as in the splendid collection of the Moravské museum in Brno, described in Eva Večerková’s Kraslice (Brno, 1989; X.0410.137).
In Ukraine the decorated eggs, painted with equally intricate designs, are carried in baskets to church to be blessed by the priest, together with the traditional kulich, a rich fruited bread which, like the eggs, represents the return to feasting after the strictures of the Lenten fast, when Orthodox believers abstain not only from meat and sweet things but from dairy produce of any kind. Here the eggs are covered with detailed geometrical motifs echoing those of the red and black cross-stitched embroideries on the cloths with which the baskets are draped, as well as with stylized images of birds, fish and animals (right) reflecting the pre-Christian animistic beliefs of the ancient Slavonic peoples as well as the rural way of life. Colourful photographs of these may be seen in O. H. Solomchenko’s Pysanky Ukraïns’kyckh Karpat (‘Pisankas of the Ukrainian Carpathians’, Uzhgorod, 2002; YA.2003.b.1092).
Easter, a season of rejoicing and reconciliation, is also a time to remember the traditions which unite the peoples of East and West, however we may celebrate, and to admire the wealth of invention which brings such beauty within the reach of the poorest peasant. Like Hans Christian Andersen’s Emperor of China with his artificial nightingale, the Tsars with their elaborate Fabergé eggs were no richer than the humblest of their subjects who were proud to possess examples of such fine workmanship created with the resources of Nature itself.
Susan Halstead Curator, Czech and Slovak Studies
Ukrainian decorated eggs
02 April 2014
European Literature Night 2014
On 14 May 2014 the British Library will host European Literature Night for the 6th consecutive year with an exciting new extended programme of events – the well-established evening Writers event in the Conference Centre Auditorium which brings together six diverse and compelling European writers in conversation with acclaimed journalist and passionate advocate of European literature, Rosie Goldsmith; a parallel Graphic Novelists event in the Terrace Restaurant with four high-profile writers chaired by Paul Gravett, Co-Director of the Comica Festival and curator of the British Library Comics Unmasked exhibition, and an afternoon panel discussion Stories in Translation: Translating the Untranslatable run by the Open University and chaired by Dr Fiona Doloughan, which will bring together two exciting writers who will later feature in the Auditorium event, a translator and a publisher.
Illustration by Lucie Lomova, one of the artists featured in ‘European Literature Night: The Graphic Novelists’
In the run-up to European Literature Night you will find a selection of exclusive posts from and about the writers and their work here on the BL European Studies blog beginning with a post very soon about Antoine Laurain’s The President’s Hat. You can also find more information about the writers, some special video interviews and extracts from their books on the website of the Writers' Centre Norwich.
The British Library feels like a natural home for European Literature Night. In the field of literature, our collections range from literary archives to sound recordings, translators’ papers, electronic archives and a vast array of print publications from fiction, poetry and drama in most written languages of the world and in translation, to critical texts about them. We aim to inspire the widest public with a lively programme of events, exhibitions, seminars and online offerings which capitalise on the expertise of our curators to bring to life our extensive collections from continental Europe alongside our incomparable English-language and other international collections. Along with colleagues in English & Drama, European Studies curators engage in a range of collaborative projects which explore literature in translation from many perspectives.
European Literature Night is presented in partnership with EUNIC (European Union National Institutes for Culture) London which brings together 28 European Cultural Institutes and Embassies, the European Commission Representation in the UK, Czech Centre London and Speaking Volumes Live Literature Productions, along with a host of other supporters including publishers, translators and arts organisations. It gives us all the opportunity to work together towards a common goal of promoting to UK audiences the best of European culture in all its diversity.
Julia Franck, one of the novelists featured in this year’s European Literature Night
Having participated in the selection panel for the European Literature Night Writers event I am really excited about the stellar line-up: Jonas T. Bengtsson (Denmark), Julia Franck (Germany), Antoine Laurain (France), Diego Marani (Italy), Witold Szabłowski (Poland) and Dimitri Verhulst (Belgium). Don’t miss these great writers in conversation with Rosie Goldsmith, followed by short readings from their work. If you’d like to hear Diego Marani and Witold Szabłowski speak in a little more detail, along with award-winning translator Antonia Lloyd-Jones and publisher Eric Lane (Dedalus), consider joining the afternoon seminar in the Brontë Room in the BL Conference Centre. Tickets are free but seating is limited, so it is essential to book.
A whole new dimension is being brought to European Literature Night with the addition for the first time of a celebration of the burgeoning graphic novels scene with Line Hoven (Germany), Lucie Lomová (Czech Republic), Max (Spain) and Judith Vanistendael (Belgium) who will read, discuss and live-illustrate their work. The events will run in parallel, but we can expect a real buzz when all the writers and both audiences come together for a joint reception and complimentary viewing of the exhibition Comics Unmasked: Art and Anarchy in the UK.
Tickets are currently available for all the events. And don’t forget to check back here to the British Library European Studies blog for discussion about European Literature Night and exclusive posts from the writers.
Janet Zmroczek, Head of European Studies
14 March 2014
A Marvel in the British Library Bulgarian Collections
Headpiece of the Gospel of St Mark from the Gospels of Tsar Ivan Alexander. In the red roundel a portrait of St Mark shown copying the Gospel surrounded by the young Christ (above), John the Baptist (left) and Isaiah (right). The design of all headpieces in the Gospels follows a circular pattern on a decorative floriated background.
A famous Bulgarian manuscript, the Gospels of Tsar Ivan Alexander (British Library Additional. MS. 39627) will be celebrated once again at a forthcoming seminar in the British Library. The manuscript will be discussed in the context of our shared European cultural heritage and as the cornerstone of literary and cultural developments in the Balkans. The Balkan Day seminar is at the British Library on 13 June 2014.
The Gospels of Tsar Ivan Alexander – in Bulgarian Четвероевангелието на Цар Иван Александър, and also known in Bulgaria as the ‘London Gospel’ (Лондоското Евангелие на Цар Иван Александър) – is a manuscript of great importance and generally referred to as a masterpiece of Bulgarian, Slavonic and Byzantine medieval art. In Bulgaria the Gospels are celebrated as a national treasure and often seen as an important cultural link between Britain and Bulgaria.
During the rule of Tsar Ivan Alexander (1331-71), the Bulgarian medieval state was already past its height, but this period was marked by cultural revival before the country was finally subdued by the Ottoman Turks in 1396. The Gospels were made for the Tsar in 1355/56 at Tŭrnovo, the centre of the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185–1396).
After the Ottoman conquest of Bulgaria, the manuscript was taken to safety first to Moldavia and afterwards to the monastery of St Paul on Mount Athos in Greece. Here the manuscript was presented to the Hon. Robert Curzon, fourteenth Baron Zouche of Harringworth (1810–1873), a traveller and collector of manuscripts. The manuscript was bequeathed to the British Museum Library (now the British Library) in 1917.
At the beginning or the end of each Gospel in this codex is an image of the Evangelist presenting his manuscript to Tsar Ivan Alexander. Here is image of from the Gospel of Mark, with a a scene from the Ascension of Christ depicted above. (Add.MS.39627 f.134v)
The Gospels were displayed and celebrated as an outstanding artistic treasure in at least nine major national and international exhibitions in five cities (Sofia in 1977 and 1996; London in 1977/78, 1994, 2007 and 2008/09; Liverpool 1989; Athens 2002 and New York 2004). They have also exhibited in the British Library’s Sir John Ritblat Treasures Gallery several times, most recently in 2007 to celebrate the entry of Bulgaria into the EU and in 2012/13 to promote the publication of a full digital version of the Gospels of Tsar Ivan Alexander, which is available on the British Library Digitised Manuscripts website.
The Gospels of Tsar Ivan Alexander are written in Bulgarian Church Slavonic and were the work of a single scribe. The first pages of each Gospel display his calligraphic skills in ornamented initials, titles in gold and formal uncial letters in black:
Headpiece of the Gospel of Luke. In the vertical arrangement a roundel portrait of St Luke is in the centre. A bearded Christ (above) and Zachariah (below) are depicted in two smaller roundels. Add.MS.39627 f.137r
The Gospels of Tsar Ivan Alexander have been a subject of scholarly interest ever since they were deposited on permanent loan to the British Museum Library in 1876. Since then a number of studies and catalogue entries have been written about the manuscript. In the 2000s Bulgarian scholars from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, the University of Sofia and The St. Cyril and Methodius National Library in Sofia thoroughly researched the Gospels of Tsar Ivan Alexander with the aim of providing a detailed codicological description of the codex.
The British Library holds over 70 Slavonic and East European Cyrillic medieval and early modern manuscripts (Russian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Ukrainian, Serbian, Macedonian, and Bosnian); some of them are of very fine workmanship. The Gospels of Tsar Ivan Alexander constitute the first digitised manuscript in this collection.
Headpiece of the Gospel of John with a portrait of St John minutely executed in a red roundel and three smaller roundels below depicting the Holy Trinity. Add.MS.39627 f.213r
For more images and description of the Gospels of Tsar Ivan Alexander see the British Library Medieval manuscripts blog post of 17 September 2012.
Milan Grba, Lead Curator South-East European Collections
References:
Ralph A. Cleminson, Union catalogue of Cyrillic manuscripts in British and Irish collections. The Anne Pennington catalogue. (London, 1988) 2725.e.600
Ekaterina Dimitrova, The Gospels of Tsar Ivan Alexander. (London, 1994) YC.1995.b.3420
Exhibition catalogues:
Slavianski rŭkopisi ot Britanskiia muzeĭ i biblioteka = Slavonic manuscripts from the British Museum and Library. (Sofia, [1977]) 2719.e.11
Byzantium: treasures of Byzantine art and culture from British collections. (London, 1994) YC.1995.b.5285
Byzantium: faith and power (1261-1557). Edited by Helen C. Evans. (New York, 2004) LC.31.b.1397
Sacred: books of the three faiths: Judaism, Christianity, Islam. (London, 2007) YC.2008.a.6318
Byzantium, 330-1453. (London, 2008) LC.31.b.5843
12 March 2014
‘The Tin Book’
The British Library has over 70 books written by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944) as well as a number of his manuscripts and sound recordings. Several of these were included in the Library’s 2007-2008 exhibition Breaking the Rules: the Art of the European Avant-Garde, 1900-1937, of which Marinetti, the creator of Futurism and its indefatigable promoter until his death in 1944, was one of the protagonists.
The cover of Marinetti’s poem Zang Tumb Tumb (Milan, 1914). British Library 12331.f.57
The rarest and most unusual item in the Library’s Marinetti collection was, however, acquired in 2009, the centenary year of the founding of Futurism, with generous support from The Art Fund and the Friends of the British Library. It can currently be seen in the newly-refurbished Sir John Ritblat Gallery: Treasures of the British Library as part of a display of books bought with the help of the Friends to mark their 25th anniversary.
Cover of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti/Tullio d’Albisola Parole In Libertà Futuriste Olfattive Tattili Termiche (Rome, 1932). HS.74/2143
Known as ‘The Tin Book’, its proper title is Parole In Libertà Futuriste Olfattive Tattili Termiche (‘Futurist Words in Freedom - Olfactory, Tactile, Thermal’). It is the most radical example of experimentation in futurist book production, the culmination of earlier experiments in the use of metal in such publications as Depero futurista (1927) – also called the ‘bolted book’ as its pages are held together by two aluminium bolts – and the aluminium cover of the menu for the first Futurist banquet in 1931.
Fortunato Depero, Depero futurista, 1913-1927. (Milan, [1927]) RB.23.b.6897
Parole In Libertà Futuriste was the first of only two Futurist ‘lithotin’ books ever produced and a prime example of a ‘book-object’. It was created in 1932 by Marinetti and Tullio D’Albisola (pseudonym of Tullio Spartaco Mazzotti, 1899-1971), a second generation futurist poet, sculptor and ceramicist. The second tin book, L’ Anguria lirica (‘The lyrical watermelon’), was published in 1934 with poems by Tullio d’Albisola, drawings by Bruno Munari and Nicolai Diulgheroff, and a preface by Marinetti. Both books were printed in Savona by Lito-Latta, a tin products factory owned by Vincenzo Nosenzo, a former sea captain and a friend and patron of the Futurists who hoped that this publishing venture would earn him extra publicity as several copies of the book were intended for distribution to the political and cultural elite (of the 101 copies printed only 50 were offered for sale). Its publication was shared by Nosenzo's firm, which was responsible for the book's production and Marinetti's Futurist publishing house ‘Poesia’ in Rome.
Parole In Libertà Futuriste Olfattive Tattili Termiche, p.[27] showing the Lito-Latta logo.
The book is made entirely of tin with the text and colour designs lithographically reproduced on its 30 pages. It contains a selection of texts by Marinetti, written in the style of ‘words-in-freedom’, each accompanied, on the verso, by a design by Tullio d’Albisola highlighting a line or phrase from the poem. This arrangement means that simultaneous visual comparison of the text and its artistic interpretation is impossible. Some of the texts have a retrospective character, like the ‘Bombardamento di Adrianopoli’ which is a variant of the poem originally included in Zang Tumb Tumb in 1914; its illustration is likewise a variation on the cover of the earlier book.
Marinetti’s ‘Bombardamento di Adrianopoli’ and Tullio d’Albisola’s accompanying illustration, Parole In Libertà Futuriste Olfattive Tattili Termiche, p.[17-18]
A third tin book was produced some 50 years later in conjunction with the exhibition Futurismo & Futurismi in Venice in 1986. Issued in an edition of 200 copies, Farfa: Il Miliardario della fantasia, was a homage to the Futurist spirit of innovation and experimentation, and its production involved the same techniques used in the two earlier books. It had seven previously unpublished illustrations by Bruno Munari (who had also illustrated L’Anguria lirica), was also printed in Savona (albeit by a different publisher), and had the same number of pages as Marinetti’s Tin Book. It was also a tribute to Farfa (real name Vittorio Osvaldo Tommasini), the Futurist poet, painter, ceramicist, photographer and printmaker who, irony of ironies, in 1964 was run over and killed by a car, the archetypal futurist symbol of modernity.
Chris Michaelides, Curator Italian and modern Greek Section
References
Breaking the Rules: the Printed Face of the European Avant Garde, 1900-1937 (London, 2007) YC.2008.b.251.
Mirella Bentivoglio ‘Innovative Artist’s Books of Italian Futurism’ in International Futurism in Arts and Literature edited by Günter Berghaus (Berlin, 2000), pp. 473-486. YA.2002.a.8247.
Futurismo & Futurismi (Milan, 1986) YV.1986.b.694. [English edition (London, 1986) at YV.1987.b.2043.]
Silvia Bottaro, Vincenzo Nosenzo: prestidigitatore e re della latta (Turin, 2009).
03 March 2014
Charles Meyer, Bookbinder to Queen Charlotte and the Princesses
Charles Meyer, (also known as Johan Charles Frederick Meyer), was one of a select and influential group of German binders who emigrated to England towards the end of the 18th century. English book collectors (sometimes called ‘bibliomaniacs’ by contemporaries) were prosperous and could afford to have their large book collections bound or rebound with no expense spared. The royal court set them an example, for monarchs were expected to keep libraries, whether they were ‘bookish’ or not. Fortunately, George III was interested in bookbinding for its own sake, and established a workshop in Buckingham House, so there was a flourishing market for good practitioners.
The German binders, who were better educated than their English counterparts, soon cornered the ‘West End’ or luxury side of the market located near the London houses of the book-buying aristocracy. One of those favoured was Andreas Linde, ‘Book seller and binder’ to Queen Caroline and her son Frederick, Prince of Wales, and after the latter’s death to Prince George (later George III). His workshop was in Catherine Street, off the Strand. Another prominent German craftsman was Charles Meyer, who arrived in England in 1797, and set up shop around the corner in St Martin’s Lane. He was later to become ‘Bookseller and binder to the Queen [Charlotte] and Princesses.’
Charles Meyer’s trade ticket
The British Library’s Additional Manuscript 81080 consists of a letter written by Meyer in 1805 which gives an unusual insight into his character and business. Meyer tried to build up his business by donating two blank books to an unnamed newly formed institution as an example of his work, with the request that he be employed: “Should the Society not be already engaged with a Comisionair of Books both of foreign and English Litteratures or a Binder, I then would solicit the favour of Your Honored Sir, to propose me.” The tone is quite pressing but polite and humble. Meyer refers to his “thankfull Heart” and “gratitude for the ceind encouragement I have received from so many distinguished Persons since I have been in this Country.”
An excerpt from Meyer's letter, British Library Add MS 81080
Meyer’s book-collecting patrons were certainly distinguished. They included Thomas Grenville, Alexander Douglas, 10th Duke of Hamilton, Charles Townley and Francis Henry Egerton, 8th Earl of Bridgewater, but it was his connection to the royal family which marked the height of his success.
Bindings historian Charles Ramsden described Meyer’s cover on Princess Elizabeth’s book of prints Cupid Turned Volunteer (London, 1804; BL 83.k.15), as “a lovely specimen... with blue morocco spine and surround, blue silk sides, paper appliques and yellow silk doublures”. His tooling has been described as “heavy, compact and with a deep relief” which is keeping with the German tradition, but in this work, it is his strong sense of design which is paramount. The book was added to the library of George III, and perhaps it was this example of his craftsmanship which won him his royal warrant.
Meyer's binding for Cupid turned Volunteer
Meyer appears to have integrated well in his new environment. By the time of his death in 1809 he was living with his common-law wife Elizabeth East in the newly-developed Michael’s Grove in Brompton. His fellow binder and friend, William Clifton (who witnessed his will), lived in the next street, Yeoman’s Row.
P. J. M. Marks, Curator of Bookbindings
References:
Charles Ramsden London Bookbinders, 1780-1840 (London, 1956) 667.u.43
British Book Trade Index http://www.bbti.bham.ac.uk/search.htm
17 February 2014
50 years of exhibitions: a celebration
The recent Georges Braque retrospective in Paris (the catalogue is held by the British Library at shelfmark LF.31.b.9601) was the latest in the impressive series of exhibitions organised by the Réunion des musées nationaux (RMN) in the Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, a wing of the vast exhibition and museum complex built for the 1900 Exposition Universelle. These prestigious exhibitions benefit from the collaboration of major foreign museums, the combined resources of the organising institutions being instrumental in securing important loans.
Renée Grimaud’s 50 ans d'expositions au Grand Palais, Galeries nationales (Paris, 2009; shelfmark YF.2011.b.277), is a lavishly-illustrated survey of some 180 exhibitions staged since 1959, initially in the Louvre, the Orangerie des Tuileries and the Petit Palais, and, since 1966, in the Grand Palais. The presentation is chronological, with a short article describing the most important exhibitions each year, together with factual information about all the others: dates, attendance figures, number of works.
Typically, there are four exhibitions every year, two in the autumn and winter, and two in the spring and early summer; a monographic show is usually coupled with a thematic one (on a civilisation, an artistic movement, a historical figure, or a type of artefact). There have been several unforgettable exhibitions in both categories (no visitor to the great Manet exhibition in 1983 is ever likely to forget the experience). Particularly important, because they define the image of an artist for a whole generation of visitors, have been the monographic exhibitions on French artists, from Poussin to Vuillard; some artists – Courbet, Renoir, Monet, Cézanne – have benefited from two. Exhibitions now tend to be less comprehensive since insurance costs have become so prohibitive and museums, for conservation reasons, are wary of lending major works from their collections.
Exhibition catalogues are the enduring records of temporary events, and the ones published by the RMN (and by their co-organisers in their respective countries and languages) have always been among the best, with introductory essays, detailed entries for each work, high quality illustrations, and comprehensive bibliographies. Several have become standard reference works. A personal selection of the most important ones is given at the end of this article but I would like to describe in more detail two outstanding catalogues, one monographic and one thematic .
The Seurat centenary exhibition in 1991 was, astonishingly, the first major exhibition of the artist’s work in France. Seurat’s works, paintings and drawings, were sold by his family after his death and most of them left the country. Of the six large-scale paintings he produced, only one (Le Cirque) is now in a French public collection, bequeathed to the Louvre in 1924 (by an American collector!) and now in the Musée d’Orsay. This exhibition was, therefore, something of a homecoming. Only two of these paintings could be borrowed but the absence of the other four was compensated by the abundance of preparatory drawings and painted sketches (some 30 for La Grande Jatte alone!) which, as it has often been pointed out, have a spontaneity and poetic freedom that the finished, monumental works lack. Seurat was one of the greatest draughtsmen, and his remarkable Conté crayon drawings – mysterious, brooding, melancholy – formed the backbone of the exhibition and are magnificently illustrated in this catalogue.
Georges Seurat, Seated Nude: Study for ‘Une Baignade’, 1883. (Scottish National Gallery; image from Wikimedia Commons)
L’Âme au corps, arts et sciences, 1793-1993 was one of the largest (the catalogue lists 1005 entries, many consisting of several items) and most ambitious ever staged at the Grand Palais. It was also one of the most unfortunate, as its run was curtailed when an unsafe roof necessitated the closure of the gallery for several weeks. The exhibition examined the interconnections between science and visual arts from the 18th century to the present. Focusing on representations of the human body, it brought together a wide range of objects – anatomical drawings and wax figures, automata – and a wealth of subject matter – physiognomy, phrenology, magnetism, theories of evolution, Lombroso’s theory of anthropological criminology, spiritism – all examined in eight large sections of the catalogue.
I would, however, like to finish on a more personal note, with a look at one of the first exhibitions I saw at the Grand Palais, in 1976.
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898) was an artist previously mainly encountered, like Gustave Moreau and Odilon Redon, in general discussions of Symbolist art. The decision to stage a major exhibition of his work was, therefore, a brave one. The organisers, like those of the Seurat exhibition several years later, faced the problem of having to represent the artist’s major works, his numerous decorative mural cycles that adorn museums and other public institutions in France, through clusters of preparatory studies – drawings, oil sketches and portable studies or reduced-scale replicas of the monumental works. They rose to the challenge magnificently and the exhibition revealed the peculiar genius of this artist: his refined, dream-like, elegiac arcadian scenes, his pared-down compositions, and also his delicate colourism and cool palette. Finally, in the audiovisual introduction to the exhibition, there was the inspired combination of Puvis’s allegorical pastoral scenes and visions of antiquity with Debussy’s Danse sacrée et danse profane, for harp and strings (1904).
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, L’Été (Summer), 1891. (The Cleveland Museum of Art; image from Wikimedia Commons)
The exhibition was the starting point for a revaluation of the work of Puvis de Chavannes and his influence in late nineteenth-century art. It was followed by numerous exhibitions and publications that culminated in the 2002 mammoth show in Venice which aimed to demonstrate that Puvis exerted a wide-ranging influence in Europe, from Degas, Burne-Jones, and Munch to Carrà, Matisse and Picasso. It also led to the publication of the two-volume catalogue raisonné of his work in 2010.
Chris Michaelides, Curator, Italian and Modern Greek Studies
Some notable catalogues (all published by the Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris):
Monographic exhibitions
Puvis de Chavannes, 1824-1898 (1976-77) X:421/9091 or X:410/6307
Manet, 1832-1883 (1983) YV.1986.b.114
Watteau, 1684-1721 (1984) YV.1987.b.415
Fragonard (1987-88) YV.1988.b.334
Seurat (1991) LB.31.c.3713 (English language edition: J/X.0415/274(65) and LB.37.c.134) [Pictured right]
Géricault (1991-92) LB.31.b.6572
Degas (1988) f88/0467 (English language edition)
Toulouse-Lautrec (1992) LB.31.c.4079 (English language edition)
Nicolas Poussin, 1594-1665 (1994-95) LB.31.b.10584
Vuillard (2003-04) LC.37.b.18
Thematic exhibitions
L'Âme au corps: arts et sciences 1793 – 1993 (1993-1994) LF.31.b.7049
Le Siècle de Titien: l’âge d’or de la peinture à Venise. (1993) YA.1994.b.502
Mélancolie, génie et folie en occident (2005-2006) LF.31.b.2337
Other publications
From Puvis de Chavannes to Matisse and Picasso: toward modern art, edited by Serge Lemoine. (London, 2002) YC.2002.b.1307
Aimée Brown Price, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (New Haven, Conn., 2010). LC.31.b.7242 (vol. 1) and LC.31.b.7243 (vol.2)
Debussy, la musique et les arts (Paris, 2012) YF.2013.b.325
Jean-Michel Nectoux, Harmonie en bleu et or: Debussy, la musique et les arts (Paris, 2005) LF.31.b.2571
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