Some Fascinating Early Woodcuts of Women from Boccaccio’s De Claris Mulieribus

De Claris Mulieribus, or De Mulieribus Claris, translated as ‘Concerning Famous Women’, by Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), is a prime example of one of the treasures contained within the University’s Rare Books Collection. Originally published in 1374, the University acquired a copy in 1903, as part of the George McArthur Bequest.

The Rare Books Collection holds a German edition of this text, printed in 1541, which is full of intricate (and occasionally incredibly gruesome) woodcut illustrations of women, courtesy of notable German printer, Heinrich Stayner.[1]. De Claris Mulieribus is a crucial piece in the history of Western literature, and of Renaissance history, being one of the first texts to appear with women as its primary focus.

De Claris is comprised of 106 short biographies of ‘famous women’. This work acts as a feminine counter to a similar project undertaken by a compatriot and close friend of Boccaccio’s, Petrarch, whose De Viris Illustribus is a collection of 36 biographies of famous men through history. The subjects of Boccaccio’s work are drawn from a number of sources, including religious texts, as is the case with Eve, the first woman to appear in the book; through Greek and Roman myths, where a large number of the subjects including Circe, Medusa and Isis originally appeared; to real life heroines, including Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, and Sappho, the Greek poet.

Even though Boccaccio’s text focuses on famous female figures, his selections are somewhat puzzling. While he himself was deeply religious, his text favours subjects drawn from mythology, claiming in his Preface that the life stories of Christian women had already been celebrated in literature: they had ‘sought eternal glory by means of an endurance that was often contrary to human nature’, whereas his mythical subjects achieved ‘earthly fame with the help of gifts and instincts they had received from nature.’[2] A number of Boccaccio’s subjects, such as Medea, do legitimately bad things – according to Apollonius she helped Jason to steal the Golden Fleece. In order to distract her father, Medea kills her brother Absyrtus and, as is demonstrated in the accompanying woodcut in this book, throws his hands and head off a horse as they ride off. Yet, Boccaccio believed that the women he selected deserved to be praised, for their ‘intellectual powers…literary accomplishments…moral virtues or their artistic creations.’[3]

It is this praise of women of antiquity that marks this book as a pivotal moment in Renaissance literature. The familiarity Boccaccio displays with Livy, Ovid and Pliny, among other ancient writers is demonstrative of the ways in which they were embraced and drawn upon as a source for humanist philosophers. Indeed, as Virginia Brown, in the Introduction to her 2003 translation writes, Boccaccio here ‘provides a striking foretaste of ideas that would later find clearer expression in the Renaissance….such as the view that it was appropriate for gifted women to seek and acquire fame for their contributions to art, literature, and the active life of public affairs.’[4]

Over the course of its life, the University’s copy of De Claris has been witness to these changing attitudes towards women. As previously mentioned, the text contains a short biography of Sappho, the Greek poet. Sappho is best known for her poems about love and women, and through history, both her character and her writing has been subject to an array of both praise and condemnation. Her poetry, rediscovered in the medieval and later period, led to speculation regarding her sexuality, with critics chastising her for her apparent homosexuality.[5]

Perhaps this is why, in the University’s copy, the pages relating to Sappho have been torn out? Not removed carefully, but ripped, leaving a jagged shard of paper behind. It is easy to imagine this page devoted to Sappho, who was adopted during the Modernist period (by Djuna Barnes) as a ‘patron saint of lesbians’, being torn out at some point in the book’s life, during one of the many periods when patriarchal and religious views pertaining to women and homosexuality have erred on the side of condemnation.

De Claris Mulieribus is an incredibly important work, not only in the history of Western literature, but as an artefact and embodiment of Renaissance thought. This relatively progressive text paved the way for other early works depicting women, such as those by Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400) and Christine de Pizan (1364-1430).[6] De Claris stands as a crucial piece in the history of women in literature, and indeed in the history of women and feminism, literally embodying the way attitudes towards women have changed over time.

Jaxon Waterhouse

Research Assistant, Rare Book Detectives Project

Museums and Collections Projects Program

Endnotes

[1] Giovanni Boccaccio, Ein Schoene Cronica oder Hystoribuch... Augsburg: durch Stayner, Anno M.D.XXXI [1541]

[2 Virginia Brown, On Famous Women, xv-xvi.

[3] Brown, xviii.

[4] Brown, xiv-xv.

[5] Reynolds, THE Sappho Companion, 295.

[6] See: Christine di Pizan The Book of the City of Ladies, Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales.

Bound in History – Never Judge a Book By Its Cover…Or Its Spine

Following the invention of the printing press, bookbinders in the 15th to 18th centuries cut up and recycled earlier handwritten manuscripts from the Middle Ages.[i] Take, for example, the Historia Jesuitica.[ii] Published in 1627, written in Latin and housed in the University of Melbourne Rare Books Collection, the subject of this book is Jesuit history. A Roman Catholic religious order of priest and brothers, the Society of Jesus (whose followers are Jesuits) was founded near Paris in 1534 and expanded to other countries in Europe (Italy, Spain) and further afield (Japan, India, Brazil). [iii]

While the contents of this book are fascinating, the book’s cover has its own story and comes from a 13th century manuscript. Made from vellum, animal skin, this earlier manuscript was part of a breviary, a book containing the necessary daily psalms and readings for Roman Catholics, and includes lections (sacred text read in a religious service), responsories (an anthem sung by a soloist and choir alternatively following a lection) and versicles (a short verse said or sung by a officiant which the congregation responds to) — (thank you Dictionary.com!). [iv] Ornate in nature, you can see the sheet music on the back cover and if you can read Latin, you are in luck!

Recycling and repurposing was not limited to Middle Age Latin manuscripts nor is the Historia Jesuitica the only book of this nature in the University of Melbourne Collection. In 1820 London, a copy of Cicero De Officiis was printed and while not bound in an medieval manuscript (it’s a hardback), part of the book’s spine has fallen away to reveal – newspaper.[v] Not an ancient edition either but one dated to mid-December 1937.[vi] English language newspapers were not the only ones reused for binding. Part of the spine of A Manual of the Trichinopoly district in the presidency of Madras has fallen away to reveal newspaper in Tamil, the language of Tamil Nadu, India, and the same state where the book was published.[vii] It appears at some point these, and other, books were reinforced with newspaper and as the books start to fall apart, little fragments of history come to light.

Wandering through the Rare Books Collection, you often see something interesting poking from the spines of the older books. It makes you wonder what else is hidden among the shelves…

Tamara Jones

Research Assistant, Rare Book Detectives Project

Museums and Cultural Collections Projects Program

Endnotes

[i] Alberge, D. (2016, June 5). X-rays reveal 1,300-year-old writings inside later bookbindings. Retrieved August 2, 2017, from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jun/04/x-rays-reveal-medieval-manuscripts.

[ii]  Lucius, L. (1627). Historia Jesuitica : de Iesuitarum ordinis origine, nomine, regulis, officiis, votis … in quatuor libros tributa … / per M. Ludovicum Lucium … Basel: Jacobi Genathi.

[iii] About Us – The Jesuits. (n.d.). Retrieved August 2, 2017, from Jesuits: http://jesuits.org/aboutus; Australian Province of the Society of Jesus. (2016). About Us. Retrieved August 2, 2017, from Australian Jesuits: http://jesuit.org.au/about/our-story/; Lucius, L. (1627). Historia Jesuitica : de Iesuitarum ordinis origine, nomine, regulis, officiis, votis … in quatuor libros tributa … / per M. Ludovicum Lucium … Basel: Jacobi Genathi.

[iv] Breviary. (2017). Retrieved August 2, 2017, from Dictionary.com: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/breviary; Lection. (2017). Retrieved August 2, 2017, from Dictionary.com: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/lection?s=t; Responsory. (2017). Retrieved August 2, 2017, from Dictionary.com: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/responsory?s=t; University of Melbourne. (n.d.). Historia Jesuitica : de Iesuitarum ordinis origine, nomine, regulis, officiis, votis … in quatuor libros tributa … / per M. Ludovicum Lucium … Retrieved August 2, 2017, from University Library Catalogue: http://cat.lib.unimelb.edu.au/; Versicle. (2017). Retrieved August 2, 2017, from Dictionary.com: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/versicle?s=t.

[v] Cicero, M. T. (1820). Cicero De officiis ; or his treatise concerning the moral duties of mankind : to which are subjoined, his moral paradoxes ; the vision of Scipio, concerning a future state ; and his letter on the duties of a magistrate ; with notes historical and explana. London: J. D. Dewick.

[vi] Cicero, M. T. (1820). Cicero De officiis ; or his treatise concerning the moral duties of mankind : to which are subjoined, his moral paradoxes ; the vision of Scipio, concerning a future state ; and his letter on the duties of a magistrate ; with notes historical and explana. London: J. D. Dewick.

[vii] Krishnamurti, B. (2017). Tamil language. Retrieved August 2, 2017, from Encyclopaedia Britannica:https://www.britannica.com/topic/Tamil-language; Moore, L. (1878). A Manual of the Trichinopoly district in the presidency of Madras. Madras: R. Hill at the Government Press.

 

Apollo Transformed: exploring connections between the collections

From cuneiform tablets to Renaissance and Baroque prints, thousands of gems are nestled in the University of Melbourne. Many of these historically charged yet often whimsical pieces can currently be viewed in Arts West: in the teaching lab, gallery and in the cabinet displays peppered about the building. Taking a closer look at some of the connections between two vibrant collections, I trace the transformations undergone throughout the centuries by the figure of Apollo, the beloved Graeco-Roman god of poetry, prophecy and light.

Figure 1: A bronze figure of Apollo, Italian, 1st century A.D.

The classics and archaeology collection of the Ian Potter Museum is the perfect starting-point for our investigation. Here we find a charming bronze figurine of the god Apollo (fig. 1). The figurine is paradigmatic of Graeco-Roman representations of the god Apollo, and of the human physique. In its idealised proportions, swayed hips and contrapposto stance, the figurine reveals its Greek pedigree, harking back to Greek types such as the famous Apollo Belvedere (of which a 2nd century AD Roman copy survives, held in the Vatican Museum). Such Hellenising bronze figurines were extremely popular in the Roman world. Much like the cheaper replicas of antiquities that were brought home by Grand Tourists as proof of cultural refinement, these figures were highly prized by elite individuals, who sought these cabinet pieces as testament to their taste and cultural connoisseurship.[1]

Figure 2: A bronze statue of Harpocrates, Italian, 1st century B.C. – 1st century A.D.

Another example is a small (and quite delightful) Roman statue of Harpocrates (fig. 2), which is currently on display on level two of the Arts West building. The widespread manufacture of these bronzes suggests the extent to which the Greek tradition was admired and emulated in the Roman world and beyond.

Figure 3: Melchior Meier, Apollo Flaying Marsyas and the Judgment of Midas, 1581

Some centuries later, the artists of Early Modern Europe devoted much attention to the surviving art and literature of classical antiquity. Observe, for example, Melchior Meier’s Apollo Flaying Marsyas and the Judgment of Midas, (1581) (fig. 3). This stunning scene draws on two entertaining episodes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses (circa 8 AD). The section on the left draws on Ovid’s account of the punishment inflicted on the satyr Marsyas for his boast that his musical talents surpassed those of the god Apollo.[2] Elsewhere, Ovid relates a musical contest between the Arcadian god Pan and Apollo, in which Apollo transforms Midas’s ears into those of a donkey for preferring Pan’s tunes.[3] Meier’s representation skilfully weaves together these two mythological tales, depicting the flayed Marsyas on the left, while the god mocks the donkey-eared Midas with Marsyas’ flayed skin on the right.

Importantly for our survey of Apollo’s guises, the depiction of mighty Apollo in the centre of the engraving shows the unmistakable influence of the Apollo Belvedere, one of the most famous of the classical sculptures that were studied by Renaissance artists. The Apollo Belvedere had been discovered near Rome in the late 15th century, and had become the subject of much interest for Early Modern artists by the early 16th century.

Figure 4: Johann Ladenspelder after Albrecht Dürer, undated

The Early Modern admiration for and adaptation of classical prototypes also emerges in an ostensibly biblically themed work, Dürer’s Adam and Eve (1504). A copy of the work by Johann Ladenspelder is held in the Baillieu Library Print Collection (fig. 4). The poses of Adam and Eve here unmistakably echo those of the Apollo Belvedere and the Medici Venus.[4] Dürer had probably seen the Apollo Belvedere – if not directly, then via an illustrated reproduction – during his trip to Italy in 1494. Comparison with the attitude of the Apollo Belvedere reveals how Dürer has reversed the pose of the classical prototype, removing the Apollonian trimmings of the quiver and chlamys, but retaining the dynamic contrapposto pose and classically idealised proportions. In his famous work Lives of the Artists, contemporary art-historian Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) explicitly mentions the Medici Venus and the Apollo Belvedere, along with other familiar figures such as the Farnese Hercules and the Laocoon, as popular models for Renaissance artists representing human figures.[5]

It is notable that Dürer draws on classical sculptural models even in a biblically themed work. The whole thus epitomises an Early Modern spirit of cultural synthesis. Apollo, in the guise of Dürer’s Adam, has certainly undergone a great deal of transformation compared with earlier representations such as our bronze figurine (fig. 1).

Figure 5: Enea Vico after Baccio Bandinelli, The Academy of Baccio Bandinelli, 1564-61

Even when artists of the 16th century began pursuing different approaches to depicting human figures, the classical models were still of central importance. Early modern approaches to representing the body combined detailed study of classical types, and newer understandings of anatomy via dissection. This Early Modern use of both dissected cadavers and classical sculptures for representing human figures is recorded in Enea Vico’s engraving of The Academy of Baccio Bandinelli (circa 1564-61), after Baccio Bandinelli (fig. 5). In this remarkable scene, the engraver has depicted the artist’s workshop as a space for fusing classical artistic theory (represented by the classical statuary in the foreground and above the mantelpiece) and anatomical study of the human body (seen in the dismembered human cadavers and bones shown in the foreground). With its idealised proportions and serpentine silhouette, the figure of a standing male in contrapposto (shown in the lower right foreground) epitomises classical representations of male figures – perhaps even inviting us to recall the image, so familiar to Early Modern artists, of the god Apollo.

Bandinelli’s scene evokes an atmosphere of fervent artistic activity, steeped in the classics and scholarly endeavour. The scene forms a rather attractive backdrop to this survey of Apollo’s journey from antiquity to the Early Modern period. During the course of this survey, Apollo has undergone a great deal of transformation – embodying, in a sense, the evolution of the classics in Early Modern Europe.

 

Caroline Ritchie, Research Assistant

 

References:

[1] Hemingway, S. 2002, ‘Posthumous Copies of Ancient Greek Sculpture: Roman Taste and Techniques’, Sculpture Review 60 (2), 26-33.

[2] Tarrant, R. J. ed. 2004, P. Ovidi Nasonis Metamorphoses, Oxford: Oxford University Press, VI, 382-400.

[3] Ibid. XI, 146-171.

[4] Panofsky, E. 1955, The Life and Times of Albrecht Dürer, Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 86.

[5] Vasari, G. (1986), Lives of the Artists, trans. by G. Bull, Middlesex: Penguin Classics, preface to part III.

“A library is a pleasure dome…”: Germaine Greer and libraries

Sarah Brown – Archivist, Germaine Greer Archive

“Libraries are reservoirs of strength, grace and wit, reminders of order, calm and continuity, lakes of mental energy, neither warm nor cold, light nor dark. The pleasure they give is steady, unorgastic, reliable, deep and long-lasting. In any library in the world I am at home, unselfconscious, still and absorbed.” [1]

Germaine Greer’s sublime quote from Daddy, We Hardly Knew You, her intensely personal book on her search for the truth about her enigmatic father, epitomises Greer’s sustained and enriching relationship with libraries. Libraries are Greer’s safe place, source of intellectual sustenance and demonstrably essential to her scholarship and writing.

Daddy, We Hardly Knew You is Greer‘s story of embarking in the 1980s on a search for her father’s true history, primarily through genealogical research in libraries and archives, beginning in Reg Greer’s home state of Tasmania, progressing to Victoria and ranging worldwide. As an experienced and skilled researcher, Greer makes some biting, often hilarious, observations in this book, and in associated research notebooks and correspondence held in the Greer Archive, about her impressions of the research institutions she encounters. She writes of her frustration at not being allowed to personally search records in the Tasmanian Registrar-General’s Department  and Public Records Office Victoria, as she was used to at the UK Public Records Office, but having to rely on intermediaries, and to add insult to injury, pay for their services She is also shocked to find the State Library of Victoria (SLV) no longer the silent scholarly “Valhalla” she recalled from her childhood when her “dream was to live in this heavenly building and know all its secrets” but like walking into “deafening, smelly chaos” [2], as the SLV transitioned to the better resourced institution we know today, and where, despite her initial impressions, she receives useful advice from knowledgeable staff of the LaTrobe Manuscripts Library. Greer’s quote on the pleasure of libraries has in fact been incorporated in the State Library of Victoria redeveloped domed reading room, and her index cards for Daddy, We Hardly Knew You are held in the collection.[3]

Towards the end of her book, Greer gratefully acknowledges the role of archivists and librarians in finally solving the riddle of her father’s birth through their assiduous research and lateral thinking. “We were closing in on our quarry. Surrounded by gifted and hard working women the lazy man didn’t have a chance. Between my new friends, Mrs Nichols and Mrs Eldershaw at the Archives Office [Tasmania], and Mrs Rosemann at the Local History Room and Miss Record of Launceston College, and his doggedest of daughters, Reg Greer was about to be flushed from his cover. His bluff was about to be called.”[4] And their combined discovery is fascinating.

Page from The Obstacle Race – Green Notebook, 1976, Germaine Greer Collection, University of Melbourne Archives, 2014.0045.00007

As one of the archivists cataloguing the Germaine Greer Archive, I have found evidence throughout of how much libraries matter to Greer. Series 2014.0045 Major Works shows their importance as she researched and wrote her major published works. This series contains many of Greer’s research notebooks, including several containing delightful sketches, notes and library citations, written as she traversed Europe seeking out forgotten women artists for her second major work, The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of Women Painters and Their Work (1979). Greer created sequences of handwritten index cards, taxonomies of reference lists, and folders of research material, often copied from library sources, for each of her major published works. [5]

Greer has an enviable capacity to work anywhere, but libraries are her essential resource, and also her comfort zone.  In an article for The Guardian, Greer, reflecting on the boredom of the bookless house of her childhood and her discovery of the joy of libraries, nominated her favourite word: “…if there were a word that remains lovable to me…it would be ‘library’. ‘Tea and buns’ may be nice, but ‘tea and buns in the library’ is rhapsodic.”[6] Greer has studied, researched and written in libraries throughout her career. In 2008, she declined an invitation to appear on an English Television Book Show, ‘The Write Place’, featuring authors’ studies/places of work, replying, “I’m afraid I don’t have a study, nor do I always work in the same place. Most of the work for Shakespeare’s Wife (2008) was done in libraries…”[7]

Cards belonging to Germaine Greer, various dates, Germaine Greer Collection, University of Melbourne Archives, 2017.0004.00045 Membership cards from the Bibliotheque Nationale, The London Library, Royal Anthropological Institute Library, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe degli Uffizi, Frick Art Reference Library, Witt Library, Bodleian Library (and an enviable charge card for the famous Liberty of London shop, c/- Greer’s agent Diana Crawfurd).

Series 2017.0004 Correspondence with Libraries provides a detailed snapshot of Greer’s continuous engagement with libraries and archives and her reliance on these institutions and their collections to support her scholarship and research for over 50 years. This series contains her interactions with over 40 institutions, large and small, public and private, British and international, arranged alphabetically, from the Augustan Reprint Society to Yorkshire Archive Service. The files include the fine detail of her scholarly use of libraries, including borrowing slips, index cards, user guides, library pamphlets, newsletters and brochures, and, always, correspondence between Greer and the institutions on ensuring she correctly cites, acknowledges, and obtains permissions for reproduction of their collection material in her publications. Greer’s fondness for libraries is perhaps best illustrated by her retention of her library and readers’ cards, dating back to 1966. Greer’s correspondence, and daily schedules, conscientiously prepared by her personal assistants, often show her preferring to eschew offers of dinners and hospitality to squeeze library research visits into her busy speaking schedules, for example visiting the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, before returning to England after speaking at the Chicago Humanities Festival in 1999.[8]

The series also contains records of Greer’s engagement in policy, campaigns and issues relating to the development and sustainability of libraries, inevitability touching on the changing roles and capacities of institutions over the years. Greer shows herself an early adopter of some technological developments, such as her support for the development of online databases such as the Perdita Project, a database enabling remote access to early modern women’s manuscripts, and her advocacy of microfilming of rare items for preservation.

Greer is also highly cognisant of the importance of unique physical collections and the research role of libraries and their staff, no doubt understanding that many of her very specialised research interests will never be candidates for digitisation, and also seeming to relish the thrill of the scholar’s chase to track down the elusive manuscript or reference, only achieved by academic knowledge and diligent research, where she leaves no stone unturned.  In 1995, her research on the short lived 17th century poet Anne Wharton (1659-1685) led her via the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, London, to Belvoir Castle, Leicestershire, where she approached the Duke of Rutland asking to see letters held in the private family archive. In her request, Greer wrote “There is so little of a personal nature that relates to Anne Wharton that I cannot bear to think we have not examined this source properly” and hoped the letters between connections of Anne Wharton would correct Wharton’s misrepresentation in history “as a pious, rich, elderly woman when she was a young libertine…” [9]

Greer has long been an advocate for libraries in both formal and informal ways. She has been on the committee of the London Library, a Friend of the Lambeth Palace Library, and a Trustee of Chawton House Library and Study Centre, “a Library for the study of the works of early English women writers (1600-1830)” which opened in 2003. She has provided tangible support by speaking at fund raising events and offering donations of her five books on early women poets, published by her self funded imprint, Stump Cross Books: The Uncollected Verse of Aphra Behn; The Collected Works of Katherine Philips: The Matchless Orinda (Vols.1-111); The Surviving Works of Anne Wharton. Correspondence also shows Greer has a finely tuned ear for the competitive rare book and manuscripts auction scene, writing, for example, of the Bodleian being outbid for a coveted Anne Wharton manuscript at a Sotheby’s sale in 2004, by the better funded Beineke Library at Yale.[10] And she has maintained an almost visceral hatred for the greedy opportunists in the book trade who make money by defacing antiquarian books by removing single plates to sell.

It would probably be easier to note libraries Greer has not used than ones she has, as her research interests have led her to access diverse libraries and collecting institutions everywhere. She has had extended relationships with certain libraries, including the libraries of the institutions she has been attached to, the University of Cambridge and University of Warwick. The University of Cambridge Library she nominates as her “second favourite library”, after the British Library,[11] and she has advocated for better resourcing for Warwick.[12]

Press coverage collage used on cover of The Great British Library Disaster (1993/1994): A report by the British Library Regular Readers’ Group (RRG), Germaine Greer Collection, University of Melbourne Archives, 2017.0004.00012

Greer’s relationship with the British Library, her “library of libraries”, is longstanding and has had complex periods, at times setting her at odds with British Library staff and the wider library profession.  Greer was involved with the British Library Regular Readers’ Group (RRG) in the 1990s. This lobby group produced a series of reports, including The Great British Library Disaster (1993/1994), critical of the prolonged redevelopment, cost blow outs, and loss of the Round Reading Room at Bloomsbury with the proposed move to the new British Library building at St. Pancras. Greer took an active interest in reviews of the British Library and the move and was publicly critical of the management of the British Library and its service to its readers in this period. In a 1994 article written for The Guardian, she decried what she saw as an increasing loss of readers’ rights and inadequate care of the books in the British Library’s care[13] and Greer’s script for a programme made for BBC2 TV in the same year, went so far as to claim “For librarians readers are raiders”; that “the librarians hate being in the library as much as the readers love it”, and concluding that the books awaited liberation by the readers “from “their book prisons and the dream battle that is waged between them and their jailers.” [14] The protracted redevelopment of the British Library at St Pancras was eventually completed and the new library was opened by HM The Queen in June 1998. Correspondence some years later, concerning arrangements for the launch event of The Whole Woman on International Women’s Day, 8 March 1999, indicates relations with librarians had been happily restored. The launch was scheduled to be held at the British Library, but appears to have been cancelled in solidarity with industrial action by British Library staff on their working conditions.[15]

The landscape of libraries has radically changed and continues to change, with constant questioning and redefining of operating environments, roles, functions, and funding. In the digital environment, where library resources are increasingly able to be accessed remotely and libraries may no longer need to be physically visited to be used, academic campuses are investing in “The sticky campus” [architecture and facilities] “designed to attract if not tether a wireless-digital-era student…” [16].

The Greer Archive provides insights on libraries from the perspective of a highly skilled and dedicated scholar, and confirms the ongoing role and importance of specialised collections and the knowledge of their curators and librarians to researchers like Greer. Perhaps the question for the future of libraries is whether it is researchers like Greer who will become an increasingly rare breed?

The last words also belong to Greer, the reader and researcher, the connoisseur and, sometimes quixotic, supporter of libraries. For Germaine Greer, “A library is a pleasure dome, bulging with honey dew and dripping with the milk of paradise…If readers had their way they would build nests in the stacks and sleep pillowed on the books that have meant most to them, drugged with the scent of words.” [17]

I would like to acknowledge the assistance of the “Greer Team” in preparing this blog. My grateful thanks to former assistant archivist Dr Millie Weber who made the Correspondence with Libraries series accessible with her elegant listing; assistant archivists Lachlan Glanville, for pointing me to Greer’s provocative writing about the British Library of the 1990s, and Kate Hodgetts, for the beautiful photographs; special thanks to Dr Rachel Buchanan, Curator, Greer Archive, for her unfailing support and confidence in me and all her colleagues.

[1] Germaine Greer. Daddy, We Hardly Knew You. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1989 p. 70.

[2] Ibid. p.69,71

[3] SLV Reference: MS 1287:  Index cards containing information on the Greer family tree, compiled during research for the book ‘Daddy we hardly knew you’ (1990)

[4] Daddy, We Hardly Knew You.p.239

[5] Series 2014.0039: Research and Reference Card Indexes contains index cards for The Female Eunuch and other works. All cards in this series have been digitised.

[6] Germaine Greer, ‘Flashy Libraries? I prefer to get my adventure out of the books not the building;’ The Guardian, 12/2/2007. Item 2014.0046.01091, Unit 21

[7] Publishers UK: Shakespeare’s Wife Paperback Edition Bloomsbury [Germaine Greer to Katie Bond, Sky Book Show, 23/10/2008]. Held in Item 2014.0052.00004, Unit 1

[8] Folger Shakespeare [Library – Correspondence]. Held in 2017.0004.00025, Unit 2

[9] Belvoir Castle [Correspondence, 11/9/1995]. Held in Item 2017.0004.00006, Unit 1

[10] Bodleian [Library – Correspondence]. Held in Item 2017.0004.00010, Unit 1

[11] TV One Foot In The Past 29/6/94 [Greer draft script]. Held in Item 2017.002.00153, Unit 4

[12] Germaine Greer, ‘Why Tim Clist should have had a year out’, The Independent, Oct 2000. Item 2014.0046.00633, Unit 11

[13] Germaine Greer, ‘Book up for a long hot summer in library land’, The Guardian, 30/5/1994. Item 2014.0046.00375, Unit 6

[14] TV One Foot In The Past 29/6/94 op.cit. Greer’s view of a “war” between readers and librarians was strongly refuted by Anthony Kenny Chair, British Library Board (AK/GG, 8/8/1994. Held in Item 2017.0004.00012)

[15] Publishers UK: [Transworld] The Whole Woman – Launch Event 8/3/1999 [GG/Marianne Velmans, 8/3/1999]. Held in Item 2014.0052.00043, Unit 3

[16] Ray Edgar, ‘Look and learn’, The Age 22/7/2017.

[17] TV One Foot In The Past 29/6/94 op.cit.

Finding Dürer’s Perspective

In the early 16th century Nuremberg-born artist Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) changed the landscape of his artistic practise – literally. Taking his cue from Leon Battista Alberti (1404 –1472) and Piero della Francesca (1415–1492), Dürer began to introduce the ‘secret art of perspective’ into his works.[1]  He used measurement and geometry to produce images that created the illusion of depth in a flat pictorial-plane. Over five hundred years later, the University of Melbourne’s Print Collection set out to celebrate Dürer’s cross-disciplinary approach to art and mathematics with the Dürer Drawing Day!

In the beginning of his artistic career, Dürer did not have the precise understanding of perspective that is associated with him today. Dürer struggled in his very early works to separate the different pictorial-planes accurately enough to create the illusion of depth. In The Prodigal Son Amid the Swine (1496) for example, a tree appears to sprout from the roof of a house in the background. The year 1510 is a turning point for Dürer’s artistic practise. After his travels around Bologna, he had gained and practised knowledge of the art of perspective sufficiently to apply it in his own drawings. The Large Cannon (1518) is an impressive example of Dürer’s mastering of the overlapping plane and ability to create the impression of depth in a two-dimensional landscape.

Unknown Copier after Albrecht Dürer, The Prodigal Son and the Swine, engraving

Dürer’s (not so concisely named) 1525 Painter’s Manual: A Manual of Measurement of Lines, Areas, and Solids by means of Compass and Ruler (Underweysung der Messung mit dem Zirckel und Richtscheyt) consolidated all the information about perspective that he had learnt in Italy.  The manual starts with an explanation of how to draw the most basic line. Each section of the book develops this line into more and more complex forms. These  forms, including spirals, columns, foreshortened squares, two and three-dimensional shapes, then form the artistic building blocks for drawing objects that appear to occupy ‘real’ space. The Manual was designed as a ‘step by step’ guide for aspiring art students, although Dürer concludes with a series of ‘cheats’ designed to create ‘easy’ perspective (perhaps for the lazy student).

Albrecht Dürer, Draftsman Drawing a Lute (The Manual of Measurement), woodcut, 1525

The Dürer Drawing Day took its inspiration from some of the final ‘cheat’ images in the Manual. Two 1525 woodcuts show contraptions designed by Dürer to (apparently) ‘easily’ draw accurate images of people and objects.  The second of these shows a draftsman drawing a lute. To paraphrase Dürer’s own description, a draftsman uses ‘a strong thread’ hammered into the wall to create ‘the near point of sight’ and places a vertical frame parallel to the wall. Then ‘a lute or other object to your liking’ is placed on the opposite end of the table to the wall. The near point of sight is placed on parts of the lute and string attached with hot wax to the frame to mark where the near point of sight passes through the frame. The points that the crossed strings denote are then marked on ‘your drawing tablet’ creating an accurate dotted outline for the lute.[2] This complex description visually translates to the seemingly simple diagram shown in the woodcut.

Mastering an Old Master’s Technique

For the Drawing Day, this drawing device was recreated (complete with lute) to see whether Dürer’s ‘shortcut’ really worked. The experimental music collection at the Grainger Museum provided a back-drop for the Melbourne Print Collection’s attempt at an artistic experimentation of their own. With the exception of a few modern substitutes (masking tape instead of wax and Bluetac instead of a nail) a prototype Dürer drawing device was demonstrated to the assembled audience (including student artists) on the day.

Our modern reconstruction of Durer’s drawing apparatus

Theoretically, the device appeared to be a success. However, it was quickly discovered that the practical application was flawed. It required such meticulous positioning of the frame, object, paper and threads, that the slightest movement of any part of the device could undo the accuracy of the drawing. To create a perfect curve (as is required with a lute) was also incredibly time-consuming, as it required a lot of points to be marked in close proximity to each other – with each point requiring a minimum of two people to plot. A frustrated audience, who also struggled with Dürer’s shortcut, speculated whether the device was a literal drawing tool for Dürer or a visual representation of what a draftsman imagines when creating perspective or even a final joke on artists who did not take the time to read whole manual…

Alongside the drawing device, a number of Dürer’s prints (held at the Baillieu Library) were displayed for attendees of the Drawing Day to get up close to. The contrast between the complexity of the content of images (such as Melancholia, 1514), and the sparse and simplistic outlines produced by the drawing device was stark.  It was hard to imagine how the selection of dots and dashes on our page could ever evolve into a lute, let alone a detailed allegorical figure.

Selection of Durer prints from the Melbourne print collection

At the end of the Drawing Day the lute remained aloof and very difficult to draw. It seems most likely that alongside his understanding of geometry and his imaginative inventions, Dürer added a healthy dash of artistic talent to his works to make them masterpieces.

A masterpiece by one attendee of the Durer Drawing Day

With thanks to the Grainger Museum.

To learn more about the Baillieu’s Print Collection click here – http://library.unimelb.edu.au/collections/special-collections/print-collection

 

Katherine Reeve, recipient of the International Museums and Collections Award 2017

 

References 

[1] Walter L. Strauss, Introduction in Painter’s Manual: A Manual of Measurement of Lines, Areas, and Solids by means of Compass and Ruler (1525), (Abaris Books, New York; 1977), p.7.

[2] Albrecht Dürer, Painter’s Manual: A Manual of Measurement of Lines, Areas, and Solids by means of Compass and Ruler (1525), trans. Walter L. Strauss (Abaris Books, New York; 1977)

Number of posts found: 411

Post type

Previous posts