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For 11/23 |
Assignment 12
Education etc.
Holbein's
"The Knight" [From his Dance of
Death series from 1538]
Live
by the sword...etc.
Monday: (remember there is no Wednesday class.)
Read Davies: pp. 417-435
Read: pp. 33-49 in this: Grant_FoundationsMedievalUniversity-2.8MB.pdf
Essay: Feel free to
look more closely at some of the graphic things below and follow your nose
through that material. You could
also compare the Stevens education with that of the Medieval university from
the Grant reading. Remember, you
need to have 5 essays and the bigger one done soon.
Graphic Arts: Printing
Woodcut: a form of relief printing,
meaning that you carve away what you don't want to be inked. The ink is rolled, or daubed onto the
block and pressed onto paper.
Pretty straight forward technique.
Woodcut prints were prevalent in the Middle Ages and were used as
illustrations in early printed books.
Woodcut blocks could be set in right with the type allowing for text and
image on the same page. Holbein
and DŸrer were a couple of the best in this medium [see below], however there
are many, many excellent examples.
Engraving is a form of intaglio printmaking. Intaglio
means carving in Italian. In this
technique marks are carved into a metal plate usually using burins, which are
sort of like tiny chisels. The
plate is then rubbed down with ink and then the ink is wiped off the surface,
leaving ink in the carved marks. This is then pressed onto paper that has
usually been dampened a bit to soften it up so that it will press up into the
engraved marks filled with ink.
Prints made by process of engraving started to become prevalent in
Europe in the 15th c. It grew out
of the craft of engraving gold and silver and armor decoration. Albrecht DŸrer [see below] and Martin
Schongauer [example
of Schongauer] [late 15th and early 16th centuries] are considered the
masters of this technique. If you
want to see what a real engraving looks like for real, look at the money in
your pocket.
Etching is also intaglio, but instead of carving marks onto a metal plate, the
marks are acid-etched into the plate.
A wax resist is applied to a metal plate and the wax film is scratched
off to reveal the metal, which is then put in acid and the revealed parts are
eaten away leaving etched channels in the plate. Wipe on and off the ink, leaving ink in the channels, then
print. Daniel Hopfer [example
of Hopfer], trained as an decorative etcher of armor is generally credited with
being the first to use this technique for printmaking. Both he and DŸrer were making etched
prints in the early 1500s.
Rembrandt (17th c.) was a master etcher and mixed several of these
techniques together. [See below.]
I've put us some examples of
each technique below. Knock
yourselves out.
The following woodcuts are from Holbein's series "The Dance of Death," ca. 1538. The genre of a dance with death occurs in poetry, drama, song, and as you see here, graphic art. Although it doesn't explicitly refer to the plagues that had repeatedly ravaged Europe starting in the 14th century, cutting down roughly 50% of the population*, it seems reasonable to suggest that the preponderance of this motif was in large part inspired by the seemingly random nature of Death's victims, although morality appears to be integrated into the modes of death. I selected only a few of the 49 that are printed in the edition put up online by Project Gutenberg. [Link to the online edition.]
*Estimates range from 30% to 60%. Records of specific towns show as much
as 70%, while others were barely touched.
Above
images: Left to right from the top: The Bishop, The Abbot, The Astrologer,
The
Ploughman (notice his heavy plow), The Drunkard, The Preacher, and The Last
Judgment (notice the cosmos with the earth in the center, which is also seen in
the astrologers study).
Except for
the last one, which is not really a dance with Death, notice how Death operates
in each situation.
It is
interesting to note how much these dances focus on scenes of a religious
official being led off to die.
Such officials were often seen as corrupt or impotent. The prevalent belief, that the plague
was divine retrubution for sinful lives, doesn't look good for the church,
which should have done a better job at guiding the people and themselves to a
less sinful life.
Albrecht DŸrer
(1471-1528)
In my opinion the best woodcuts
ever made were by DŸrer.
[I should note that DŸrer had
professional craftsmen do the carving.]
Here is an example of both the
print and the block it was printed from:
Samson_Rending_the_Lion-print.jpg
Samson_Rending_the_Lion-block.jpg
Here is a self portrait
(painting) he did: Durer-1526-auto.jpg.
Here is one of the best
resolution images of a Durer woodcut that I could locate. These prints are really amazing things
to see in person. There is
something about the line and the contrast and the scale that are mesmerizing. I suggest downloading this and looking
at it close up.
Durer-Flight_into_Egypt.jpg [11.75" x 8.25"]
Here is a nice collection of reasonably high resolution images of his series of woodcuts illustrating the Apocalypse from Connecticut College's collection: "Apocalypse Now". This site also has links to some excellent Rembrandt etchings, which are (in my opinion) the finest etchings ever made. The images on this site don't even come close to what they really look like, but they give you a vague idea.
Finally, here is DŸrer's most famous and enigmatic engraving, "Melancolia I" (1514). This is a relatively high resolution image and almost gives you a sense of its presence. Feel free to explore this image, and look for some material about this print on the internet. It has been written about extensively. Notice all the tools, the magic square, the sky... etc. The whole thing is fascinating.
Melancholia_I [2.5MB] [12" x 10"]
I mentioned this in class a couple
of weeks ago when discussing witches.
I thought you might like to see it.
[Looks to me like an etching.]
Here are some links to other sites with Holbein images and links to other Dances with Death:
http://www.dodedans.com/Eholbein-simulachres.htm
and
http://www.archive.org/details/lessimulachreshi00holb
Presentation
Resources- Presentation will be given on Monday since there is no Wednesday
class.
Bibliograph-Torture-Crime-Punishment.htm- for Virgil
Bibliography-Beverages_in_History.htm- for Evan
Renaissance_Economics - for Eric
– Usury, Capitalism, Banks, and Insurance. Money breeding money. Good or Bad?
Look at the file called "Renaissance-Economics-Bibliography.htm" first.
Back to
Syllabus
[EuroHist-HHS123-F09] My
email – HHS123F09@mifami.org
Optional: Interesting article from NYT 10/24/09
Glanz-Henry V's Greatest Victory is Besieged by Academia-Agincourt-1415