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Baroque and Rococo pictorial imagery: The 1758-60 Hertel edition of Ripa's 'Iconologia.'
English, German, Latin
- GenresArt
408 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1971
About the author
Cesare Ripa
105 books2 followersCesare Ripa was an Italian iconographer who worked for Cardinal Anton Maria Salviati as a cook and butler.
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May 6, 2008
In 1593, Cesare Ripa published his Iconologia - a collection of "Moral Emblems", or illustrated descriptions (though it wasn't illustrated until the 1607 edition) portraying allegorical "personifications" of moral themes inspired by classical literature.
In it, "Envy" is portrayed as a shriveled, nude old woman with snakes for hair and eating a human heart (for envy consumes the envious). "Vigilance" is a handsome elder woman holding a lamp and book, accompanied by a crane with a stone in its claw (legend maintains that cranes do this so, should it fall asleep while guarding its sleeping flock, the noise of the falling stone would alert the others), and "Dreams" is a recumbent half-man half-skeleton with a caduceus in one hand and in the other a cornucopia issuing a black cloud (sleep, where it is said "men learn what death is like" was believed to be caused by vapors rising to the head).
Ripa's book proved so popular that dozens of subsequent versions were published in multiple languages, embellished and re-illustrated. One of the most renowned of these was Johann Georg Hertel's 1758-60 German edition illustrated by Gottfried Eichler the Younger, published here with copious notes (Hertel almost entirely did away with the textual descriptions) by Dover Publications as Baroque and Rococo Pictorial Imagery.
This edition is noteworthy not simply due to Eichler's stunningly beautiful woodcut illustrations or Hertel's Protestant interpretations of Ripa's Catholic symbolism, but, unique to this edition, the inclusion of "fato storico sagro" ("allusion from religious history") in the form of an additional illustrated scene occurring just behind the initial allegory, adding yet another level to the already complex dialog of left-brain text to right-brain imagery.
This leads to some tableaus of breathtaking depth, such as that of "Imagination" which displays a richly-dressed, winged woman, swatting away the bees of foolish thoughts which buzz around her head in the foreground, two travelers observing a man sleeping under a tree in the middle-ground meant to represent the fable of the sleeping Hebrew who dreamed of riding a donkey over narrow passes in high mountains which, upon waking, frightened him to death, then, almost unnoticeable in the sprawling high mountains of the background, is his dream itself.
Some of these "fatti" come from biblical sources (behind the personification of "Hunger," manna from heaven rains down upon the Israelites in the desert), some classical (behind "Mechanics", the Greek inventor Daedalus shows off one of his "mechanical beings") and yet others inventions of the authors themselves (behind "The World" is a circular labyrinth; a baby stands at the entrance, an industrious youth in the outer ring, a fruit-bearing middle-aged woman in the middle ring, an old man in the last ring, and in the center - the "goal" - stands death with sickle and hourglass).
Interestingly "America," having no classical references to draw upon, appears cobbled together from invented symbols and misconceptions contemporary to the authors.
As the book progresses, symbols begin to compound upon one another. A bear shown having murdered a clutch of lion cubs in "Retribution", and a lion shown roaring in rage in "Revenge" are later shown - lion killing the bear - in "Punishment" and the personification of "Painting" leans on a portrait of the personification of "Poetry." Finally, perhaps an appropriate last allusion for a book review - a representative of literature is shown as a bespectacled monkey, his hand guided by the figure of "Liberty" being unshackled by a cherub, writing in a book as the personification of Envy stands nearby.
In it, "Envy" is portrayed as a shriveled, nude old woman with snakes for hair and eating a human heart (for envy consumes the envious). "Vigilance" is a handsome elder woman holding a lamp and book, accompanied by a crane with a stone in its claw (legend maintains that cranes do this so, should it fall asleep while guarding its sleeping flock, the noise of the falling stone would alert the others), and "Dreams" is a recumbent half-man half-skeleton with a caduceus in one hand and in the other a cornucopia issuing a black cloud (sleep, where it is said "men learn what death is like" was believed to be caused by vapors rising to the head).
Ripa's book proved so popular that dozens of subsequent versions were published in multiple languages, embellished and re-illustrated. One of the most renowned of these was Johann Georg Hertel's 1758-60 German edition illustrated by Gottfried Eichler the Younger, published here with copious notes (Hertel almost entirely did away with the textual descriptions) by Dover Publications as Baroque and Rococo Pictorial Imagery.
This edition is noteworthy not simply due to Eichler's stunningly beautiful woodcut illustrations or Hertel's Protestant interpretations of Ripa's Catholic symbolism, but, unique to this edition, the inclusion of "fato storico sagro" ("allusion from religious history") in the form of an additional illustrated scene occurring just behind the initial allegory, adding yet another level to the already complex dialog of left-brain text to right-brain imagery.
This leads to some tableaus of breathtaking depth, such as that of "Imagination" which displays a richly-dressed, winged woman, swatting away the bees of foolish thoughts which buzz around her head in the foreground, two travelers observing a man sleeping under a tree in the middle-ground meant to represent the fable of the sleeping Hebrew who dreamed of riding a donkey over narrow passes in high mountains which, upon waking, frightened him to death, then, almost unnoticeable in the sprawling high mountains of the background, is his dream itself.
Some of these "fatti" come from biblical sources (behind the personification of "Hunger," manna from heaven rains down upon the Israelites in the desert), some classical (behind "Mechanics", the Greek inventor Daedalus shows off one of his "mechanical beings") and yet others inventions of the authors themselves (behind "The World" is a circular labyrinth; a baby stands at the entrance, an industrious youth in the outer ring, a fruit-bearing middle-aged woman in the middle ring, an old man in the last ring, and in the center - the "goal" - stands death with sickle and hourglass).
Interestingly "America," having no classical references to draw upon, appears cobbled together from invented symbols and misconceptions contemporary to the authors.
As the book progresses, symbols begin to compound upon one another. A bear shown having murdered a clutch of lion cubs in "Retribution", and a lion shown roaring in rage in "Revenge" are later shown - lion killing the bear - in "Punishment" and the personification of "Painting" leans on a portrait of the personification of "Poetry." Finally, perhaps an appropriate last allusion for a book review - a representative of literature is shown as a bespectacled monkey, his hand guided by the figure of "Liberty" being unshackled by a cherub, writing in a book as the personification of Envy stands nearby.
Displaying 1 of 1 review