Makonde Shetani Art from the Collection of Norman Miller
On Display in the Sherman Art Library
5/1 - 7/31 2012
Norman Miller, an specialist on East African art & culture has recently published his field notes on Makonde Shetani art, and depictions of witchcraft, Encounters with Witchcraft. This exhibit showcases some examples of Makonde art from his personal collection, as well as several texts about Makonde art, culture and witchcraft. For further information, click on the link below.
http://researchguides.dartmouth.edu/makonde
Ten Bamboo Studio Collection of Calligraphy and Painting
One of the very first examples of multi-color wood block printing, the Ten Bamboo Studio Collection of Calligraphy and Painting, was first published in China by Hu Zhengyan in the early 17th century, c. 1633. Named after the bamboo growing in front of his studio, these editions are masterpieces of color woodblock printing, and consist of eight subjects, bound as books, pairing each image with a matching poem by a master calligrapher.
The volumes are divided by the subject matter: instructions, orchids, bamboo, plums, round fans, stones, fruit, birds & flowers. The poems were chosen from a variety of old masters, and paired with water color sketches. Hu Zhengyan assembled a team of seven other artists to assist him in creating the wood blocks and calligraphy for these editions.
These volumes employed an innovative printing technique called tou-pan, that allowed for subtle, multi-color printing, and replicated the look and feel of delicate watercolor paintings. This enabled these volumes to serve as painting manual, predating the famous Mustard Seed Garden Manual of the late 16th century by several decades.
Tou-pan printing employed different sizes of blocks are designed according to the colors and shades of the painting that needs to be printed. The painting was traced onto sheets of transparent paper and the sheets are covered reversely on the blocks so that the mirror images of the designs can be carved out. Following the prescribed order, the blocks are printed onto a sheet of paper. Some blocks create overlapped areas and as a result, different shades of colors will appear and the final product will look almost exactly the same as the original painting.
Shi zhu zhai shu hua ce by Hu Zhengyan [no publication date, call #726.4 H86s] from the Sherman Art Library Special Collection will be on display in the Sherman Art Library reference room, 12/13/11 through 3/13/12
Das Turnierbuch fur Rene d'Anjou & Historia de Alejandro Magno
These two facsimiles editions from the Sherman Art Library Special Collection, of original Fifteenth Century manuscripts, are important to researchers specialized in art, history, literature and culture.The original Tournament Book of Rene d'Anjou, now kept in the Russian National Library in Saint Petersburg, is known throughout the world for its remarkable paintings and text. Produced in the last half of the 15th century, the manuscript contains the only version known of a poetic description of the Pas de Saumur, a joust festival that Rene d'Anjou had organized for his knights at Saumur in the year 1446. Rene d'Anjou was a pivotal figure in European history, and an ambitious sovereign as well as an educated patron of the arts. The tournaments he arranged were famous throughout Europe. The masterfully executed illustrations are based on the lost original drawings of Barthelemy d'Eyck, an excellent painter who was active for a long period at Rene's court, and the manuscript also offers a wealth of valuable material for studies in medieval heraldry, as the illustrations show a great number of coat of arms and crests.The facsimile edition of the Historia de Alejandro Magno is a copy of one the oldest and most luxurious of the many manuscripts that illustrate the story of Alexander the Great. Filled with fanciful and masterful miniatures, this work held pride of place in the library of Isabel the First of Castile (1451-1504), and is now in the Bibliotheque Royale de Belgique. This story of Alexander the Great, written in Old French prose, takes as its model the narrative text of the Prelis, a battle history written in the 10th century by Archbishop Leo of Naples. In addition to narrating historic events, its content evolved into a novel of adventure with descriptions of exotic voyages and legends that reflected the spirit of medieval society.The books will be on display in the Carpenter Hall Foyer from 8/9/2011 - 11/25/2011
The Art of Memory
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
" 'Memory' labels a diverse set of cognitive capacities by which we retain information and reconstruct past experiences, usually for present purposes. Memory is one of the most important ways by which our histories animate our current actions and experiences. Most notably, the human ability to conjure up long-gone but specific episodes of our lives is both familiar and puzzling, and is a key aspect of personal identity. Memory seems to be a source of knowledge. We remember experiences and events which are not happening now, so memory differs from perception. We remember events which really happened, so memory is unlike pure imagination. Yet, in practice, there can be close interactions between remembering, perceiving, and imagining. Remembering is often suffused with emotion, and is closely involved in both extended affective states such as love and grief, and socially significant practices such as promising and commemorating. It is essential for much reasoning and decision-making, both individual and collective. It is connected in obscure ways with dreaming. Some memories are shaped by language, others by imagery. Much of our moral and social life depends on the peculiar ways in which we are embedded in time. Memory goes wrong in mundane and minor, or in dramatic and disastrous ways."
Four artists books from the Art Special Collection in the Sherman Art Library, illustrating different aspects of memory and memory loss, are in display in the Carpenter Hall Foyer, from December 21, 2010 - April 8, 2011.
Materia Medica
The Sherman Art Library Special Collections includes outstanding manuscript facsimiles of early herbals, or Materia Medica. The term materia medica was derived from the title of a 1st century work by the Greek physician Dioscorides entitled De materia medica libri quinque in Latin, which translates as concerning medical matter in five volumes, in English.
Materia Medica has since come to refer to both ancient herbals and modern pharmacopeias. Materia Medica were among the first written works produced. These works contain physical descriptions of plants, minerals, animals, even the seasons, as well as their medicinal, culinary or toxic properties, and often include associated myths and legends.
Facsimiles on display in Carpenter Hall through 12/1/10 are:
Le livre des simples medecines. Barcelona : Moleiro Editor, c2001
Medicina antiqua : Codex Vindobonensis 93 der Oterreichischen Nationalbibliothek : Kommentar / von Hans Zotter. Graz : Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, c1996
Theatrum sanitatis : Biblioteca casanatense. Barcelona : M. Moleiro Editor, S.A., c1999
Theriaka y Alexipharmaka di Nicandro. Barcelona : Moleiro, 1997
The Directed Gaze: Ursula K. LeGuin's Direction of the Road, illustrated with an anamorphic woodcut by Aaron Johnson
The word anamorphosis comes from the Greek: ana -back, and morphe -form. Viewed from a specific vantage point, the distorted image recovers a recognizable form, and often seems to lift up from the actual surface.
Anamorphic forms and devices were explored extensively during the Renaissance as scientists and artists attempted to understand how vision and perspective worked. Illustrations of early anamorphic devices by Leonardo Da Vinci, Egnatio Danti, and Pietro Accolti are displayed along with artist Aaron Johnson's contemporary anamorphic woodcut, that accompanies a special publication of Ursula K. Le Guin's short story, the Direction of the Road.
Le Guin's story of a tree's perspective of the changing 20th century world around it is perhaps uniquely suited to anamorphic illustration.
The exhibit will be displayed in the foyer of Carpenter Hall 5/14/09 - 10/23/09
The Art of Traveling
Student Travel Journals from the 2008 Art History FSP
Travelers throughout history and across the globe have often recorded their impressions in journals. This exhibition features the travel journals of thirteen of the sixteen students from the Spring '08 Art History Foreign Study Program. The journals are embellished with sketches made on site, postcards, tickets, photographs and receipts. These journals offer a glimpse into the life of Dartmouth students abroad.
This exhibition was curated by Associate Professor Angela Rosenthal, and FSP students Caroline Cima '10 and Meghan McDavid '10, with the generous help of Patrick Dunphy, Exhibitions Designer of the Hood Museum of Art.
The exhibit will be on Display in Carpenter Hall between September 18 and December 3, 2008. The opening will be on October 1, at 4:15pm.
Artists' Books from Taller Lenateros, Chiapas, Mexico
On exhibit in Carpenter Hall, Sherman Art Library 6/4/2007 - 9/24/2007
Founded in 1975, by the Mexican Poet Ambar Past, Taller Lenateros is a cooperative artists workshop, located in the city San Cristobal, in Chiapas Mexico. The cooperative works to preserve and promote Mayan culture, primarily in the form of books, prints, and handmade paper.
One of the first publications from Taller Lenateros was Bon Tintes Naturales, in 1980. Published in Spanish and Tzotzil, this manual was inexpensively produced on newsprint, and contains natural dye recipes, plant illustrations, a map for locating supplies around San Cristobal, as well as poetry and commentary. This publication was an outgrowth of the Natural Dye School, a women's cooperative established in San Cristobal, to preserve the ancient recipes and methods for naturally dyeing fibers. The school has grown into a self supporting institution, and holds workshops across Mexico, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. Bon Tintes Naturales is now in a second print run.
After the success of the Natural Dye School, and the publication of the Bon Tintes Naturales, Taller Lenateros began to focus more on paper making and book production. Conjuros y Ebriedades : Cantos de Mujeres Mayas [ Conjuring Spells and Drinking Songs of Mayan Women], is one of their most important publications. Songs, poems and stories were collected from Mayan women in remote villages for 23 years, and the finished volume is the first book to be written, illustrated, and published by the Mayan people in over 1000 years
Published in Tzotzil with a Spanish translation, the paper is made from palm fronds, recycled log wood, and soot. The three-dimensional cover was created by Norwegian sculptor Gitte Daehlin and is cast from paper made of recycled cardboard boxes, corn silk and coffee.
In 1992, Taller Lenateros began published La Jicara [ the Gourd], a journal to promote the literature, history and art of the Mayan people. The first edition of 200 copies, numero zero, sold out in ten minutes . Since then, edition size has grown to 1,000 copies, and some editions are devoted to special topics, such as La Jicara 8 (1998), which is an issue devoted to celebrating peace, after the end of the civil war in Guatemala. This issue took twenty people three years to assemble. It contains 150 silk screen prints, tipped in facsimiles of letters, telegrams and postcards, from politicians, soldiers and civilians during the civil war. Books with in books have been created, and foldouts of news sheets from the era, as well as loose, one of kind prints are enclosed. The journal is wrapped with a string held in a gourd clasp, which was hand carved in the village of Rabinal in Guatemala.
This volume of the journal is a truly unique accomplishment in bookmaking.
Taller Lenateros continues to create and publish beautiful artists' books, such as Words of Chan K'in : Lacandon Jungle (2000). Created as a tribute to Chan K'in Viejo, patriarch of the Lacandon Maya, who died on the 23rd of December of 1996, at the age of 116. Issued in wrapper of molded paper, the title is printed on leaf which has been glued to box and threaded with a piece of vine. The paper was made with pansy flowers and renewable fibers from the rainforest, such as banana trunks, pine needles, oak leaves, ferns, corn husks, lichen, vines and palm fronds.
Two drawings by Hokusai
On display in Carpenter Hall July - September 2006
Two facsimiles of drawings by Hokusai from the collection of William Rothenstein Published by Essex House Press in Gloucestershire, 1910, #6 of an edition of 50
*Drawing 1* _Guardian of Heaven_
The symbolic figure of a tiger, the mighty guardian of Heaven [drawn] as a vital and natural expression of forceful conviction. W. Rothenstein
*Drawing 2* _A Goblin_
The furtive presence of evil . . . this drawing of a malicious spirit shows a beauty of touch set down with a marvelous precision. W. Rothenstein
Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) was an Edo period Japanese artist, painter, wood engraver, born in Edo (now Tokyo). Author of the 15-volume sketchbook Hokusai manga (begun in 1814) and the block prints Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, (created around 1823-1829), which includes "In the Hollow of a Wave off the Coast at Kanagawa." He is still considered one of the outstanding figures of the ukiyo-e, or "pictures of the floating world" (transient pleasure-seeking, i.e., the world of theaters, restaurants, teahouses, courtesans and geishas), school of printmaking. Hokusai is also renowned for his erotic prints in shunga style. In fact many of the prints of both Hokusai and Sharaku were actually advertisements for brothel houses and theaters, performances or idol portraits of actors and teahouse girls. His art was an important source of inspiration for many European impressionists like Claude Monet and American artist James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903).
The largest of Hokusai's works is the 15-volume collection Hokusai Manga, a book crammed with inventive sketches that was published between 1814 -1878. Its caricatures are often considered the precedent to modern manga.
Literally translated, manga means "random (or whimsical) pictures". The word first came into common usage in the late 18th century, with the publication of such works as Suzuki Kankei's "Mankaku zuihitsu" (1771) and Santo Kyoden's picturebook "Shiji no yukikai" (1798)?and in the early 19th century with such works as Aikawa Minwa's "Manga hyakujo" (1814) and the celebrated Hokusai manga containing assorted drawings from the sketchbook of Hokusai.
*From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokusai
Der Rosenroman des Berthaud d'Achy & Libro del Caballero Zifar
On Display in the Carpenter Foyer, Jan. 13 - May 26 2006
The Roman de la Rose (Romance of the Rose) was one of the most popular French poems of the late medieval period of European history. Modeled on Ovid's Art of Love (about 1 BC), the poem is composed of more than 21,000 lines and survives in more than 300 manuscripts, including this facsimile edition of the Vatican Library's lavishly illuminated 13th century manuscript, Der Rosenroman des Berthaud d'Achy.
It was written in two stages. The first 4,058 lines, written by Guillaume de Lorris circa 1230, describes the attempts of a courtier to woo his beloved. This part of the story is set in a walled garden the interior of which represents romance, the exterior everyday life. The rose of the title is seen as a symbol of the lady's love. It is unclear whether Lorris considered his version to be incomplete. It breaks off with the rose imprisoned in the castle of Jealousy with the Lover disconsolate on the outside. The poem was taken up by Jean de Meun around 1275, an academic at the University of Paris, who continued it for another 17,724 lines, which cover religion, philosophy, history, science, sex, love, marriage, and women. Meun's discussion of love is considered more philosophical but more misogynistic and bawdy.
The work was both very popular and very controversial, but also provoked attacks many other writers and moralists of the 14th and 15th centuries, and is thought to have influenced many other authors, including Chaucer.
The Book of the Knight Zifar (also known as The Romance of the Knight Zifar) is a late 15th century, chivalresque novel that tells the story of Zifar and his family following their departure from the kingdom of Tarta hounded by misfortune. On their journey in search of a brighter future, God puts him to the test many times but Zifar accepts his misfortune with Christian resignation. Accompanied by a clever rogue, he sets off for Mentsn, a kingdom at war with invaders, and proves himself to be such a fine general that he defeats the enemy and is proclaimed king. The wife and children who had gone missing many years before then reappear. Just when the tale seems to end a new part of the story begins. His younger son, Roboan, not content with being the second son, asks his father for permission to seek new opportunities as he had done in other parts of the world. Zifar agrees but first he speaks to his children at length about their behavior in the world, how they should treat others and defend the Church, impart justice etc. Roboan sets off on his adventure and applies his father's teaching so well that he becomes the emperor of Tigrida. Only then does he agree to marry Queen Seringa, who had offered him a kingdom like his father's.
Not only does this codex tell a fascinating tale but the history of the manuscript itself is remarkable too, revealing the type of social circles likely to appreciate such a beautiful codex. Behind the adventures told in the Book of Zifar the Knight lies a perfect handbook for educating princes, hence it is no surprise that it always features on their bookshelves. The original copy of this facsimile was specially made for the library of Henry IV of Castile, hence its opulent lavishness. The original today is in the Bibliothhque nationale de France.
Drawings by Tamayo
On Display in the Carpenter Hall Foyer 6/17 - 10/30 2005
DRAWINGS BY TAMAYO By Enrique F. Gual Mexico: Ediciones Mexicanas, 1950, 1st edition, Sherman Art Library Special Collection.
This is the first published book devoted to Rufino Tamayo's drawings. These pages offer a look at Tamayo the artist, as an extraordinarily sensitive draftsman. Many of these drawings are the origins of his great murals and paintings, and offer a glimpse into the artist's creative process.
Rufino Tamayo is one of the best known Latin American artists. His work may be found in major museums such as the Palacio Nacional de Bellas Artes, Mexico, the Philips Collection in Washington, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid as well as the Hood Museum of Art at here at Dartmouth College.
20 Years of Handmade Books from Cuba's Ediciones Vigia
Working with limited resources and recycled materials, artists from Matanzas Cuba formed an independent publishing house, Ediciones Vigia, in 1985. With use of only two machines, a borrowed mimeograph machine and typewriter, plus tremendous imagination, these artists have created limited editions of handmade, hand colored books for twenty years. Concentrating on poetry, short stories, and works for children, these books encompass a variety of formats, including sewn books, accordion style bindings, scrolls, and more.
Selections from the Sherman Art Library Special Collection will be on display in the Main Hall of Baker Library, through the summer term.
Maidu Creation Myths
On Display in the Foyer of Carpenter 10/11/2004 - 1/11/2005
Volumne I THE CREATION AS THE MAIDU TOLD IT (2002) This book is a joint effort of William Shipley¿s bilingual translation of the Maidu Creation myth and the images of Daniel O. Stolpe. Editions of sixty-five numbered copies and twenty-six lettered copies ( includes special color woodcut), Text printed in Weiss and Doulos on Arches Cover White. Four translators, two printers, and eight artist¿s copies printed for the contributors. Printed by Peter Koch of Berkeley, full linen binding by Taurus Bindery of San Francisco.
26 pages, 14 x 28 inches - 15 Illustrated pages - 2 full page woodcuts on pastedown
Volume II THE ADVERSARIES (2003) William Shipley's second volume to the Maidu/English translation of the Maidu Creation Myth with lithographs by Daniel Stolpe. Editions of sixty-five numbered and twenty-six lettered copies which include a special colored print. The edition is printed letterpress in Weiss and doulos on Arches Cover White. Four translator's, two printer's, eight artist's, and four presentation copies printed for the contributors. Letterpress printing by Peter Koch of Berkeley, and full linen binding by Taurus Bindery of San Francisco.
26 pages, 14 x 28 inches - 17 lithographs-two printed pastedown images.
The anthropologist William Shipley is the foremost expert in the Maidu language, a native American language spoken by a small group in northern California. As with many native languages, the Maidu language has been on the edge of extinction for decades, with only one or two speakers left. Shipley made it his mission to learn the language before it disappeared altogether. He has become one of the last living speakers of the language. Recently, however, he has had the good fortune of meeting and collaborating with a young Maidu of mixed blood who is committed to carrying on his work. The myths in these volumes were originally transcribed in the early 20th century; Shipley has retranslated these earlier texts from the Maidu into a more accessible form. These Volumes are a unique version of Shipley's translations, but many of these tales are also available in a more conventional form in a circulating copy in the Baker-Berry stacks.
Artist's Books by Jill Timm
What Jill Timm began with her first book in the fifth grade has come full circle with the establishment of her Mystical Places Press in Austin, Texas in 1998. The Press moved to Wenatchee, WA in 2002. The name Mystical Places reflects her dedication to the spirit and aesthetic of the natural environment. Her artist books are included in several consumer crafts and bookmaking books. Articles about her books have been published in the _Miniature Books Society_ and _The Microbibliophile_ periodicals. Her books are included in the _Twentieth Century United States Miniature Books_ by Robert Bradbury.
Please stop by the display cases in Carpenter Hall, next to the Sherman Art Library to see several examples from the Sherman Art Special Collection. This display will continue 3/26/2004 through 6/12/2004.
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