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Tag Archives: Stuttgart

We Recommend — The Theophilus Legend in Medieval Text & Image

21 Wednesday Jun 2017

Posted by rarebooks in Recommended Reading

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Abraham, angels, apostate, Associate Professor, Cambridge, Christ, Comparative Literature, Countess of Winchester, D. S. Brewer, Danish, David, demons, Department of World Languages and Culture, Devil, Earl Ferrers of Derby, embossed leather, European, facsimiles, Faustian, France, French, Gothic, illuminations, Ingeborg Psalter, Jerry Root, Jesse, Lady Eleanor de Quincy, Lambeth Apokalypse, Latin, London, manuscript illuminations, medieval, medieval manuscripts, miniatures, Moses, Muller & Schindler, New Testament, Old Testament, ornamental initials, painting, psalms, Rare Books Department, saint, salvation, St. John, Stuttgart, The University of Utah, Theophilus, Theophilus legend, Virgin, Virgin Mary, William III

Theophilus-Legend
“The legend’s popularity is a tribute to its ability to make the plight of individual salvation tangible and visible at a time when that salvation must seem highly uncertain.” — from the Introduction

The Theophilus Legend in Medieval Text & Image
Jerry Root
Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2017
PN687 Ts R66 2017

From the publisher’s website: “The legend of Theophilus stages an iconic medieval story, its widespread popularity attesting to its grip on the imagination. A pious clerk refuses a promotion, is demoted, becomes furious and makes a contract with the Devil. Later repentant, he seeks out a church and a statue of the Virgin; she appears to him, and he is transformed from apostate to saint. It is illustrated in a variety of media: texts, stained glass, sculpture, and manuscript illuminations.
Through a wide range of manuscript illuminations and a selection of French texts, the book explores visual and textual representations of the legend, setting it in its social, cultural and material contexts, and showing how it explores medieval anxieties concerning salvation and identity. The author argues that the legend is a sustained meditation on the power of images, its popularity corresponding with the rise of their role in portraying medieval identity and salvation, and in acting as portals between the limits of the material and the possibilities of the spiritual world.”

Jerry Root is Associate Professor of French and Comparative Literature in the Department of World Languages and Culture at The University of Utah.

The Rare Books Department has facsimiles of two of the medieval manuscripts Prof. Root worked with for his book.

PSAUTIER D’INGEBURGE DE DANEMARK (INGEBORG PSALTER)
Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1985
ND3357 I5 D4 1985

Facsimile. Produced around 1195 in northeastern France, the Ingeborg Psalter is written in Latin with two flyleafs of inscriptions in French. The illuminations in this work represent a turning point in the history of European painting, when artists left behind abstract and highly stylized forms in favor of a more naturalistic representation of the world. The three-dimensional qualities of the figures, their proportions, and their expressive movements stand out as essential innovative elements in the emerging Gothic style of the early 1200’s. The manuscript is named after its first owner, Ingeborg, a Danish princess and spouse of King Philip II of France, who was expelled by her husband for unknown reasons shortly after their wedding. The beginnings of the psalms are rubricated with ornamental initials. Some of the psalms are illuminated with ornate figural initials depicting scenes from the life of David. A large number of elaborate miniatures of a decisively new style and design greatly influenced the art of illumination in the Gothic period. The illuminations depict episodes from the lives of Abraham and Moses, followed by the root of Jesse marking the transition between the Old and New Testaments. Further illuminations are based on themes taken from the life of Christ. Finally, scenes from the legend of Theophilus are depicted. In this popular medieval epic, the sinner Theophilus devotes himself to the Devil and is saved by the Virgin Mary, thus introducing the Faustian motif for the very first time. Bound in embossed leather. Edition of five hundred copies. University of Utah copy is no. 396.

ND3357-J5-D4-1985-pg36spread
Homage to the Devil, Prayer to the Vigin, Retrieval and Return of Contract

DIE LAMBETH APOKALYPSE
Stuttgart: Muller & Schindler, 1990
BS2822.5 L35 M67 1990

Facsimile. This manuscript was likely commissioned by Lady Eleanor de Quincy, Countess of Winchester (ca. 1230-74), daughter of William III, Earl Ferrers of Derby (1200-1254). It was produced circa 1252-67, probably in London. Eleanor is depicted in one of the illuminations that serve as a visual appendix to the book. St. John’s revelatory vision of the end of the world was a popular subject for medieval illustration, given the emotionally powerful images of clashing armies of angels and demons and terrestrial and celestial upheaval evoked by the text. Seventy-eight miniatures include the Dragon being cast into Hell (Rev. 20:9-10) and Christ sitting in Final Judgment (Rev. 20:11-15). The text, in Jerome’s Latin Vulgate, includes extracts from an eleventh century theological commentary on the Book of Revelations. Illuminated Apocalypses were fashionable in England when this manuscript was produced. The commentary was added to ensure that the reader was correctly guided through an understanding of the biblical symbolism. Illuminations helped with this guidance, but they also served as a statement on the owner’s social position. The more lavish the production, the more prominent the owner, or, at least, the more wealthy. The book was intended to educate, but also to entertain.

BS2822.5-L35-M67-1990-pg46recto
Theophilus goes to the Jewish intermediary: pays homage to the Devil

BS2822.5-L35-M67-1990-pg47spread(curves)
Virgin takes back contract, hellmouth; Return of contract

BS2822.5-L35-M67-1990-pg46Verso
Prayer to the Virgin; Virgin consults Christ

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Rare Books goes to Berlin

27 Monday Apr 2015

Posted by rarebooks in Publication

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American, art history, Ausgeführte Bauten und Entwürfe, Avery Coonley, Chicago, Clarence A. Fuermanns, Eberhard Karls University Tübingen, European modernism, Frank Lloyd Wright, graphic arts, Great Plains, Günter and Elisabet Hildebrand, Johannes Krause, Kunstetexte, Lichtbildnerei– wir sind Babel, modern art, nature, Oak Park, photography, Prairie Style, preservation, rare books, Richard Neutra, Stuttgart, twentieth century architecture, Wasmuth

Wright

Congratulations to Johannes Krause on the publication of his article “The Nature of Photography: Zu Frank Lloyd Wright’s Konstruktion des Prairie Style mithilfe der publizierten Architekturfotografien Clarence A. Fuermanns,” in Kunstetext.de. For the article, Mr. Krause used digital scans from Rare Books copy of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ausgeführte Bauten und Entwürfe.

About the author:
Johannes Krause graduated from Eberhard Karls University Tübingen with a degree in Art History and General Rhetorics in 2015 (Magister Artium). As a co-founder of the Stuttgart offspace gallery Lichtbildnerei– wir sind Babel, he assumed technical and curatorial supervision for exhibitions of contemporary photography and graphic arts between 2008 and 2012 (Eckensteher: street photography in Stuttgart, 2012). In his Magister thesis he worked on the artistic estate of the painters Günter and Elisabet Hildebrand and compiled a preliminary catalogue raisonné. Additionally, he also works as a certified Foto-Designer (FFS). His further research interests encompass cultural transfer in modern art and the preservation of twentieth century architecture.

Article abstract:
“The Nature of Photography: Zu Frank Lloyd Wright’s Konstruktion des Prairie Style mithilfe der publizierten Architekturfotografien Clarence A. Fuermanns”

American Landscape is a constant strand in Frank Lloyd Wright’s early publications on his Prairie Style. According to Wright, the new, natural homes’ formal elements were deduced from the pictorial notion of the Great Plains. Thus, Wright could advertise his and the “New School of the Middle West’s” architecture as truthful to the American Spirit. Its transatlantic impact on European modernism has been subject to numerous research. It becomes apparent that only by skillfully reinforcing these connotations through his publications of both words and images, photographical as well as hand drawn, Wright was able to maintain the natural character of his Prairie Houses. So readers of his 1911 “Wasmuth” volumes could assume the buildings were situated in an “open, wind-blown landscape” (Richard Neutra), although they actually stood on crowded lots in suburbs like Oak Park. Interestingly enough, these carefully constructed images became alive and lived through photography’s triumph of becoming the key medium of architectural representation. This article examines Wright’s editorial strategies in preparation of his Ausgeführte Bauten (1911) and emphasizes his cooperation with Chicago photographer Clarence Albert Fuermann. The photographs of Avery Coonley House can be used as an example of how they both expanded the boundaries of 1900’s professional photography. In close reading of Wright’s early writings and in recourse to his transcendentalist ardor it is possible to introduce/propose a concept of ‘organic photography’ as a comprehension of the intrinsic nature of photography. As it turns out, Wright’s published photographs represent much more than neutral, factual documents of architectural quality: they have been subtly used to emotionally address and visually guide the beholder towards a carefully constructed, persuading image of Prairie Style architecture.

WrightSign

Wright2

alluNeedSingleLine

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Book of the Week – Das Kloster: Weltlich und Geistlich…

21 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

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antiquarian, chapbooks, Cloister, ethnography, fairy tales, Faustian, folklore, Freidrich Korn, German Renaissance, Herausgebers, Johann Scheible, legend, magical, occult, Stuttgart, superstition, Verlag


Das Kloster: Weltlich und Geistlich…
Johann Scheible
Stuttgart: Verlag des Herausgebers, 1845-49
First edition

Das Kloster (“The Cloister”) is a collection of magical and occult texts, chapbooks, folklore, superstition and fairy tales from the German Renaissance compiled by Stuttgart antiquarian Johann Scheible. It was published in twelve volumes between 1845 and 1849. Volumes three, five and eleven are devoted to the Faustian legend. Volumes seven, nine and twelve are devoted to topics related to folklore and ethnography written by F. Nork, a pseudonym of Freidrich Korn (1803-1850). Illustrated.

alluNeedSingleLine

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Book of the Week – Das Backerbuch

03 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

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cookbook, Frank Pusch, German, Stuttgart

Pusch, Das Backerbuch, 1901, Cover
Pusch, Das Backerbuch, 1901, Bakery
Pusch, Das Backerbuch, 1901, Bread

Das Backerbuch
Frank Pusch
Stuttgart: F. Krais, 1901

This German cookbook is a practical handbook of baking for all countries, with twenty-five plates printed in color and 445 illustrations within the text.

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