| This online exhibition is a tribute to the inventive and eccentric minds that produced, often with loving care and craftsmanship, items that intrigue us today, even if we're not always sure why they were made. Click on the pictures for details. |
A strange and monumental ovoid decoration serves as a backdrop for a man chasing a youth and grabbing him by the shoulder, evidently to discipline him with the stick grasped in his other hand. It is from a set of five prints engraved after drawings by the18th century German Georg Sigmund Rösch, enacting proverbs about the five senses--this one illustrates "touch" or "feeling." All five take place amidst whimsically formed and improbable Rococo garden follies -- architectural decorations popular in the 18th century, based in part on classical and Italian Renaissance architecture. This one is the strangest, with its wide blank surface and towering asymmetrical form balanced on one enormous curled foot. In Germany and Austria, the complex curves and theatricality of the Rococo style were very popular in structures designed for actual gardens. |
Exhibits:
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Detail from a satirical 18th century engraving poking fun at wannabe aristocrats. And you thought the 1980s was the era of big hair... |
Big Hair
Carmen Miranda has nothing on the lady in the print at right, whose wig incorporates not merely fruit, but a small tree and an elephant tusk poking out the back. She is one of the four figures with absurd hairstyles in a satirical genre print by an 18th-century German engraver. The pretensions of provincial nouveau riches attempting to emulate chic European aristocrats are lampooned in the accompanying poem in French and German, which translated into English says: And America also receives the latest styles, |
| Artificial Memory
If you didn't know this set of 27 engravings were published in 1827, you might think they were Dadaist art from the early 20th century with their floating, naively drawn figures and objects in varied scale; isolated letters and words; and overlapping, collage-like compositions of items that have no obvious relationship. However, the intent of the author, Joseph Broader, was anything but surreal -- they come from an unusual bound volume of 27 illustrations that symbolically and pictorially portray the history of the world by century, beginning with the 7th century B.C.E. and ending at 1827. The plates were intended to assist students with recall of historical chronology and important events and dates. Each century is divided into 10 decades (except the 19th century, which is divided into nine 3-year periods up to 1827). The original book also includes a 329-page text. From the late 18th century through much of the 19th century, there was a movement to incorporate visual representations into education as aids to memorization -- from classroom maps and globes to picture encyclopedias. Broader’s book appears to belong to that movement, although its approach relates specifically to mnemonics – the use of a device, such as a formula, picture or rhyme, as an aid in remembering. This is a very rare book, with only five copies on record in major U.S. libraries. |
A "Broader" look at world history. |