First a few words on the manuscript’s origins and possibly misleading title.

The Drake Manuscript is named for Sir Francis Drake, the famed English privateer, navigator, slave trader, politician, and pirate of the Elizabethan era, whose travels it is thought to illustrate. Though Drake was himself something of an artist ⊕, the images in Histoire Naturelle des Indes were not created by his hand. Nothing of his artwork survives as it turns out.

Truth be told there is no conclusive evidence to suggest that Drake had anything to do with the manuscript, let alone that it ought to be informally named after him. Such are the gears of history- grinding the anonymous down to invisibility and raising the famed higher… for a while at least.

The best guess as to the manuscripts origins are something along these lines-

The naive drawings ⊕ show signs of being created by several separate hands. Context reveals that these were likely the hands of Huguenots. Drake is known to have employed not only Huguenots on his voyages but artists as well. A “considerable number” of the images correspond to ports of call familiar to Drake, in some cases associated directly with his voyages, and Drake is mentioned by name, twice, in the manuscript itself. Hence, with a nice pile of circumstantial evidence to stand on, and no other clues, we have The Drake Manuscript.

Anyhow, whether this is simply an instance of a famous name capturing otherwise anonymous historical debris with its considerable gravitational pull ⊕ or simply an instance of fine deduction on the part of historians doesn’t matter much. What matters are the 199 fascinating images and accompanying captions.

Taken as a whole the images are an interesting mixture. The drawings of plants and animals are presented in a sort of cold practical manner, removed from their natural surroundings, with captions that read almost like a sales catalog, listing the virtues and drawbacks of each. ⊕ The drawings of the indigenous peoples themselves on the other hand are altogether warmer and seem to serve no greater purpose than curiosity.

The styles of the images are an interesting mixture as well-

Quote, “Some drawings are well rendered, others mere daubs, but most have a kind of buoyantly piquant vision of their subjects. Some are true to life, some–particularly the fishes with doglike snouts and ears–arise from an almost medieval fancy, and some may reflect a knowledge of printed sources.” - Verlyn Klinkenborg.

I’ve reproduced a group of the images below for your scrutiny. Some were chosen because I particularly liked the drawing, some because I was amused by the caption, and some because the ghost of Drake, boarding the deck of my apartment and holding me at sword-point, compelled me to. Have a look for yourself.

I find these fascinating, and believe me when I say I had trouble choosing from the 199 plates reproduced in the excellent facsimile.

Concerning the images themselves it amazes me to look at them in the artistic context of their time, because though I undoubtedly find them beautiful, when I remind myself that they were created in the 1590’s, and that at that same moment El Greco, Rubens, and Caravaggio were all active… well it’s surprising. Thought of in those terms it’s a wonder these weren’t made by the “Indians” themselves.

I think today, with television and advertising and graphic design having made the shared “visual language” so pervasive, we have a tendency to regard varying levels of visual sophistication simply as styles which homogeneously blanket entire eras, permeating everything from high art to life’s daily banalities. It may be true, to some degree, as far back as the 19th century, but images like those in the Drake Manuscript are, for me, a useful reminder that if you travel further back, our conceptions begin to break down and become little more than assumptions, based on the retrofitted categorizations art historians have coined for us.

The captions fascinate and amuse me for a similar reason. There is something comical to me about contemporaries of Shakespeare, Giordano Bruno, Cervantes, and Galileo ⊕ traveling to these “savage” lands, filled with a blustery and inalienable sense of their own superiority over the ignorant inhabitants, who upon arrival and lengthy inspection proceed to relay information as goofy and superstitious and folkloric ⊕ as their dark-age ancestors might have believed.

Of course, as not to fall into the same trap of egoistic presumption, and lest snide ephemera hunters of the 3000’s stumble upon this blog (attributing it, of course, to Markos Moulitsas or Xeni Jardin whilst my anonymous bones decay in quietude) and scoff at the wrong-mindedness of it all, I’ll shut my mouth right there.

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For a bit more on the manuscript see-

The Morgan Library page

Histoire naturelle des Indes on Google books.

This pdf from the National Humanities Center.

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I’ll only say this in closing, I enjoyed these and I hope you did as well.

And let’s not forget that enigmatic architectural face, or “Cybertectural Animot,”  which began the post. It is a detail of a piece depicting walking cities by artist Mike Wilkes, and you can click here to see the full image.

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You might look at these images of the future and find them stylistically dated, and they are 30 years old at this point, literally images of futures past, so I wouldn’t argue with you. I do think, however, that in a very palpable way these images, and images like them from the late 50’s all the way through the early 80’s, represent something which, in sci-fi’s drive toward the future, and possibly more to the point its drive toward “respectability,” the marketers of the genre have let slip away. That thing being Style.

A critique of the current face of science fiction and fantasy, as embodied in its book covers, is a voyage I plan to undertake, enthusiastically, in a future post. So I’ll just leave it at that for now.

In the meantime I hope you enjoyed these at least as much as those Strand cashiers seemed to, and I hope the sensation of feeling nostalgia for decades old visions of the future which have not nor may ever arrive is not to off-putting. Likewise I hope deeper reflection on the oddity of such a feeling does not leave any ugly bruises on your brain.

Until next time…

Further reading and viewing:

Books
An Inquiry Into the Nature and Form of the Books of the Ancients, c.1837
Bibliopegia: Or, The Art of Bookbinding in All Its Branches, c.1848
Bookbinding Considered as a Fine Art, Mechanical Art, and Manufacture, c.1882
Bookbinding Old and new: Notes of a Book-lover, c.1895
Bookbinding for Amateurs, c.1885
The Art of Bookbinding: A Practical Treatise, c.1890
Modern Bookbinding, Their Design and Decoration, c.1906
Historical Essay on the Art of Bookbinding, c.1883
The Art of Book-binding, Its Rise and Progress, c.1850
A Collection of Facsimiles of Historical & Artistic Book-bindings, c.1889
Examples of the Art of Book-binding, c.1897
The Book, Its History and Development, c.1908
A Short History of Bookbinding, c.1895
Bookbinding in England and France, c.1897

Sites
Publisher’s Bindings Online, 1815-1930
Cyclopaedia: Virtual Bookbinding
Hand Bookbinding: Plain and Simple to Grand and Glorious
American Bookbinders Museum: Tickets & Equipment
Bookbinding and the Conservation of books: Colour Plates & Dictionary.
Deutsches Buchbindermuseum
Netherlands National Museum Special Collection
History of Irish Bookbinding
Scottish Decorative Bookbinding
History of Chinese Bookbinding
Bibliopegia: A History of Bookbinding

Enjoy.

Quote: “The earliest printed works of the movement focused on alcohol’s bad influence on health, including the immediate effects of drunkenness (like vomiting and headache) and the perceived long-term effects of chronic drinking (like delirium tremens, spontaneous human combustion, madness, and death). When the movement blossomed in the early 1830s, medical arguments made up a powerful element in encouraging temperance.” -Ardent Spirits

Meanwhile, since the headaches and vomiting and madness and spontaneous combustion didn’t seem potent enough deterents on their own, other works focussed instead on the moral and religious ramifications of strong drink. “You’ll destroy your family, you’ll lose your home, you’ll burn in the bad place!” It was a potent logos/pathos one-two punch of rhetoric which, just prior to the Civil War, managed to win over no less than 1,500,000 proponents.

Below I present a small cross section of the rich and varied cornucopia of printed ephemera which has been passed down to us from our temperate forbearers. Have a look.

What follows is an excerpt of the text A Study In Faces which accompanied the image above:

“What a bright earnest face this boy had! Just such a face as everybody likes to see. Many years ago a great artist wanted to make an attractive picture for his studio and he chose such a face. He called it “Innocence,” and you might label this boy with the same word.

Now look at the other face. What is attractive about it? Not a feature to admire, but everything to make one turn away in disgust. One would almost be afraid to be in the company of a man with such a face, for the character is shown in the face and if the boy is a picture of innocence, the man is a picture of all that is vile and hateful.

Now compare the two faces before you. The features are similar yet so different. Both represent the same face, but what a change!

The artist has given you a glimpse of the way in which thousands of bright, clean boys have been first fascinated and then defiled and ruined. No one who learns to like wine, beer, cider, any alcoholic drink can be sure of escaping such a fate, for nothing tends more strongly to defile human beings and make them unclean forever than alcohol.”

With the outbreak of the Civil War interest in temperance (understandably) cooled. People presumably had more immediate and important concerns. That fact alone says something about the temperance movement on the whole I’d have to say. It would be a generation before the general levels of comfort and boredom made allowances for a moral outrage potent enough to usher in a legislated country-wide prohibition. We all know how that went over.

And today? What of the Temperance movement? Well, today, all these morally blighted years later, a vestige of those glory days of temperance does in fact remain, visible for all to see.

Behold!







Well, just barely visible for all to see, but it’s there! Congratulations righteous forbearers.

Hope you enjoyed.

For more on the temperance movement in America see the following-

Ardent Spirits
Alcohol, Temperance, & Prohibition at Brown University.
Alcohol and Crime
The Temperance Archive
Alcoholism and the Temperance Movement in Early American Folk Art
Temperance & Prohibition at Ohio State
The Anti-Saloon League
Temperance Movements in the Catholic Encyclopedia
A History of Alcohol Prohibition at the Drug Library
Drinking in America: a History.

Note: nearly all of the images above were found through The Library of Congress “American Memory” site.

A Chinese legend traces shadow play to 121 BCE.

“Emperor Wu of the Han-dynasty placed his affections on the lady Li; she departed this life and his thoughts were with her incessantly. Then a native of Ts’i, versed in occult arts, named Li Shao-weng, told him he could make her shen (ghost) appear. That night he stretched a curtain across the room, lighted lamps and torches, and told the Emperor to sit down by another curtain, and look from some distance. Then within the curtain a beauty appeared, whose form was that of the lady Li.” - As reported by the sinologist Gustave Schlegel. 

To cite the legend of Emperor Wu as the actual origin of shadow theater would be a stretch, however, in that it would be a century yet before the practice really took hold.
 
Quote: “Shadow shows did not appear until about 1,000 years later, during China’s Sung Dynasty (960-1279 AD). Popular across all social classes, these shows were performed at court, in homes, along roadsides, and between military battles.

The popularity of shadow play spread across cultures and continents. By the 18th century, shadow shows could be seen in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, India, Egypt, Iran, Turkey, and Western Europe, each with a distinct style, look, and function.

Traditionally, puppets were made from animal skins such as buffalo, donkey, and fish that were stretched, dried, colored, and treated until translucent. Now they are made with just about anything from strong card to thin plywood to plastic, wire, and zinc.” - ARTSLEDGE: Playing With Shadows.

On that note (having offered you only the barest bit of background information possible to introduce an art form thousands of years old, in a transparent attempt to elevate this post out of the realm of pure gawk-fest) I offer you a slew of poorly notated but exceptionally handsome examples.

“Step right up! Step right up! See the pretty puppets!”

Pretty nifty. Though most of us now watch our culture’s grotesque figures on television screens rather than screens made of fabric, shadow play remains a vital form in many parts of the world. Most of the examples above are actually comparatively modern examples. 

For anyone interested in learning more about the various incarnations of shadow play I offer the following key to more pointed searches:

China - “Pi Ying”  (shadows of hides)
India - “Chhaya Natak”
Indonesian - “Wayang Kulit” (leather shadows)
Thailand - “Nang Yai”
Egypt - “Khayal al-zill” (shadows of fancy)
Turkey - “Karagoz” (Named for the protagonist of all Turkish shadow theater)
Greece - “Karagiozis” (see Turkey)
France - “Ombres Chinoises” (Chinese shadows) and later “Ombres Francaises”

Meanwhile here are some related links:

Playing with shadows
Shadow play at wikipedia
Chinese shadow puppetry
Chinese shadow theater
Scenic shades
Puppet India
Thai shadow puppets
Wayang Kulit of Indonesia
Javanese traditions in Suriname
Wayang resources
Wayang Kulit
Wayang at discover-indo
Wayang at wikipedia
Wayang at YouTube
Shadows of fancy
Kargoz, Turkish shadow theater
Kargoz video
Shadow puppets at Flickr
Shadow plat at YouTube

And let’s not forget The Allegory of the Cave.

Lastly I wanted to offer this tidbit which I found interesting–

Quote: “The expression ‘Silhouette’ is comparatively new. It was coined in France in 1759 for cheap and easily produced articles after the name of the French minister of finance of that time, Etienne de Silhouette. The term was used in mockery of his stern and unpopular economic laws.” - Alphabets & Ornaments by Ernst Lehner.

Take that Kara Walker! Haha. Just Kidding.

Hope you enjoyed.

“Among civilized men, the mouth has even lost the relatively prominent character that it still has among primitive men. However, the violent meaning of the mouth is conserved in a latent state: it suddenly regains the upper hand with a literally cannibalistic expression such as mouth of fire, applied to the cannons men employ to kill each other. And on important occasions human life is still bestially concentrated in the mouth: fury makes men grind their teeth, terror and atrocious suffering transform the mouth into the organ of rending screams. On this subject it is easy to observe that the overwhelmed individual throws back his head while frenetically stretching his neck so that the mouth becomes, as far as possible, a prolongation of the spinal column, in other words, it assumes the position in normally occupies in the constitution of animals. As if explosive impulses were to spurt directly out of the body through the mouth, in the form of screams. This fact simultaneously highlights the importance of the mouth in animal physiology or even psychology, and the general importance of the superior or anterior extremity of the body, the orifice of profound physical impulses: equally one sees that a man is able to liberate these impulses in at least two different ways, in the brain or in the mouth, but that as soon as these impulses become violent, he is obliged to resort to the bestial method of liberation. Whence the narrow constipation of a strictly human attitude, the magisterial look of the face with a closed mouth, as beautiful as a safe.”

Text: the Critical Dictionary entry, La Bouche (The Mouth), by George Bataille, as published in the journal Documents c 1930.

Image: detail of Head I, by Francis Bacon c. 1948.

For more on their connection go here and scroll down to Bacon and Bataille, by Peter Jones.

Quote: “The Morning Post, 3 May 1785, comments that, ‘there are two descriptions of persons who visit the Royal Academy, some perambulate the rooms to view the heads, others remain at the bottom of the stairs to contemplate the legs.’ While the World, Fashionable Advertiser, 8 May 1787, notes that, ‘Exhibitions are now the rage and though some may have more merit, yet certainly none has so much attraction as that at Somerset House; for, besides the exhibition of pictures living and inanimate, there is the raree-show [peep show] of neat ankles up the stair-case, which is not less inviting.’”

The image above is a detail from Thomas Rowlandson’s The Exhibition Stare c. 1811, which caricatured all the excitement of this “attraction.”

Quote: “Filled with colour and black and white reproductions of a technical excellence unusual for the time, Minotaure first appeared in June 1933, and continued through thirteen issues, ceasing publication at the onset of World War II. The publishers set themselves the difficult task of bearing witness to the different movements in contemporary art, through text and image, demonstrating the interaction between the visual arts, literature, and science. Thus Minotaure documented the vast panorama of the 1930s, and served as a forum for encounters and discussions… Each number of Minotaure included contributions from artists, writers, philosophers, critics, psychoanalysts, and ethnologists, and was meant to be read as a collective work, many-voiced.”

Looking at it now, all these years later, with the canons of modernity firmly and irrevocably established in our minds, the list of contributors to Minotaure is almost comical: Breton, Picasso, Éluard, Miró, Chagall, Bataille, Magritte, Lacan, Matisse, Queneau, Duchamp, Man Ray, de Chirico, Dalí, Giacometti, Ernst, Rivera, Masson, Balthus, Matta, Bellmer, Arp, Brassaï, Huxley, Kandisnky, Jung… and these are just some names any average person is likely to recognize, add to it the archeologists, sinologists, anthropologists, ethnologists, numismatists, musicologists, historians, etc, etc, and the pedigree becomes overwhelming. One can easily imagine that even the snot-nosed kid who delivered baguettes and wine to the magazine’s offices went on to sell his dirty underpants at auction for a record breaking sum.

In any case, populist as the periodical form is, and impressive as this particular undertaking was, there seems no decent centralized source on the internet to look at Minotaure in greater detail. (At least not one that I could find with my English language searches, perhaps someone with more patience, or a command of French, can point us in the right direction.) As much as I would love to offer you excerpts from the poems and essays and criticisms and surrealist outbursts therein, alas, I can not. What I can offer you, however, are some pretty pictures.

Below you will find decent-sized representations of each of Minotaure’s covers.

In closing I would just like to offer the following ten words to the many grandchildren and foundations and private owners and museums in whose collections and under whose copyright all of the material ever printed in Minotaure is held– “I’d buy a boxed set of reproductions in a second.” To which I’ll even add an eleventh word- “Please.”

For a bit more on the subject see here.

Hope you enjoyed.

All of the above images are actual X-radiography photographs, taken by conservators, of the titled paintings. Some reveal forgotten painted-over images, some reveal added or edited details, others simply show the physicality of the paint’s application itself. All are spectral and surprising and strangely melancholy.

Hope you enjoyed.