Date/Time
Date(s) - 26 Jan 2015
5:15 PM - 5:15 PM
Location
Class of 1978 Pavilion, Special Collections Center
Category(ies) No Categories
Monday, January 26, Penn Workshop in the History of Material Texts.
Peter Stallybrass
“The Art of Reading after the Van Eycks and Rogier van der Weyden”
We will convene at our usual time and place: 5:15pm in the Class of 1978 Pavilion in the Kislak Center on the 6th Floor of Van Pelt-Dietrich Library.
Peter writes:
“I have been working for many years now on the depiction of elaborate bookmarks in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century paintings, largely in relation to what I have called “discontinuous reading.” But I have been increasingly returning to the extraordinary impact of the Van Eycks and van der Weyden on the visual depiction of bookmarks in paintings, engravings, stone and wooden sculptures, and even playing cards. In this talk, I will start by using Penn’s collection to illuminate three kinds of bookmarks:
1. Multiple-strand ribbons or threads with round heads usually decorated with seed pearls
2. Multiple-strand ribbons or threads attached to metal bars
3. Tabs, usually of leather or vellum, glued to the foredges of books
I will then look at the infant Christ as a reader so as to challenge the association of “the Word” with Protestantism by showing the centrality of Christ as both book and flesh in the fifteenth century. And I will briefly explore the extent to which book-absorption could even displace the presence of God.”