Foreword

Goodyear, Anne Collins

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Foreword

Anne Collins Goodyear

The Ivory Mirror: The Art of Mortality in Renaissance Europe

A skull with crossbones may warn us away from poison, advise us not to follow a treacherous path, or intervene lest we expose ourselves to an electrical current. Pirates’ flags famously flash such imagery as a demand to obey or face the consequences of resistance. But if we react instinctively to protect ourselves in the face of such pictographs, the intellectual and artistic roots of such...

Author

Anne Collins Goodyear

PublisherBowdoin College Museum of Art

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21004

Foreword

ANNE COLLINS GOODYEAR
CO-DIRECTOR

A skull with crossbones may warn us away from poison, advise us not to follow a treacherous path, or intervene lest we expose ourselves to an electrical current. Pirates’ flags famously flash such imagery as a demand to obey or face the consequences of resistance. But if we react instinctively to protect ourselves in the face of such pictographs, the intellectual and artistic roots of such symbolism may be less clear. And what of the complex cultural functioning of a skeleton that may make it terrifying in one context, humorous in the next, elucidating in yet another? Indeed, the recent resurrection of the skull in fashion and contemporary art reminds us of its persistently powerful, even seemingly death-defying, allure.

In contemplating our present-day fascination with such imagery, The Ivory Mirror: The Art of Mortality in Renaissance Europe provides a welcome opportunity to consider the first fluorescence of the memento mori at the dawn of the sixteenth century. The emergence of this genre of artistic and literary imagery, quite literally reminding the viewer to “remember death,” coincided with the birth of the Renaissance, a period generally associated with scientific, humanistic, and artistic achievement. But macabre images proliferated in precisely this period—unsettling depictions of Death personified, of decaying bodies, of young lovers struck down in their prime. These morbid themes ran riot in a remarkable array of artworks, from ivory prayer beads to gem-encrusted jewelry to exquisitely carved small sculptures, presenting us with a side of this era that is at once darker and more familiar than we might have expected. Indeed, such imagery encapsulated a tension not unfamiliar for contemporary viewers: how to come to terms with the fact of our mortality in balancing life’s pleasures with the pursuit of a greater good.

Reflecting on the complex tensions implicit in such a challenge, The Ivory Mirror encourages us to recognize multiple readings of artworks representing memento mori, which function simultaneously as aesthetic achievements and as intellectual and philosophical provocations. As this volume and the accompanying exhibition reveal, these works, often intimately scaled, caution against the perils of posthumous divine judgment and damnation, while simultaneously acknowledging, through their very use of precious media and technical refinement, the material pleasures of life. Implicit in each of these works is the reminder of the value of erudition—ecclesiastical, literary, and scientific in nature—as well as a recognition that exceptional works of art may endow their creators, like their subjects and patrons, with immortal reputations that defy one’s life span. The metaphorical nuances of these works are manifold, extending even to the use of ivory itself, which, as curator Stephen Perkinson reveals in his essay, was prized not only as an exotic material, with physical properties that made it amenable to carving, but also for its kinship to bone itself, making it appropriate for the rendering of the human skull.

This groundbreaking exhibition brings together works that are largely unfamiliar to audiences outside of Europe and provides an unprecedented opportunity to explore their multiple origins in scientific, literary, artistic, and philosophical discourses of the era, and their revolutionary implications for framing a symbolic representation of death that remains vibrant today. We are grateful to Stephen Perkinson for conceiving and organizing this important undertaking, which unites exceptional prayer beads and sculptures, illuminated manuscripts, prints, and paintings from European and American collections. Together these objects bring to life a culture of mortality that reveals the emergence of new conceptions of the self, of the place of humanity in the world, and of the nature of achievement, pleasure, and transgression. We thank his co-authors: Elizabeth Morrison, Katherine Baker, Naomi Speakman, and Emma Maggie Solberg, each of whom brings an important dimension of the culture of mortality to our attention. Collectively, the research of Perkinson and his fellow contributors enables us to understand the complex origins and associations of memento mori imagery, the larger artistic and literary context of which they were a part, the nature of the workshops that designed them, and, ultimately, how these objects have come to be collected as works of art.

No exhibition reflects the efforts of a single individual or institution, and we are deeply grateful to a wide network of colleagues, museums, archives, and libraries that have generously lent their expertise in addition to pieces from their collections. Our first debt is to the numerous colleagues who have assisted in this effort; we thank in particular: at the Detroit Institute of Arts: John Steele and Yao-Fen You; at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard University: Jack Eckert; at the George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections and Archives, Bowdoin College: Kat Stefko and Marieke Van Der Steenhoven; at the Houghton Library, Harvard University: William Stoneman and Thomas Hyry; at The Huntington: Daniel Lewis, Sharon Robinson, Kevin Salatino, Vanessa Wilki, David Zeidberg; at the Landesmuseum Württemberg: Katharina Küster-Heise; at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Maryan Ainsworth, Peter Barnet, Barbara Boehm, Pete Dandridge, Timothy Husband, Charles Little, C. Griffith Mann; at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Helen Burnham and Marietta Camberari; at the Philadelphia Museum of Art: Jack Hinton and Shelley Langdale; at the Victoria and Albert Museum: Paul Williamson and Catherine Yvard. For their expert advice and encouragement, we also thank Donald Stanley; Manuela Beer, Andrea Hüntler, Iris Metje, and Moritz Woelk; Sir Paul and Lady Jill Shaw Ruddock; Philippe Malgouyres; Sarah Guérin; Virginie Spenlé; and Georg Laue.

We express our sincere appreciation to the many lending institutions that have generously shared precious works with us, enabling us to describe the flourishing of the memento mori in Renaissance Europe. These include the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Oxford; the Clapp Library, Wellesley College; the Detroit Institute of Arts; the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard University; the George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections and Archives, Bowdoin College; the Harvard Art Museums; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; The Huntington; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Victoria and Albert Museum; and the Walters Art Museum.

We also wish to thank the designers and editors who worked tirelessly on the preparation of this publication. At Lucia | Marquand we are grateful to Adrian Lucia, Melissa Duffes, Leah Finger, Meghann Ney, Ryan Polich, and Kestrel Rundle. At Yale University Press, we express our appreciation to Patricia Fidler and Amy Canonico.

Closer to home, we thank numerous colleagues at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, including Caroline Baljon, Rebekah Beaulieu, Suzanne Bergeron, Frank Goodyear, Michelle Henning, Jo Hluska, Joachim Homann, Laura Latman, Liza Nelson, José Ribas, Ellen Tani, and Honor Wilkinson, who oversaw the logistics related to the production of this project. For their assistance, we gratefully acknowledge John Eric Anderson and Bowdoin College interns Eliza L. Graumlich ’17 and June D. Lei ’18. At Bowdoin College, we express our sincere appreciation to faculty members Dana Byrd, Dallas Denery, Linda Docherty, Pamela Fletcher, Ann Kibbie, Aaron Kitch, Clif Olds, Matthew Stuart, Peggy Wang, Bill Watterson, Susan Wegner, and to staff members Grace Garland, Anne Haas, Martie Janeway, Ann Ostwald, Heidi Peterson, Megan Stelzer, and Jennifer Edwards, whose exceptional assistance with illustrations for this catalogue was invaluable. As always, we thank Interim Dean of Academic Affairs Jennifer Scanlon and President Clayton Rose for their support, as well as their predecessors in those positions, former Dean of Academic Affairs Cristle Collins Judd and former President Barry Mills.

Prior to the publication of this catalogue, Stephen Perkinson taught three seminars on this topic, and profited greatly from the ideas and creativity of the students enrolled in them. These included Emily M. Beaulieu ’18, Y. C. Sophia Cheng ’15, Molly M. Clements ’13, Sarah A. Freshnock ’17, Abigail T. Geringer ’14, Victoria Toy-Len Guen ’13, Marnie K. Hull ’15, Bridget R. Killian ’16, Molly S. Krueger ’13, Christian E. Martin ’14, Daniel A. Mejia-Cruz ’16, Theresa L. Merchant ’13, Cordelia D. Miller ’15, Alexandra L. N’Diaye ’15, Charlotte M. O’Halloran ’13, Cailey M. Oehler ’15, Kathryn A. Paris ’18, Daniel E. Rechtschaffen ’18, Stephen A. Roth ’13, Harper Scott ’16, Samuel Seda ’15, Molly A. Stevens ’15, Patrick M. Toomey ’17, Luke C. von Maur ’16, Alice L. Wang ’15, and Eliza B. Weiss ’13.

Finally, we offer our heartfelt thanks to the many generous funders of this exhibition and catalogue, without whom this undertaking would not be possible. We are deeply grateful for contributions on the part of the Stevens L. Frost Endowment Fund, The Roth Family, the Becker Fund for the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, the Devonwood Foundation, Caroline and Edward Hyman, the Class of 1976 Art Conservation Fund, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, the Shapell Family Art Fund, the Sylvia E. Ross Fund, Cristle Collins Judd and Robert Judd, the Robert Lehman Foundation, the Lowell Innes Fund, Mary K. McGuigan and John F. McGuigan Jr., Thomas and Hannah Weil McKinley, Svetlana and Eric Silverman, the Peter M. Small Professorship Fund, Mary G. O’Connell and Peter J. Grua, the Friends Fund of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, the Maine Humanities Council, Lady Jill Shaw Ruddock CBE and Sir Paul Ruddock CBE, Lindsay R. and Peter Stavros, and the Roy A. Hunt Foundation.

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