Migration of Media______________________________________________________________________________________

Session 11

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Session 11
The Flight of "Yellow Macaw"______________________________________________________________________________________

Byron Ellsworth Hamann
Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
Maria Inez Turazzi
Universidade Federal Fluminense

In March 1557, Jean de Léry arrived in Brazil. He was part of a Genevan
Calvinist mission to Antarctic France, a French settlement on an island in Riode Janeiro's Guanabara Bay. The settlement did not last long. Léry headed
back across the Atlantic ten months later, in January 1558. Two years after
that, Antarctic France fell to the Portuguese.1
The would-be settlers returned to a Europe bloodsoaked by the ﬁrst
decades

of

what

would

becomeoveracenturyofreligious

warfare—violence between Catholics and Protestants, of course, but also
among rival Protestant groups. Léry was caught up in these conﬂicts and thehorrors they unleashed. Perhaps because he witnessed French-on-French
cannibalism during the Catholic siege of Protestant Sancerre in 1573 (anaccount of which he published in 1574), Léry returned to his memories ofBrazil and the Tupi people he encountered there two decades before.2 In
1578, in Geneva, he published the ﬁrst edition of his Histoire d'vn voyage faiten la terre dv Bresil, avtrement dite Amerique. Famously, its pages recall thehaunting music that Léry had heard on the other side of the Atlantic:"Whenever I remember it, my heart trembles, and it seems their voices arestill in my ears."3
The Histoire sold well: its publisher brought out a second Geneva
edition in 1580, and a third edition in 1585. Crucially, in that third edition themusic Léry remembered was not simply evoked. Léry included musicalnotations and lyrics for ﬁve of the songs he supposedly heard: "Canidé
Iouue" (Yellow Macaw), "Camouroupouy-ouassou" (Large Sardine), and threechants from a Tupi ceremony Léry curiously describes as a witches'sabbath.41173

Session 11 | Opening Statement

Fig. 1. Words and music for "Canidé Iouue" and one of the supposed-sabbathchants as published in the 1585 edition of Jean de Léry's Histoire d'vn voyage
faict en la terre dv Bresil (pages 159 and 285). Image courtesy of the
Bibliothèque de Genève.

These songs were republished in further editions (as well as Latintranslations) over the next two decades.5 Most important for our story is therichly-illustrated 1592 Latin translation printed in Frankfurt by Theodor deBry. There, the thirteen notes of Léry's "Canidé Iouue" were increased tofourteen (a penultimate note was added at the end), and the fourteen notesof Léry's second "sabbath" song were increased to sixteen—and its lyrics
were expanded as well.6______________________________________________________________________________________
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Session 11 | Opening Statement

Fig. 2. Words and music for "Canidé Iouue" and one of the supposed-sabbathchants as published in Theodor de Bry's 1592 Americae tertia pars (pages 186
and 228). Image courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University.

Fig. 3. Words and music for Jean de Léry's ﬁve Tupinamba songs, as publishedin Le Brésil en 1889 (pages 546–547). Image courtesy of the University of Toronto
Library.

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Session 11 | Opening Statement

Four hundred years later, de Bry's transformations served as sources
for reprinting the songs again (in Paris this time) for a book that was part ofBrazil's contribution to the Ei el Tower-inaugurating 1889 Exposition
Universelle: Le Brésil en 1889. Therein, Eduardo Paulo da Silva Prado's
chapter about "L'Art" included all ﬁve of Léry's songs, based on de Bry's
versions—but, once again, transformed. Some notes have di erent values
than in de Bry, and the Tupi words were broken up so that one syllable
corresponded to each note (a correspondence left ambiguous in the earlier
publications).7
Nearly forty years after that, in 1927 (and once again in Paris), Brazilian
composer Heitor Villa-Lobos (a Carioca who lived in the French capital from
1923–24 and 1927–30) performed his just-written Tres poêmas indigenas.
The ﬁrst movement was based on two of Léry's Tupi songs...as they had
been transformed and published by da Silva Prado.

Fig. 4. The opening "Canidé
Ioune" section of Heitor
Villa-Lobos' Tres poêmas
indigenas (published in Parisby Éditions Max Eschig in
1929). Image courtesy ofHarvard University's Loeb
Music Library.

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Session 11 | Opening Statement

Fig. 5. Pages 2 and 3 of Heitor Villa-Lobos' Tres poêmas indigenas (published in
Paris by Éditions Max Eschig in 1929), alternating between the "Canidé Ioune"and "Sabath" themes. Image courtesy of Harvard University's Loeb Music Library.

Tupi songs turned to memories later written down on paper inFrance, then printed by hand in Geneva, then copied and transformed andprinted again in Frankfurt, then copied and transformed and printed again in
Paris four centuries later, then copied and recomposed and performed assongs four decades after that...This is, of course, a story of (repeated)transatlantic human travel. But it is also a story of media migrations: fromsong to memory to manuscript to print to manuscript to print to manuscript
to print to score to song...and to audio recording in 1940, and then to online
video (its soundtrack illustrated with woodcuts from Léry's Histoire as wellas engravings from de Bry's Americae)—which is how we ﬁrst heard
Villa-Lobos' haunting modernist work.8
This centuries-spanning narrative is one of many we could use toillustrate a basic point: migrations of media always encompass othermigrations as well: of people, objects, ideas, concepts, archives, functions,and so on. The aim of this session was to examine the migration of artistic______________________________________________________________________________________
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Session 11 | Opening Statement

mediums across time and space, with a comparative perspective and acritical approach to cultural processes in the visual arts. The use of theories
from media archaeology and the analyses of experiences and reﬂections
already published in this ﬁeld provided points of departure, o ering thepossibility to reframe classic art historical concerns related to movement
and transfer.9 Media studies have revealed hybridizations of forms andcontents in the visual arts to be processes in constant movement—such as
from local to global or eternal to ephemeral (and vice-versa)—processes
that illuminate not only a multiplicity of vocabularies, supports, uses, andreuses, but also attendant prejudices, exclusions, and destitutions that are
not always so evident. The political dimensions of media and its migrations
across time and space, as well as the aesthetic possibilities and cultural
implications of these processes in our contemporary world, were topics ofparticular interest for this session.
In our call for papers, a number of epistemological questions were
proposed to inspire discussions of media migrations. What happens whenan object created and cared for in one time and place is transferred to an
entirely di erent environment? How are speciﬁc artistic media transformed
when taken to places (and times) di erent from the ones in which they
originated? What

happenswhen

artworks,

performances,

and/orpractitioners from a speciﬁc time and place are turned into records (visualand alphabetic descriptions, in various media), which are themselves
then transported for consumption to other sites? What happens when anolder image is used to make a newer image, in a di erent time and place orin a di erent medium? How do these migrations of media relate to otherforms of migration?
Overall, the essays of this session created broad dialogues acrossspace and time, exploring the deep genealogies (both continuous anddisjunctive) of practices involving the transfer and transformation of ideas,
objects, and images. Over the course of two days, through presentations
given both in-person and online, our conversations ranged from prehistoric
wheels to modernist dust to 70s Super 8 to contemporary algorithmic
photography; from Zacatecas circa 1706 to Beijing in the 1920s to a world
tour in the 1930s to New Delhi in the 2020s; and from medieval Bominaco to
Renaissance Rome to postwar Brazil and Italy to early third-millennium Rio.
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Session 11 | Opening Statement

Read together, what conceptual-theoretical unities can be drawn
from these various studies?
One emergent theme considers the infrastructural-medial conditionsof possibility that generated speciﬁc artifacts and their descendants, fromthe clash between modernist urban planning and the environment of
Brasilia's dry plateau (Heeren); to the now-vanished roadways that would
have made wheeled transport possible in the ancient valley of the Danube(Vukovic);

to

the

steamships

thatenabledaround-the-world

photo-documentation of the e ects of the 1929 crash (Paiva de Toledo); tothe role of UNESCO and high-quality reproductive image technologies ingalvanizing theories (as well as mobile practices) of midcentury "museums
without walls" based on good reproductions (Vitali, Pozzoli).
Another thread reveals how newer media technologies can call into
question the assumptions formed by older media technologies: fromeyeball-determinedversus algorithm-determined photographic images(Rossi); to performer versus audience perspectives on live performances oftheatrical texts versus their video-recorded incarnations (Bathwal); toemergent artistic and theoretical practices that muddy older constraints
presumed by the problematic binary of white cube versus black box (Hosni);
to how the trauma of occupation and iconoclasm could push artists toconsider the advantages (and di culties) of painting on stone as opposed tothe traditional but more fragile supports of plaster and canvas (Kobo); to thechallenges of ephemeral performance art for standard museologicalassumptions about archive and exhibition—challenges now being met ininnovative ways (Horta).
Finally, a third (possible) strand interrogates the deep history oftranscontinental circulations and transformations of media formats, looking
at how books printed in Victorian Britain might inspire a magazine article
and then a painted pavilion in

Republican China (Teng); or how mysticalvisions of transatlantic travel from Spain to New Spain inspired a mimetic
ﬂow of texts and images east to west across the Atlantic, a ﬂow that in turngenerated new kinds of images and devotions (Saylor; keyword: bilocation!);or how Sasanian textual sources were used in the 1930s to propose an
iconographic nomination which may (or may not!) actually connect to awidespreadandwell-documented

pan-Eurasiancirculation(indeed,______________________________________________________________________________________
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Session 11 | Opening Statement

returning to our opening example, migration!) of various wingèd hybrid
beastsinartworks

from

Sasanian

Persiato medieval Gerona tonineteenth-century Bulgaria (Trudu).
Many other connective itineraries could be generated across theserich and fascinating studies. We hope you will imagine your own!

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Berbara, Maria. "Catholic and Protestant Martyrdoms in Times of War: Antarctic
France as a Multivalent Visual Repertoire." In Sacrifice and Conversion in the Early
Modern Atlantic World, edited by Maria Berbara, 299–320. Rome: Officina Libraria
and I Tatti - The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, 2022.
Burns, Chelsea. “'Musique cannibale': The Evolving Sound of Indigeneity in Heitor
Villa–Lobos’s Tres poêmas indigenas." Music Theory Spectrum 43 (2021): 91–113.
Caldas Tibiriçá, Luis. Dicionário Tupi-Português: Com esboço de gramática de Tupi
Antigo (Liberdade, São Paulo: Traço Editora, 1984).
Clanchy, M. T. "'Tenacious Letters.' Archives and Memory in the Middle Ages."
Archivaria 11 (1980/81), 115–125.
Clanchy, M. T. "Reading the Signs at Durham Cathedral." In Literacy and Society,edited by Karen Schousboe and Mogens Trolle Larsen, 171–182. Copenhagen:Akademisk Forlag, 1989.
Corrêa de Azevedo, Luiz Heitor. "Tupynambá Melodies in Jean De Léry's 'Histoired'un Voyage Faict en la Terre du Brésil.'" Papers of the American MusicologicalSociety, 1941 (1941): 85–96.
Crary, Jonathan. "Techniques of the Observer." October 45 (1988): 3–35.
de Bry, Theodor. Americae tertia pars. Frankfurt: Theodor de Bry, 1592.
Ferrão Moreira, Gabriel. "O Estilo indígena de Villa-Lobos (Parte I): aspectos
melódicos e harmônicos." Per Musi 27 (2013): 19–28.
Ferrão Moreira, Gabriel. "O Estilo indígena de Villa-Lobos (Parte II): aspectos rítmicos,
texturais, potencial significante e tópicas indígenas." Per Musi 27 (2013): 29–38.
Greenblatt, Stephen. Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1991.
Gruzinski, Serge. The Mestizo Mind: The Intellectual Dynamics of Colonization and
Globalization. New York: Routledge, 2002.
Hamann, Byron Ellsworth. The Translations of Nebrija: Language, Culture, andCirculation in the Early Modern World. Boston: University of Massachusetts Press,
2015.
Hamann, Byron Ellsworth. “Counterfeit Money, Starring Patty Hearst.” Colonial Latin
American Review 25, 1 (2016): 89-121.

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Session 11 | Opening Statement

Harwood, John. The Interface: IBM and the Transformation of Corporate Design,
1945–1976. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011.
Hutchins, Edwin. Cognition in the Wild. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995.
Kittler, Friedrich A. “Rock Music: A Misuse of Military Equipment.” In The Truth of theTechnological World: Essays on the Genealogy of Presence, translated by Erik Butler,
152–64. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013.
Latour, Bruno. “Drawing Things Together.” In Representation in Scientific Practice,edited by Michael Lynch and Steve Woolgar, 19–68. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990.
Léry, Jean de. Histoire memorable de la ville de Sancerre. Place and publisher notgiven, 1574.
Léry, Jean de. Histoire d'vn voyage faict en la terre dv Bresil, avtrement dite Amerique.
Geneva: Antoine Chuppin, 1585.
McLuhan, Marshall and Quentin Fiore. The Medium is the Massage. New York:
Random House, 1967.
Moreira, Juliana, Fabiano Paschoal, Anderson Dias Cezar, and José Luis Luque.
"Occurrence of Clavellisa ilishae (Copepoda: Lernaeopodidae) parasitizing herrings(Actinopterygii: Clupeidae) in Brazil / Ocorrência de Clavellisa ilishae (Copepoda:
Lernaeopodidae) parasitando sardinhas (Actinopterygii: Clupeidae) no Brasil." Revista
Brasileira de Parasitologia Veterinária 22, 4 (2013): 616-618.
Mosco, Vincent. To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World. Boulder: Paradigm
Publishers, 2014.
Otero-Pailos, Jorge. "The Ambivalence of Smoke: Pollution and Modern Architectural
Historiography." Grey Room 44 (2011): 90–113.
Peters, John Durham. The Marvelous Clouds: Towards a Philosophy of Elemental
Media. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015.
Porras, Stephanie. "Copies, Cannibals, and Conquerors: Maarten de Vos's The Big Fish
Eat the Small." In Trading Values in Early Modern Antwerp / Waarde en waarden invroegmodern Antwerpen, edited by Christine Göttler, Bart Ramakers, and Joanna
Woodall, 248–271. Leiden: Brill, 2014.
Roberts, Jennifer. "Copley’s Cargo: Boy with a Squirrel and the Dilemma of Transit."
American Art 21, 2 (2007): 20–41.
Russell, Andrew L., and Lee Vinsel. "After Innovation, Turn to Maintenance."
Technology and Culture 59, 1 (2018): 1-25.
Siegert, Bernhard. Cultural Techniques: Grids, Filters, Doors, and Other Articulationsof the Real. New York: Fordham University Press, 2015.
Silva Prado, Eduardo Paulo da. "L'Art." In Le Brésil en 1889, edited by Frederico José deSanta-Anna Nery, 519–562. Paris: Librairie Charles Delagrave, 1889.
Stallybrass, Peter, Roger Chartier, J. Franklin Mowery, and Heather Wolfe. “Hamlet's
Tables and the Technologies of Writing in Renaissance England.” Shakespeare
Quarterly 55, 4 (2004): 379–419.
Turazzi, Maria Inez. Rio de Janeiro ‘panorámico’: la fabricación y circulación de______________________________________________________________________________________
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emblemas visuales de la capital brasileña en el siglo XIX. In: BORGES, M. E. L;
MINGUEZ, V. La fabricación visual del mundo atlántico. Castellón (Espanha):
Universitat Jaume I, 2010, p. 173-193.
Turazzi, Maria Inez. The Oriental-Hydrographe and Photography. The First
Expedition Around the World with an “Art Available to All” (1839-1840). Montevideo:
Centro de Fotografía de Montevideo, 2020.

Digital edition available at https://issuu.com/cmdf/docs/l_oriental-ingle_s
Whatley, Janet. "Translator's Introduction." In Jean de Léry, History of a Voyage to theLand of Brazil, Otherwise Called America, translated by Janet Whatley, xv–xxxviii.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.

Endnotes
1. Whatley, "Translator's Introduction"; Berbara, "Catholic and Protestant Martyrdoms."
2. Léry, Histoire memorable, 291–292; Porras, "Copies, Cannibals, and Conquerors," 262,
269n28.
3. Quoted and discussed in Greenblatt, Marvelous Possessions,16.
4. Léry, Histoire d'vn voyage, 159, 173, 279, 285, 286. Our starting point for tracking thefollowing musical history was Chelsea Burns' excellent "'Musique cannibale,'" a just-publishedstudy of Villa-Lobos' use of Léry (and other sources) in his Tres poêmas indigenas. Burns notesthat it was unclear how Villa-Lobos "accessed the two scores he used for this song ["Canide
Ioune - Sabath"] or which versions of them he saw" (95). We hope our essay provides a usefulappendix to Burns by clarifying this history of transmission. All of the pieces to that puzzle
were provided by Corrêa de Azevedo in his classic (and still impressive) article on "Tupynambá
Melodies" from 1941; thanks to archive.org, we had a much easier time tracking down (andcomparing) books and scores published across four centuries than he did eighty years ago. Fora broader look at Villa-Lobos' "indigenous style," see parts 1 and 2 of Ferrão Moreira, "O Estilo
indígena." In terms of Léry's song titles, on the canindé as a kind of macaw (Portuguese arara),
and the camurupy as a fish from the Clupeidae family (of which the Brazilian sardine,
Sardinella brasiliensis, seems to be the most important in the waters off the southeast coast of
Brazil), see see Caldas Tibiriçá, Dicionário, 80, 79; as well as Moreira, Paschoal, Dias Cezar, andLuque, "Occurrence," 616.
5. The key study of this history of publications and transformations is Corrêa de Azevedo,"Tupynambá Melodies."
6. de Bry, Americae tertia pars, 186, 191, 226, 228, 229.
7. Silva Prado, "L'Art," 546–547.
8. Not incidentally for our project overall, this recording was made in 1940 onboard the SS
Uruguay, part of a larger South American musical documentation project organized by
Leopold Stokowski (part of which was released on a shellac gramophone disk as Native
Brazilian Music in 1942): Quarteto do Coral Orfeão Villa-Lobos - Canidé Ioune:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXqUnvtVYNc&list=PL878DD79A14280741&index=24. See
also https://artsandculture.google.com/story/native-brazilian-music-80th-anniversary-museum-villa-lobos/WgXB2-gLJSxsJQ?hl=en
9. We can hardly provide a complete overview of works in media archaeology here, but key
points of reference for proposing this session and its theme include McLuhan and Fiore, The
Medium is the Massage; Clanchy, "'Tenacious Letters'"; Crary, "Techniques of the Observer";Clanchy, "Reading the Signs"; Latour, “Drawing Things Together”; Hutchins, Cognition in the______________________________________________________________________________________
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Session 11 | Opening Statement

Wild; Turazzi, Rio de Janeiro 'panorámico'; Gruzinski, Mestizo Mind; Stallybrass, Chartier,Mowery, and Wolfe. “Hamlet's Tables”; Roberts, "Copley’s Cargo"; Harwood, The Interface;
Otero-Pailos, "Ambivalence of Smoke"; Kittler, “Rock Music”; Mosco, To the Cloud; Siegert,
Cultural Techniques; Peters, Marvelous Clouds; Hamann, Translations of Nebrija; Hamann,“Counterfeit Money”; Russell and Vinsel, "After Innovation"; and Turazzi, The
Oriental-Hydrographe and Photography.

______________________________________________________________________________________
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Moving Images in Exhibition Design:
Questions About the Passage of theBlack Box to the White Cube______________________________________________________________________________________

Cassia Hosni
Universidade de São Paulo
ABSTRACT
Audiovisual works in the exhibition design require special attention regarding
the means of production of the original media and how it is shown to thecontemporary art public. For the viewer, who sees a projected work in a
secluded room, the image brings greater immersion in the large dimension of
the screen. But if the exact artwork is presented on a monitor withheadphones, it is clear that the image size is more familiar, similar to thetelevision, the well-known apparatus in our house. Considering the different
ways an artwork could be exhibited in contemporary art events, we aim toassess the tension of the relations between the moving image in the
exhibition design, bringing to light aspects of the audiovisual media. Finally,
the concept of Gray Zone is suggested instead of the "passage of the White
Cube to the Black Box," a term used at the beginning of the 2000s.

KEYWORDS
Audiovisual; Exhibition design; Contemporary Art; Installation; Video Art.

1184

Cassia Hosni

Audiovisual works, included in the wide range of time-based media
artworks, are known for having certain specificities regarding the exhibition.
Among them are luminosity, sound, and issues about the original format of
the work and its consequent transposition to other formats. These are
essential aspects that can influence the fruition of the spectator in the
exhibition space. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the expression "passage
from the White Cube to the Black Box" became widely known incontemporary art, referring to many works with moving images in museums,
galleries, and biennials. However, despite the validity of its use at thatmoment, today, we can bring other references to the debate, proposing newreflections to think about the audiovisual in exhibitions. The concept of theWhite Cube has been widely referenced since the famous text of BrianO'Doherty, in 1976. As it is known, the White Cube addresses the seek forneutrality concerning any external interference. Although the term is wrongly
associated with the white walls of the exhibition design, it is essential tohighlight that the concept problematizes a way of exhibition related to themodernist values of the 20th Century. It is a concept that emerged in the
1970s, questioning some foundations of modernism. O'Doherty mentionedthat the White Cube isolates the work of art in its own time and space, thus
making it a timeless and sacred piece. In this temple, the exhibition, he says,
any mundane external aspect is secluded, such as the presence ofarchitecture and the spectator's body.
The term Black Box has several meanings, depending on the field. One
reference to the Black Box mentions the experimental theater. It was
introduced during the 1960s, with black walls and simple scenic lights
bringing a sense of proximity between the actors and the audience, making
the play - usually small productions - more intimate.
A second reference to the Black Box has a technical aspect, alluding toaircraft boxes that carry input/output information that can only be accessed
under certain circumstances. The use of this device is the basis for Towards a
Philosophy of Photography, written by the philosopher Vilém Flusser. In thisbook, widely known in communication programs, he reflects on the______________________________________________________________________________________
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photographic industry, but the ideas are vast and associated with image
production.
The third Black Box reference, which interests us the most, concerns
its use in the exhibition design. It is typically represented as a closed room,
usually painted in black to avoid refraction of light, with only one way toenter and exit. The construction is temporal and is a well-controlled space forlight and sound. The projector is on the ceiling, and the environment has
specific isolation from other works in the exhibition. It is worth mentioningthat in all three references, the Black Box is a dark place, like a cave thatallows the spectator to be immersed, whether through a narrative artwork or
not. The apparatus avoids possible distractions from the surroundings,
controlling the light so that the spectator's attention focuses on the screen.
The dichotomy White Cube, Black Box, brings certain subjects:
attention and distraction, mobility, and immobility, usually mentioned intheories of dispositive. They seem to be antonyms when placed next to eachother. However, when it comes to the relationship between the spectator, themoving image artwork, and the exhibition design, a fine line demonstrates
any definition's fragility.
In the early 2000s, the expression "passage from the White Cube to
the Black Box" was used by critics and curators to talk about exhibitions
flooded with dark rooms, filled with the artificial light of the projectors,
which sure caused discomfort among the spectators. On the one hand, there
were defensors to the entry of this technological device, bringing moremoving image artworks into the exhibition space. Still, on the other hand,
there was some resistance (is it cinema or not?), and there were also cases of
opinions that changed over time. When we talk about image, it is crucial toconsider the exhibition design and how the spectator perceives the work
based on the artist's intention. How the artwork is displayed considers several
questions. The projected image in the museum is heterogeneous by nature,
converging, in the exhibition environment, different trajectories of artists andfilmmakers.
Regarding how the work is displayed to the spectator, the consensus isthat both models, the White Cube and the Black Box, seek a way of control by______________________________________________________________________________________
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Cassia Hosni

indicating a particular perception for the viewer. Claire Bishop argues thatboth modes correspond to the bourgeois disciplining model of monitoring
and controlling the spectator's body (2018, 30). In exhibition places, the bodyor the interaction between the spectators becomes a possible measure of
discomfort in the space. If in the modernist gallery, any conversation or noise
could interrupt the sublime moment in front of art, the same occurs in thecinema, with a popcorn noise, in the dark coming from someone sitting in
the next chair.
In exhibitions that concentrate on a large number of audiovisual
works, the leaking of the sound component is one of the elements that worry
the most both the artists, the curatorial team, and the spectators. Although it
refers to the characteristics of cinema – the darkroom with its beam of light
projected on a wall or other surface, like a suspended screen – the exhibition
space does not have the same technical competence as the cinema device.
Di erent media, di erent technological needs
Considering the exhibition design, moving image artworks have special needs
regarding how they will be shown. It involves how the artwork is produced, if
in film, telecined video, or digital; what is the original format, and how is thebest way to exhibit it. For example, viewing artwork on television sets inold-school cathode-ray tubes brings particular attention to the history ofvideo art.
From the 1960s onwards, the artworks exhibited on televisions
became a regular practice in contemporary art. The mass communication
medium as a tool of expression, rooted in domestic furniture, brings thevideo art to the center of a debate about how the spectator perceives themoving image during the time. In Brazil, for instance, in the 1970s, critics andthe public viewed this new medium in exhibitions with suspicion, as seen insome events like the São Paulo Biennial.

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Cassia Hosni

Fig. 1. Video Art Center. 16ª Bienal de São Paulo (1981).
Arquivo Histórico Wanda Svevo - AHWS

The work of Brazilian visual artists who, since the 1970s, have done
investigations in the video is widely known in Brazil as the so-called “pioneer
video art generation” (Machado, 2007). Despite all difficulties in getting accessto technology, groups of artists from São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro as well as
institutions like MAC-USP (Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidadede São Paulo) and MAM/RJ (Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro)
promoted essential initiatives, especially considering the context of curtailed
individual liberties by the civil-military dictatorship then in power. For thecritics, videoart was seen with skepticism since the new media was not yet
established in the realm of the arts. Walter Zanini remarks that critics saw
video art as an “imported” and “colonized” art. He states that “the critic,
almostalwaysconventional

inattitude,

generally

welcomed

these

investigations with disinformation or coldness, assimilating little or nothingor already offering a dazzled epitaph” (2010, 90).
Frederico Morais noticed that public reception was generally
prejudicial: “They consider it monotonous due to the exhaustive repetition of______________________________________________________________________________________
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Cassia Hosni

the same image, to its static feature (opposing the dynamism of conventional
broadcast TV), and, at last, to the discomfort, which is actually more
psychological than real, in face of the relaxed and easy way we watch TV athome” (2010, 74).
Neither the public seemed favorable to the use of the new media:“Avoid the North American section because it is all just television, ok?”, (Folhade São Paulo, 1975) was the comment by a spectator that made the news on
the occasion of the 13th São Paulo Biennial.
In the 1980s, video art had a more familiar scenario for artists,
spectators, and critics. It was common to present video works in special
rooms, like a living room, showing one artwork after another, linearly, in apreviously defined schedule. It was economical and, in a way, presented video
artworks with a sense of temporality similar to that of movies. However, thecontent was completely different. Video artworks could also be exhibited
freely in the exhibition space. This media has the advantage of being a sourceof light that can be shown in constant flux with the lights on. It doesn’t need adark room, as they can be arranged alone - in totems, with a base or pedestal,
individually - or in videowalls, or even arranged with other elements.
On the one hand, works in a video presented on television have theluminosity needed to be free in the exhibition space, but, on the other hand,
they lose in scale. Compared to a projection on a wall, the television seems
like a small square in a sea of images.
If in the 1970s, projectors such as Advent, used by artists like Peter
Campus, had certain limitations, such as the lack of definition; in the
1990s-2000s, the use of digital projectors in the exhibition space became
frequent. Consequently, for many works, the famous black boxes were asolution. The secluded room also favored better soundproofing.
One factor favoring the growth of moving image installations is
undoubtedly the improvement in digital technology since the 1990s, which, asa consequence, allowed artists to create more efficiently, through video andnon-linear montage, and within the scope of the exhibition, with the use of
projectors in the exhibition spaces. The miniaturization of electronic devices
and the increased data storage capacity made equipment lighter and more______________________________________________________________________________________
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portable. Video is one of the tools that, due to the ease of transposing timeand space and enabling the spectator’s immersion, helps the process ofaudiovisual consolidation.

Fig. 2. In-Out (Antropofagia). Video Room, Museu de arte de São Paulo Assis
Chateaubriand (2019)

Works projected in dark rooms indeed attract greater attention fromthe spectator due to the visual-sound isolation from other exhibition aspects.
Artworks such as In-Out (Antropofagia), by the Brazilian artist Anna Maria
Maiolino, filmed in Super-8 and later telecined, revealed significant
differences whether the work is projected in a dark room or displayed on an
LCD monitor. In Maiolino’s 1973/1974 film, the camera focuses on different
mouths moving on the screen, performing actions such as exhaling smoke,pulling in, and chewing colored wires. For the viewer, who sees the projected
work, it is clear that the larger the screen, the greater the immersion, as if therepetitive movement of the mouths turned into something else, an______________________________________________________________________________________
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Cassia Hosni

anthropophagic internal/external channel, as mentioned by the title of thework.
In contrast, if the same work is presented on a monitor withheadphones, the image size is more familiar, similar to the apparatus in our
houses. The immersion of the darkroom is displaced, but the video gains in
dialogue with the exhibition design and other surrounding works of art.
As every media has pros and cons, deciding to show a video in acathode ray tube, an LCD television, or a projection room depends on theoccasion, artwork, and curatorial proposal. Despite that, a space in-between
the White Cube and the Black Box can offer a more accessible way to see
moving image artworks. As Giuliana Bruno mentioned, there is something
between spatial perception and bodily motion. For this plurality of readingsin the exhibition design, a Gray Zone is suggested instead of the “passage ofthe White Cube to the Black Box.”
Gray Zone, a space in-between the White Cube and the Black Box
The idea of a Gray Zone emerged as a way to think about audiovisual
exhibitions, crossing fields such as architecture, film studies, and visual arts
(Hosni, 2021). Seeking the fluidity between spaces, allowing a plurality ofreadings between the artworks, the Gray Zone avoids forms of isolation,
especially in large-format exhibitions, such as biennials. Inspired by the ideasof Paul Klee and Claire Bishop, the color gray is located in the middle of thechromatic scale, avoiding opposition. What interests us, above all, is thispoint of contact, friction, which is mobile, flexible, and raised by different
agents. Thus, the Gray Zone is where conflict happened, for instance, in the
Venice Biennale, in 2001. In the event, many moving image installations werelocated in the Arsenale. The lack of budget, time, and tiredness of the curator,
Harald Szeemann, created a remembrance of this problematic exhibition.
In this way, the Gray Zone considers the exhibition's architecture andthe dialogue between the artist and the curator as all equal parts searching for
better audiovisual solutions. After 2010, other ways, different from the BlackBox, appeared, for instance, in the 32nd São Paulo Biennial, in 2016. This
edition, curated by Jochen Volz, was named Live Uncertainty. On the______________________________________________________________________________________
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Cassia Hosni

pavilion's top floor was the moving image artwork Everything and More, by
Rachel Rose. In the video, a training center for an astronaut appeared, as wellas hyper-realistic details of organic forms that overlapped, approached, anddistanced themselves in a sensory montage journey. The image was projected
on a large translucent screen that occupied the entire height of the wall. In
the background, the spectator could see Ibirapuera's Park. Depending on thebrightness of the day, the foliage of the trees could be seen - the background
blending with the images captured by Rose. The experience of watching it in
the morning, at night, or on a cloudy day differs significantly with thispermeable screen. Rachel Rose, who prefers to work with natural light rather
than indoors, achieved significant impact in uniting the moving image's
characteristics with the Biennial Pavillion's architecture.

Fig. 3. Everything and More, 32º Bienal de São Paulo (2016)
Arquivo Histórico Wanda Svevo - AHWS

From this perspective, regardless of when the viewer arrived on the
installation, he was hooked by the images, sitting on the gray carpet of theroom. In addition, there was a recurrent presence of people watching thevideo lying down, using their cell phones, in a kind of attention/distraction
very close to the relationship with television. This room, a carpeted area next______________________________________________________________________________________
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to an access ramp, also offered a break for those who would walk through thepavilion.

Fig. 4 Wind, 33ª Bienal de São Paulo (2020)______________________________________________________________________________________
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Another example relevant to our reflections occurred at the end of
2020, in the exhibition Wind, shown in the pavilion that integrated the 34th
edition of the Biennial. Among the 21 works spread out in the exhibition
space, Wind, from 1968, by Joan Jonas stood out, occupying the central span,thus being visible from afar. The dancing and walking of people facing thewind gained a new dimension due to the wide projection. The exhibition
appears to indicate a move towards recent large-format exhibitions, choosing
a few works that establish a dialogue with each other and resonate with thespectator – valuing, above all, the experience of being in the place. A smaller
amount of works, but with a better audiovisual perception of theenvironment, could direct the sensitivity of the spectators to the moment.
After the pandemic restrictions, an exhibition will hardly insist on aclosed room, having no control of the public or circulation of air. Moreover, inthe contemporary sanitary perspective, artworks that are exposed in dialogue
with other works, with the architecture, like porous structures, are valued.
Thus, in the current scenario, it is possible to glimpse the future of the Gray
Zone when moving image installations can be viewed in other exhibition
contexts.

BIBLIOGRAPHY“A Bienal dos vencedores e dos esquecidos.” Folha de São Paulo, (October 1975).
Bishop, Claire. “Black Box, White Cube, Gray Zone: Dance Exhibitions and Audience
Attention”, TDR: The Drama Review, vol 62, no 2 (2018): 22-42, Project MUSE.
Bruno, Giuliana. Atlas of Emotion: Journeys in Art, Architecture, and Film. New York:
Verso, 2007.
Cássia Takahashi Hosni. Gray Zone and the spatiality of the moving image:audiovisual installations at the Bienal de São Paulo and the Biennale di Venezia. PhD.
diss., Universidade de São Paulo, 2021.
Flusser, Vilém. Filosofia da caixa preta: ensaios para uma futura filosofia da
fotografia. São Paulo: Annablume, 2011.
Klee, Paul. Paul Klee. New York: Parkstone International, 2015.
Machado, Arlindo. As linhas de força do vídeo brasileiro. Made in Brasil, 15-59. São
Paulo: Iluminuras, 2007.

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Cassia Hosni

Moraes, Frederico. “Vídeo-Arte. Revolução Cultural ou um título a mais no currículo
dos artistas?” In Arte Novos Meios / Multimeios – Brasil 70/80, edited by Daisy
Peccinini, 61-3. (São Paulo: Fundação Armando Álvares Penteado, 2010)
O’Doherty, Brian. No interior do Cubo Branco: a ideologia do espaço da arte. São
Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2002.
Zanini, Walter. “Vídeo-arte: uma poética aberta.” In Arte Novos Meios / Multimeios –Brasil 70/80, edited by Daisy Peccinini, 87-92 (São Paulo: Fundação Armando Álvares
Penteado, 2010).

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Media Migration to the Digital: The
Case of Algorithmic Photography______________________________________________________________________________________

Elena Rossi
Fine Art Academy of Rome
ABSTRACTThe paper discusses migration of photography into the digital as one of many
examples of media migration through the means of language, an object andan art medium.
Language is a living entity. It can act as an interface in a continuous
process of translation and transcoding through a metamorphic shift from thephysical to the virtual space. Under this perspective, to consider the languageof photography means to address the old medium (photography) embedded
into the new one (algorithmic language).
Algorithmic photography has a specific linguistic dimension. It is
language because it is generated by software, or more precisely, by thelanguage of software that generates the “space” of photography and affects its
internal dynamics. Algorithmic photography also leads to a paradox: the factthat photography, as means of reproduction, is produced by language, which
can only be related to ‘production’, assuming that it lives in ‘a continuous
state of re-configuration and re-mediation’.
Algorithmic photography, and the linguistic play that enables the
migrating of photography into the digital, is the starting point of a journeythat guides us along the migration of media and culture in the digital world.
Works by Marco Cadioli, Peter Ashton, Luigi Pagliarini, John Rafman, Joanna
Zilinska, Clement Valla, as well as images of the Black Hole, will help
demonstrate the various ways in which code migrate reality into the digital
realm, with a particular focus on photography.

KEYWORDS
Photography; Language; Software; Transcoding; Remediation
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When considering the migration of photography into the digital realm weneed to consider many aspects, on the first place: shots as a product of analgorithmic process on the first place, the production of a digital image thatshapes from the newborn (digital) matter, and the many spaces that separate
our eye from the portrayed subject.1
Images are generated by the language of code “they exist as mathematical
data which can be displayed in a variety of modes - sacrificing colour, spatial or
temporal resolution.”1 This was put forward by Lev Manovich in the early
Ninenties in an essay dedicated to the ‘paradoxes of digital photography’, when
digital use did not greatly separate the lens from its subject but indeed set up aprocess of scanning the image which trans-codified it into the world of thescreen, triggering the “annihilation of photography and the solidifying andglorifying of the photographic.”2
The migration of photography into the digital takes another step with thework by British artist Alex May. The image is not simply scanned. Instead, theportrayed subject crosses the screen through a process that combines
traditional photographic techniques with algorithms. The migration of theimage into the digital is achieved using Fugio, a software written by May in 2014
and released in 2016 as open-source that enables to compress the time of events
preceding and following the event into one single frame that contains thousandsof frames. The pinhole camera that belongs to the traditional chemical
photography is replaced by a viewfinder-less GoPro, and photographic film issubstituted by an algorithm. It is possible to view the image develop in its ‘darkroom’ software. Each algorithm is designed to capture specific information,from bold swathes of colour as people travel through the shot, or subtle
movements in nature that are too slow or small to be perceived by the humaneye, such as the movement of clouds, raindrops, and insects. His algorithmic
photographs migrate the captured subject into the digital while unfolding theevent in time.

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Elena Rossi

Fig. 1. Alex May, Their screams of laughter burnt bright trails into the evening sky(detail), 2019, algorithmic photography. Curtesy the Artist

Photography, media migration and the eye. Non human Vision:
Joanna Zilinska, Jon Rafman, Marco Cadioli, Clement VallaIn investigating what it means to photograph in an age in which ‘technicalreproducibility’ flows into ubiquitarian distribution, the task of further
relocating the author’s role is added to that of redefining the landscape. The
question of the eye separated from the camera, already widely discussed inanalogue photography, becomes more complex at the instant in which the eye is______________________________________________________________________________________
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Elena Rossi

transferred into the body of the machine.
Non-human vision becomes a point of observation from where to turnourperspective

perception

upside down toward all its nonhumanentanglements. “The concept of ‘non human photography can help us see
and understand, in a new way, both the photographic medium and ourselves
as partly constituted by this medium”. And still “Most of the historicallyimportant functions of the human eyes are being supplanted by practices inwhich visual images no longer have any reference to the position of anobserver in a “real”, optically perceived world. If these images can be said torefer to anything, it is to millions of bits of electronic mathematical data.”3
In a series of her work, part of the series Active Pereptual Systems,
images were captured by an automated intelligent wearable camera(Autographer), conceived as a mnemonic device to aid Alzheimer’s affected
people. She wore the camera in various everyday situations: on a city walk, ina holiday resort, in an art gallery, in lecture theatre. Her decision to open thecamera was coupled by the one of the camera on what to photograph andwhen. The machinic behavior was anyway influenced by her body movement(for instance, by stopping in an immersive gaze and so encouraging thecamera to become active in that moment).
Jon Rafman, an artist who explores the contemporary technologicalthrough a variety of means, has been capturing images from Google Street

Views when this tool was just emerging on the market (he started in 2008 and
Google Street View was introduced as a feature of Google Maps in 2007 when
there were only a selection of streets in the United States). Rafman wasinterested in the automatic eye of the camera and in its relationship with thecontent revealed in certain situations. He frames unaware subjects who
happened to enter Street Views field of vision, highlighting and indulging in
the unsettling ethical implications of making images of individual people’s
lives accessible and useful to all users. By placing the images in art contexts,
Rafman called into question the role of artists in relation to the rise of
automated forms of cultural production.
Marco

Cadiolibrought

himself

beyondthescreenasa

net-photographer since the early 2000s, when he published the “Net______________________________________________________________________________________
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Elena Rossi

Photography Manifesto”. He has been producing reports from online war
games, Second Life, as an “embedded” photographer and has publishedreports from virtual worlds on various mainstream international magazines.
“I am using a software whose icon is a camera.”, states Cadioli in his Net

Photography Manifesto in 2003, I can capture screen slices. They are web
page snapshots. The Cut&Paste operation is allowed in the new media, it is
the natural development of photography into digital spaces.“4As part of the series Living in a Computer Simulation (2015), his
photographs of Edolo, in the region of Val Camonica in Nothern Italy, weretaken from Google Earth and manipulated on smart phone through filtersthat were employed in order to bring back the shots in time, to artificially
reproduce the nostalgic feeling of the film with its imperfections.

Fig. 2 Marco Cadioli, Living in a Computer Simulation, 2015.
Courtesy of the Artist______________________________________________________________________________________
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Elena Rossi

In his works there are many other media migration that would deserve
attention into another session as he, as an artist, is very careful on how totranslate these works back into the physical space. It is the case of his

Abstract Journeys, a screen capture series from Google Earth that explores
the different surfaces and forms which have been transformed by man’s workin an abstract geometric composition that he printed on metal, or simulated
polaroid format offered by online services (as in the aforementioned series

Living in a Computer Simulation) or others.
Snapshots are also the ones that belongs to Postcards from Google

Earth by Clement Valla, a collection of stills extrapolated from his navigation
on Google Earth, the software for geographical reproduction of the globe. The
artist’s curiosity was captured by the encounter with images of the Earth’s
surface which were incongruous with regard to what we expect from the ideaof a representation of the physical world, supposed as hyper-realistic: toupside-down buildings, liquefied bridges and roads. On closer analysis Vallarealized that it wasn’t a case of glitches but rather the logical outcome of theimage production process in the software used by Google, The Universal

Texture. They are an edge condition – an anomaly within the system, anonstandard, an outlier, even, but not an error”, notes Clement Valla, “Thesejarring moments expose how Google Earth works, focusing our attention on
the software. They are seams which reveal a new model of seeing and ofrepresenting our world – as dynamic, ever-changing data from a myriad ofdifferent sources – endlessy combined, constantly updated, creating aseamless illusion.”5
Valla’s snapshots are moments in a space-time process that lives
within the image and manifests itself in its function of interface. So it is not aquestion of a ‘fragment of landscape’ but rather the existence thereof withina processual [therefore interfacial] dimension that lives in the screen andtakes form in its continuous updating. Another time, the eye that guides thelens of the camera is governed by the Google Earth algorithm, which is also
the author of the qualitative criteria that dictate the adoption or otherwise ofan archive document image (criteria that favor, for example, images free fromclimatic interferences that might penalize sharpness).
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Elena Rossi

All this involves a revolution in the very concept of reality. First andforemost we have to consider all those invisible strata of information (including
those of the social networks) that structure (in physical and concrete terms) thisnew landscape, delineated in its very mutability and coincident with the image.
Landscape and image are alive, they are born and they evolve in their interfacial
nature and function, “processes that effect a result of whatever kind”6. Thismeans muffling the certainty that the object portrayed “was certainly,
indisputably present….”7“Since the organism’s technological extensions in the broader sense are
expanding and transforming the very concept of reality,” as Adam Berg
expresses this revolution, “then is inevitable that our ontology is not groundedin either math or perception but in how the two are mutually transformed
throughoutashared‘logic’oftranscoding.”8

This

logic

of

constanttrans-codification from one state to another (format or whatever) is root andcondition of the landscape for how we are framing it with our lens. This meansthat digital photographic (re)production coincides with the ‘production’ ofimages that take form in their algorithmic mutability, the same as the landscapephotographed.
The passage from the real to the liquid world, beyond the screen, isdissolved in the coexistence of image and landscape on a selfsame
spatial-temporal plane. The dimension we inhabit is no longer ‘impressed’ but‘expressed’ as interface, at the crossroads of visible and invisible. “Interfaces
themselves are effects,” explains artist and theoretician Alexander Galloway, “inthat they bring about transformation in material states. But at the same timeinterfaces are themselves the effects of other things, and thus tell the story of
the larger forces that engender them.”9The correspondence of structural and processual logics between
universal and particular is by now well known and has also been encounteredrecently in the study of quantum physics; micro- and macro-world therefore
find themselves in a play of correspondences. Thus, we can imagine landscape
repeated also within the photographic instrument. Everything is contained in
the whole that lives in its very same continuous change, the one that shapes acaleidoscopic world.
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Elena Rossi

Photography, media migration and digital matter: Peter Ashton,
Luigi Pagliarini
In the liquid world matter has its own consistency and it follows its own
behaviors and dynamics. Peter Ashton reveals digital matter setting out fromthe [inevitable] processes of trans - codification to which the images are
subjected, multiplied and accelerated in the practices of sharing on the social
networks. His work Sitting in Stagram is a portrait of the composer Alvin
Lucier and of what happens when his image is compressed anddecompressed to be reposted ninety times on Instagram. The portrait of
Alvin Lucier and its title – Sitting in Stagram – evoke I am sitting in a room,
Lucier’s 1969 experiment in which, closed in a room, he recorded his own
voice and subsequently rerecorded it on tape a great number of times until allthat remained of his words was an indecipherable noise. Its magnitude,
intensity and compass were dictated by the reverberation of frequencies in
the room. Spatial characteristics (large, small, full, empty), thus, found theirsonar translation and correspondence. In the case of Ashton’s work,
Instagram applications subject images to a series of format conversions
aimed at optimizing them to favor circulation on the web. The repeatedaction renders visible the inevitable process of deterioration of the image.
The degenerative process of the portrait in Ashton’s work made Instagram
visible as a room built ‘for’ and ‘in’ the sharing of images. It also madeevidence the existence of matter in digital space.
Luigi Pagliarini visualizes the behavior of digital matter through his

Energies Visualiser, a software developed in 2004, based on the dynamics ofArtificial Intelligence of which Pagliarini was a pioneer supported by abackground in neuro-psychology. Photographs, as well as any other images,
paintings, screenshots, are transformed into an algorithmic video or infinite
painting. Each pixel is treated as an atom and behaves as such. By adopting
the principle of proximity as model of the flux of energy, which establishes
that any pixel can only influence the one next to it, Pagliarini and his team
could establish ho to measure forces within the pixel and how to activatethem toward a perpetual motion that moves the image from abstraction to______________________________________________________________________________________
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Elena Rossi

figuration. Everything that exists within an image, any fixed image, isreturned to the idea of ‘perpetual motion’, a creative approach that Pagliarini
developed even before 2004.

This work and research conceived with an

Eventualistic approach in order to focus on the “existing relations amongst
conceptual and figurative art in a perspective that involves several aspects ofArt

Psychology”10,

reveals

media

migration

under

other

importantperspectives, the ones related to the energies of (digital) matter.

Fig. 3. Luigi-Pagliarini, Energies, Visualiser, 2004. Courtesy of the Artist

Revealing the Black Hole in one ‘shot’.
Moving away from art, we make a brief step on the image of the Black Holerevealed in 2019 and from most of the media (including scientific media) was
celebrated as a photograph or a shot.
This image was the result of a combination of data and other sources,
most of which belonged to a translation of spatial frequencies into pixels, a
process that took years of work, years of gathering and elaborating different
data. Whereas many sources of the media call it ‘shot’ or ‘photograph’, wecannot really talk about them as such. It is, in fact, the result of a long processof collaborative, interdisciplinary work. Not only do data belong to different
sources, but also the visual result is the translation of wave frequencies in
pixels.
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Elena Rossi

Katie Bouman, a young researcher at the Harvard Smithsonian Center
for Astrophysics, has been working for six years to the algorithm that allowed
to visualise the black hole. On the occasion of her talk at TED in 2017, twoyears before the release of the image, titled ‘how take a picture of a blackhole’, she forecasted at the time that it would have taken two years (added tothe other four she was working on the project) in order for the image of theblack hole to be proven and revealed.
The image of the Black Hole represents, at the best, the power ofimage in current times, a power that manifests in its nature of evidence, of
proof of existence of something that no human eye is able to see: what we seeis the translation, in pixels, of wave frequencies, little dowels that arerecomposed by algorithms into an image that much likely corresponds to the‘object’ as it is really is.
Conclusions
Alex May has shown possible ways of migrating photography into the digital,
while compressing the time before and after the event into one single frame.
Marco Cadioli, Jon Rafman and Clement Valla, as artists, enter the landscape
shaped by algorithmic language and extrapolate images as shots or readymades, embodying the eye of the software. The fact that they are received as
photographs and postcards is the result of the language used. Joanna
Zylinska’s theories and works have guided us in this direction. Photography is
non human, vision is non human. Nevertheless, language combined withimagination and perception is still a magma which shapes reality.
Peter Ashton opens our gaze to the consistency of digital matter byusing time, specifically by accelerating transcoding processes, witnessing theprocess of obsolescence. In contrast, Luigi Pagliarini visualises the energies
that regulate matter.
These works prove the need to adjust our gaze to an extra-perspective
vision - possibly a non-human one - that, right now, is shaped by a
combination of many different views and perspectives belonging to thismultifaceted and fragmented nature of time-space dimension. The world of
Walter Benjamin’s ‘reproduction’ has shifted towards one of ‘algorithmic______________________________________________________________________________________
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production’. Ways of Seeing, to quote John Berger and his popular programfrom the Seventies where he showed viewers (through television) the way
media and reproduction can give meaning and substance to reality, has
moved to another phase. It is all a matter of migration from one state toanother, one that is referred to by the word ‘transcoding’.
This leads to a further conclusion, involving the start of a new
multi-faceted discourse. If it is understood that algorithmic photographymaterializes in the digital realm through language, the language of code, thisconcept can be applied to the larger field of reality. If this is true whenalgorithmic photography is treated as a case study for talking about the
migration of media into digital space, then the migration of culture at large
can also be considered in the same way, homologated into a common
language. We should probably consider the migration of culture into thedigital as it returns to the physical dimension and all the resulting circularexchanges between worlds, through the means of Artificial Intelligence.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Barthes, Roland. La Chambre claire: Note sur la photographie. Translated by Richard
Howard. New York:Hill and Wang, 1981.
Berg, Adam. “Aesthetics and Transcoding:De-Accelerating the Photographic Image”,
Aesthetics in Present Future. The Arts and the Technological Horizon, edited by
Brunella Antonmarini and Adam Berg (Plymouth, Uk: Lexington Books, 2013), p. 128.
Berger, John. Understanding Photography. London: Penguin Books, 2013 (orig. ed.
1967).
Campanelli, Vito. Internet Landscapes (2003-2007). Napoli: MAO Edition, 2009.
Galloway, Alex. The Interface Effect. Malden, Massachusetts: Polity Press, 2012.
Pagliarini, Luigi. “Energies Visualiser”, Rivista di Psicologia dell'Arte, n° 15 (2004): 23-38
Rossi, Elena Giulia. “Fotografare dentro l’immagine ubiquitaria”, in Arte, fotografia etecnica, edited by Marcella Manni and Luca Panaro. Ravenna: Danilo Montanari
Editore, 2016.
Sontag, Susan. On Photography. London: Penguin Books, 1977 (orig. ed. 1971).
Valla, Clement, “The Universal Texture”, Rhizome, July 31, 2012.
https://rhizome.org/editorial/2012/jul/31/universal-texture/
Zilinska, Joanna. Nonhuman Photography. Cambridge, Massachussetts; London,
England: The MIT Press, 2017. Kindle.

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Endnotes
1. Lev Manovich, “The paradoxes of Digital Photography”,
http://manovich.net/index.php/projects/paradoxes-of-digital-photography, last accessed June
8, 2022.also in Photography After Photography: Memory and Representation in the Digital Age,ed. Stefan Iglhaut, Florian Rotzer, Alexis Cassel, Nikolaus G. Schneider, Hubertus V. Amelunxen(Germany, G+B Ars, 1996).
2. Manovic Lev, Op.Cit, 1995.
3. Joanna Zilinska, Nonhuman Photography (Cambridge, Massachussetts, London, England:
The MIT Press, 2017), Kindle.
4. Marco Cadioli, Net Photography Manifesto, last accessed June 8, 2022,
https://marcocadioli.com/internet-landscape/.
5. Clement Valla, “The Universal Texture”, Rhizome, July 31, 2012, last accessed June 8, 2022,
https://rhizome.org/editorial/2012/jul/31/universal-texture/.
6. Alex Galloway, The Interface Effect (Malden, Massachusetts: Polity Press, 2012), p.vii
7. Roland Barthes, La Chambre claire: Note sur la photographie, trans. Richard Howard (NewYork:Hill and Wang, 1981).
8. Adam Berg, “Aesthetics and Transcoding:De-Accelerating the Photographic Image”, inAesthetics in Present Future. The Arts and the Technological Horizon, ed. Brunella
Antonmarini and Adam Berg (Plymouth, Uk: Lexington Books, 2013), p. 128.
9. Alexander Galloway, Op cit., 2012.
10. Luigi Pagliarini, “Energies Visualiser”, Rivista di Psicologia dell'Arte, n° 15 (2004): 23-38
This paper stems from Fotografare dentro l’immagine ubiquitaria, published in: Arte,
fotografia e tecnica, edited by Marcella Manni and Luca Panaro. Ravenna: Danilo Montanari
Editore, 2016, further developed in Extended Photography. Framing Capricious Algorithmic
Landscapes, Beyond Aesthetics, a lecture at the New York School of Visual Art, Rome within
Brunella Antomarini’s course: "Baroque Everywhere: The World in Motion".

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The Image of Senmurv Between
Orient and Occident______________________________________________________________________________________

Simona Trudu
University of Cagliari
ABSTRACTThe Senmurv is a fantastic animal from Iranian mithology. Its image,resulting from head’s dog, bird’s wings, clawed paws and peacock’s tail,originated in Iran during Sasanian dinasty (III-VII s. A.D), related toZoroastrian faith. It holds a protective and positive value, being related togood luck and prosperity. It is a cosmological symbol, representing the union
between sky and earth, and is related to the life of tree. It can be found innumerous mediums: architecture, sculpture, metals, coins, ceramics, fabrics.
It become a royal symbol, adopted from Sasanian dynasty.
From Iran, the iconography is spread in Islamic and Christian arts, in aterritory expanded from Asia to Middle East to Europe.
In Iranian and Islamic cultures, the Senmurv is related to the power,
being represented in Sasanian and Omayade dynasties’ rock sculptures andpalaces. In Christian world the iconography of Senmurv is related to thesacred sphere, being mainly represented in churches. It can also present afish’s tail. The assimilation of the iconography in Christian art was probably
favoured by the presence of composed animals in classical Greek art, inparticularly a hybrid animal, similar to hippocampus. Senmurv is assimilatedwith the aquatic animal of Jonas’ story. It is adopted in Christian art in theframe of Jonas’ story, symbol of redemption and salvation, going through aprocess of acquisition of a new meaning. It gains a bigger expansion, being
found in Caucasus, in Byzantine, Mozarabic, Longobardian and Romanesquearts, knowing diffusion in most European countries.
KEYWORDS
Persian art; Islamic
Resignificationart;

Christianart;

Cross-cultural

assimilation;1208

Simona Trudu

The image of Senmurv is assumed to have originated during Sasaniandynasty, that ruled Iran from 224, year of foundation by Ardashir, to 642-651,
period of the end of the dynasty due to Islamic invasion of Iran.
The Sassanid Empire extended over the entire Iranian plateau,corresponding to the present-day states of Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, west partof Pakistan and northern part of Mesopotamia. It was a very large area,
extended from the Caspius sea to the Persian gulf. At his greatest extent the
Empire stretched from Mediterranean regions to China and Far East.
Besides that, there were also different regions, such as Armenia,
Georgia and Azerbaijan, constantly disputed with the Byzantine Empire, thatwere subjected to its influence.
The Sasanian Empire did not have fixed borders, but they wereconstantly changing depending on different times and war events. It is
important to notice the ability of expansion of Iranic culture, the fact that
Sasanian empire was able to exert an influence also on other areas, such as
for example Sogdiana, that corresponds to modern southern Uzbekistan andwest Tajikistan. This ability to exert an influence and radiate and spread its
own culture is particularly evident in the artistic field: we can see theinfluence of Sasanian art in Asia and in Far East as well as in European
medieval art.1
Our knowledge of Iran during Sasanian dynasty and, in particular, ourknowledge of Sasanian art are very limited and fragmentary due to thepresence of few written sources, first of all inside Iran. The vast majority of
written sources are Byzantine and Arabic: this fact poses problems
concerning their reliability.
On the other side, there are also problems concerning material
culture. Although it is abundant in certain fields, such as toreutics andfabrics, the majority of objects came from casual findings or clandestine
excavations, that means out of the context of scientific archaeologicalexcavation. This creates a lot of problems in order to determine a precise
chronological framework and place of origin of material culture. This is also
the case when we study the iconography of Senmurv and the material culture
related to it.
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Simona Trudu

The name Senmurv referred to the composite animal that we can findin archaeological documentation was imposed in literature since the thirties
of XX century, following the research of Camila Trever, Russian scholar who
proposed the identification of Senmurv, as it is mentioned in iranic written
sources, with the animal that we can see in material documentation. The
scholar considered some written sources of Pahlavic or middle-persian
literature, the Dādistān-i Menog-i Xrad and Bundahišn, two texts related toZoroastrism, in which the name of Senmurv is referred to an animal, a bat oftriple nature, composed of dog, bird and mouse parts. Then, she proposed
the identification between the animal known in material culture and thename of Senmurv.
Since that, this identification has been accepted, until recent times,
when this hypothesis has been discussed, because written sources areambiguos: in certain sentences Senmurv is indicated as animal of triple
nature, while in other passages it is indicated as a bird, and the Bundahišn
contains texts dated to Islamic Abbaside dynasty (IX-X). It is a literature
created by Zoroastrian communities that were resisting the Islamization inorder to preserve their traditions and culture, so it is a literature created after
the first images of the animal.
More recent studies consider the name Senmurv as referred to a bird.
However, Senmurv is the name that continues to be used in literature,
in some cases preceded by the indication of “so-called”.
Besides the complexe relationship with written sources and the mostrecient disquisitions about the name, on the base of the iconographicalanalysis we can see that Senmurv, or so-called Senmurv, presents the union
between the terrestral element of the dog and the aerian part of the bird,
configuring itself as an animal of cosmological meaning, representing theunion between earth and sky.
If we consider the meaning of the image, at the base of its iconography
there are probably the funeral costumes of Iran. Dogs and birds were sacredanimals, playing the role of psychopomp animals, related to afterlife andimmortality. Because the bodies of deceased were not buried or cremated but
deposed on dakhma or silence towers, funeral costumes contemplated______________________________________________________________________________________
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exposition to dogs and birds. The peacock, whose image originated in India,
is also attested as psychopomp animal.
Other hypothesis concerning the meaning of Senmurv can be found incosmological and astronomical conception and it is related to the written
sources in which Senmurv is told to be seated on the tree of many seeds, thatis the tree that contains the seeds of all plants, an idea related to the conceptof the tree of life. Senmurv plays a role in the process of dispersion of theseeds in the world: it makes them fall from the tree, helped by Tistar, who
disperses them, through the rain water. Senmurv should correspond to
Aquila constellation, while Tistar should correspond to Sirio, the brighter starof Canis Mayor constellation. The rise of Tistar-Sirio is related to the seasonof rain in Iran: the process should be related to rain and fertility.
It is also worth considering that in the process of the creation of theimage the influence of composite animals very common in east culture, suchas the Lion-griffin, the snake dragon and the Greek hippocampus, probably
played a role.
The composite animal known as Senmurv should be also the symbolof xvarnah, the concept of Iranian glory and good luck. Xvarnah is a term inancient iranic (farr is the name in middle and neo-persian) related
etymologically to xṷar/n, sun, with the meaning of glory, brightness, splendor
and good luck and prosperity.
This is the most likely hypothesis concerning the meaning of the
Senmurv, and seems to be supported by the association in someArab-Sasanian coins (coins created during the first phase of Islamic
occupation of Iran, from 636 to the beginning of VIII century, by Islamic
authority, perpetuating the same images and inscriptions of Sasanian coins)of the image of the animal with the written PRN, sogdian term that means

farr-xvarnah.
The Senmurv, then, as animal related to the idea of good luck andprosperity, apotropaic symbol, beneficial and with protective status.
This association can be seen on a copper coin, dated to 671-742, fromFars or Kuzestan, preserved at the American Numismatic Society, New York,2______________________________________________________________________________________
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Simona Trudu

and also on other silver coins, preserved in private European collections, inGermany and France.3
The Senmurv is employed as royal symbol, related to Sasaniandynasty, as we can see in the rock sculptures of Taq-i Bustan. The monument
is located in the north-oest of Iran, near the city of Kermanshah, and it is oneof the most known triumphal monuments of all the country.
Taq-i Bustan is very important for the study of Senmurv because it isconsidered a chronological landmark. Almost all of the images of Senmurv
cannot be dated with certainty. Although there are hypothesis that relate
Taq-i Bustan to the end of V century, it is generally and likely dated to the endof VI and the beginning of VII century.
Inside the cave, different scenes related to Sasanian royalty are
represented. On the left, there is the scene of boar hunting. The king,represented two times, is wearing the caftan with images of Senmurvs.
Other example with a fairly accurate date can be found in Sogdiana,
outside the borders of Sasanian empire, in Afrasiab, the most ancient core of
Samarkand.
In the Ambassador Hall, whose name derives from the 42 figures,interpreted as ambassadors, depicted on its walls, we can see in particular
three figures, interpreted as ambassador-dignitaries of Iran: one of them iswearing a caftan decorated with Senmurvs. The most plausible date is 660.
Among the objects presenting the image of Senmurv, there are someshowing the particular relationship of the fantastic animal with the tree oflife.
An ewer, whose proposed datation is VI-VII century A.D., from
Pavlovk, Ukraine, preserved at Hermitage Museum, is decorated with thelotus flower,4 other representation of the tree of life. An analogue decoration
is in a a silver cup from North Caucasus and in a silver plate from India. In theplate, the Senmurv presents Iranic palms in the tail and the tongue that
seems to transform itself in a plant stem.
In another Sasanian vase we can also see the relation with a female
figure; the face of a woman, surrounded by vegetal patterns, probably
Ameretat, goddess of vegetation.
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The image of Senmurv is adopted in Islamic art. We can see it in theDesert Castles, buildings related to the Umayyad dynasty, the first Islamic
dynasty, that ruled from 661 to 750. They are located in Syria, Palestine,
Jordan and Iraq and dated to VIII century. In particular the image of Senmurv
can be found in the palaces of Khirbat al-Mafjar, Qasr al Hair-al Gharbi and
Mshatta.
At Khirbat al-Mafjar, in Palestine, the Senmurv is found in aniche-head in the bathroom, represented again with a woman, and in somepictorial fragments.
At Mshatta, in Jordan, the Semurv is represented in one of thetriangles of the decorative band, that encircles the exterior of the building,nowadays preserved at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.
In this case Senmurv is represented together with the griffin; theassociation between the two animals can be also noticed in other contexts,
sich as a bronze plaque.5 The Senmurv and the griffin share some symbolic
aspects; they are cosmological animals, related to the tree of life.
In the first Islamic art, produced at the time of the Umayyad dynasty,
and caracterized by a continuity with the art of precedent periods, there are
not iconographical changes.
A first change in iconography can be remarked in Abbasid era(751-1258), as we can see on the octagonal plate from Iran, preserved at theMuseum of Islamic Art in Berlin, dated to IX-X century.6
Here we can notice a geometrization, stylization and semplification of
the image. The animals along the edge do not present the peacock's tailanymore, as it was a misrepresentation of the image; there is a continuous
repetition of the subject, that could suggest an ornamental and decorative useof the image, perhaps a loss of the original meaning.
Another change in Islamic art can be seen from XIII century, when
Senmurv transforms itself in Simurgh, a favolous bird of long multicolourfeathers, through the contact with Chinese phoenix, an iconography arrived
in Iran as a result of Mongol invasion.

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The Simurgh, whose name is the neopersian version of Senmurv, isthe favolous bird of Shâh-nâme or book of Kings, Iranian epic poem written
by Firdousi at the beginning of XI century, that tells the history of Iran fromthe creation of the world until Islamic conquer. First miniatures are dated to
XIII century. It is important to notice that Simurg is the tutelar genius of theheroes of the Iranian poem, Zal and Rustam; it holds a beneficial andapotropaic value, likewise the Senmurv.
In Islamic art Senmurv knows a limited spread and it is essentiallyrelated to secular art. It can be seen on buildings related to the Umayyad
dynasty, but there is also a more general presence in society, as demonstrated
by copper coins.
In Christian world Senmurv knows a wider diffusion, spreading in
Byzantine, Longobardian, Mozarabic and Romanesque art in all Europe and it
is essentially related to the sacred sphere. In fact, we can find the image
primarily in churches, on pluteus and ambos.
Furthermore, in Christian art we can notice a transformation of the
iconography, as we can see on the southern wall of the Church of Holy Cross,in Aghtmar, in Armenia. The church is a central plan building, realized
between 915 and 921 on a small island in the middle of the lake Van, in south
Armenia, in an area that is today part of Turkey’s state.
On the southern wall we can find the representation of the history of
Jonah, with several scenes.
According to the Biblical story, Jonah had not obeyed the divine order
to go and preach in Niniveh and he instead embarked for Tarsis. During thecrossing, a sudden storm broke out, Jonah understood to be guilty for having
unleash the divine anger. He is then thrown overboard by his comrades andswallowed by a whale.
In the following scene, Jonah is rejected from the animal after threedays spent in its belly, after which he has rejoint salvation and wisdom. In thisscene the animal is not represented as a whale anymore, but instead as iranic
Senmurv: the only difference is that it does not show the peacock's tail, but at
this place we can see a fish's tail.

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The anterior part of the body is then identical to iranic Senmurv, while
the tail is that of a fish.
This double iconographic configuration, whale and Senmurv, holds a
correspondance in literature, because the Armenian version of the Bible
distinguishes two animals: fish and vishap-fish.
The history of Jonah is one of the most represented themes inChristian art as symbol of salvation and resurrection.
Here the Senmurv is configured preminently as saving creature. It is
inside the animal that the process of salvation of the prophet takes place: thefact of resting inside the animal for three days makes possible the salvation of
the prophet.
Christianism adopts and employs the image of Senmurv, inparticularly in the frame of the Biblical story of Jonah, adapting and fitting itto the peculiar exigences of its own faith, carrying out a process ofresignification, but at the same time preserving the positive value the
Senmurv has always had since its origin in Iranic world.
The reception of Iranic Senmurv in Christian world in the frame ofhistory of Jonah was probably favoured and facilitated by the existence ofanother hybrid animal similar to hippocampus, that presents a fish's tail,analogous to the tail adopted by Senmurv in Christian world, and that was
already represented in the history of Jonah in late antiquity (an example is on
an ivory panel at the National Museum in Ravenna, Italy, dated V-VI century7.)
This hybrid animal probably functioned as substrate for iranic
Senmurv.
The transformation of the iconography seems to have happened in
Armenia, area continuously disputed between East and West: between
Byzantine Empire and Sasanid Empire before, and between Byzantium andIslam afterwards; an area of cross-cultural encounter and contamination. At
the time of construction of the church of Agth'amar, Armenia was asubordinate state of Muslim caliphate; but at the same time there was acertain degree of freedom and the preservation of the Christian faith waspermitted. Armenia was, therefore, a place of encounter between Christianculture and Sasanid-Islamic cultures.
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Simona Trudu

The iconography of Senmurv with fish's tail in the frame of the history
of Jonah can be also found in Southern Italy, in Romanesque sculpture. There
are numerous examples, particularly in the region of Campania: on the amboof the Cathedral of Ravello, on the fragment of the panel from Capua atMuseum of Campania (also considered as Pre-Romanesque), on the slab
attributed to the ancient Cathedral of Sorrento.
In these examples the entire history of Jonah, depicted in several
scenes in Aghtmar, has been reduced to the only scene where the animal
throws out Jonah, the rest of the history being omitted.
A further synthesis of the iconography is found in Central Italy, in theregion of Abruzzo, in a pluteus inside the church of San Pellegrino in
Bominaco (the proposed datation is XI century, although an earlier
production cannot be excluded).
Here Jonah is not represented anymore; the Senmurv with fish's tailappears as extrapolated from the context of Jonah’s history and it isrepresented

isolated,recoveringin this way the ancient mode ofrepresentation of Senmurv in Iranic world.
In this case, it is meaningful that Senmurv is represented again withthe griffin, as well as in Islamic art. In Bominaco the animals are represented,
facing each other in a symmetrical pose, on the pluteus forming the
iconostasis, the architectonical structure that marks the boundary between
the nave and the sanctuary, showing the access and make possible the accessto the presbiterial area, the most sacred space inside the church.
The diffusion of the iconography of Senmurv with fish's tail goes on in
XII century and beyond; there are numerous examples in Italy, France, United
Kingdom.
Different examples of Senmurv can be seen in civil Europeanarchitecture and its image has been used until recent times. There areexamples on churches' portals in some villages in Bulgaria in XIX and XX
centuries and on the portals of civil buildings, in Spain and Sardinia (Italy).
This use on the portals of the buildings, on a medium between insideand outside (that in the case of churches defines also the boundary between______________________________________________________________________________________
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secular and sacred space) can be probably explained as referred to aprotective and apotropaic value, confirming once again the continuity ofpositive meaning of the iconography in different culture and times.
Coming back to medieval times, the church of Aghtmar does not
explain all the examples of Senmurv with fish's tail found in west contexts.
The pluteus in Pavia, ancient capital of Longobardia Major, inNorthern Italy, from the church of the Monastery of Santa Maria Teodote, isdated to VIII century.8
The pluteus was part of the presbyterial enclosure of the church. Two
Senmurv with fish's tail are shown facing a tree of life in the shape of wak

wak, the talking tree, whose branches end with animals heads, a tree thatoriginated in the East and especially popular in Arabic traditions.
The pluteus should belong to a period of time preceding therealization of the church of Aghtmar. As a consequence, not all the examples
of Senmurv with fish's tail can be explained through the reference andmediation of Aghtmar, but the situation is more complexed, and we haveprobably to think to different and multiple paths and ways of transmission
through which the iconography of Senmurv with fish's tail could form andspread.
Besides the transformation of Senmurv with fish's tail, in Christianworld it is also attested the iranic Senmurv with peacock's tail.
There are two examples in Northern Italy, on two floors: in Cividaledel Friuli (VIII) and on the mosaic from the Abbey of St. Hilary in Venice (IX).
Senmurv is also found in Mozarabic miniatures, the miniatures
realized between X and XI century in Christian kingdoms of Northern Spainand caracterized by Islamic influences.
We can see it in two Beatos, illuminated manuscripts with the text of
the Commentary on the book of Revelation: Beatus of Girona and Beatus of
Facundus.
It is interesting to notice that iranic Senmurv and Senmurv with fish's
tail are equally represented.

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Beatus of Girona, from the monastery of S.Salvatore of Tabara, León,
preserved in Girona and dated to 975, presents a stronger oriental influence.
Iranic Senmurv is depicted staying above one of the small trees; on theright side we can see an eagle that holds between its paths a gazelle.
It is the transposition of the same subjects and of an identifical scene,that we can see on a Sasanian vessel preserved at the Hermitage Museum anddated to VI century.
It is an image with astronomical meaning: the eagle as symbol of thesky and of the sun that wins over horned animal, symbol of the moon.
The transposition of this image shows the strong influence of Sasanid
culture on the art of Iberian peninsula. (The same image, apart from the
Senmurv, can be also seen on the lid of two ivory vessels from Cordoba).
In Beatus of Girona the image is accompanied by the latin inscription“Coreus et aquila in venatione”: “Coreus (corvus-crow? - referred to the
Senmurv-) and eagle to the hunting.”
In Beatus of Facundus, from the kingdom of León, preserved at the
National Library in Madrid and dated to 1047, Senmurv is instead represented
with fish's tail, together to other fantastic animals, and it is one of the animalsof Noah's Ark. It is portrayed among the animals saved from the Great flood, aprobably evidence of the importance attributed to it.
The Senmurv is a subject particularly represented in fabrics, that areconsidered the principal medium through wich the iconography of theanimal could be spread over a so large area, from East to West.
It is also interesting to notice that a lot of fabrics with Senmurv were
found in European churches. They were probably used as bargaining chip, agift among princes, but they were also brought in Europe by pilgrims comingback from holy places in the East: they were used to envelop holy relics or toline boxes that preserved holy relics.
As a consequence, the fabrics are a very interesting material to study
the diffusion of the iconography and the relations among different cultures.
I will consider some examples of fabrics with Senmurv.
A first example is a fabric from the church of San Leu and Saint Gilles,
Paris. It has been the object of different hypothesis of datation spanning from______________________________________________________________________________________
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VI to IX century, but it is generally considered as realized in Iran in late
Sasanian era because of the duotone and the motifs of rotae, crescent moon,
small palm above the animal and for the presence of vegetal elements,
representation of the tree of life, all typical of Sasanian art.
In another fabric from the Cathedral of Verdun, France, it is possible
to notice the geometrization and absence of duotone, proof of a probably
post-sassanide Byzantine production.
In the Reliquarius of St.Pelagius, from the church of St. Isidore, León,
generally considered as a product of Al-Andalous, the Muslim-ruled area in
the Iberian peninsula, and consequently post-sassanid-Islamic (XI century),
we remark further changes: Senmurv is represented with other animals andthe dimension of the parts of the body are different from Sasanian shapes. It
is an interesting example highliting the relations among different cultures: an
Iranic subject on a fabric realized in Islamic area and used and found in
Christian area.
The Cushion of St.Remi (France), used for the relics of St.Remi, is the
only example with a certain date of production, 852, as reported on an
inscription on the fabric, that is monochrome, analogue to that of theso-called chasuble of St. Mark Pope. In this case a fabric with Senmurv has
been used to produce the chasuble, the liturgic vestment the catholiccelebrant wears during religious functions, masses ans processions.
According to the tradition, the chausable belonged to St. Mark Pope,
who lived in IV century. According to an inscription on the vestment, andbecause of the analogy with other fabrics, it should really have belonged toPope John VIII (872-882), who had crownd Charles the Bald, empereor of
Carolingian Empire.
This fabric with Senmurv was then used to produce the liturgic
vestment of the highest religious authority in Christian sphere. We can infer
the importance attribuited to the Senmurv in the Christian world. Consideredthat the vestment was seen by the faithfuls, it should have been attributed aparticular meaning to it, likely a beneficial one.
Finally, another image of Senmurv can be also seen on a belt buckle
from unknown place from the island of Sardinia, Italy, preserved in Colonia.9______________________________________________________________________________________
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It is an unicum: for the iconography, because among others presenting
animals, it is the only one with the Senmurv, and for the material, because itis the only one realized in gold, a precious material, while the others are inbronze or brass.
In addition, it is also singular for the shape and for the tecnic ofrealization.
The gold material, that expresses a greater value and prestige, shouldsuggest that the object belonged to an individual related to a higher social
class.
The plate of the belt buckle belongs to Syracusa typology, widespreadin Mediterranean and in Northern Europe, and dated between the end of VI
and the middle of VII century.
It is a datation based on the typology of the medallion because we do
not have elements referred to archaeological excavations.
According to the datation based on the typology, the belt buckle from
Sardinia is the oldest evidence with the image of Senmurv in West area.
In conclusion, we can probably individuate different ways and paths ofthe transmission of the iconography from East to West, realized throughIslam and Byzantium mediations.
The expansion of the iconography and its adoption from othercultures besides that of its origin is emblematic of the interactions among
different cultural systems, showing how they are engaged in a continuous
dialogue.
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Simona Trudu

Pasquini Laura. “Influenze dell’arte sasanide nell’Occidente mediterraneo: alcuni
episodi decorativi”. Proceedings of the 5th Conference of the Societas Iranologica
Europæa, Vol. 1, Ancient and Middle Iranian Studies, Ravenna, 6-11 ottobre 2003.
Pope Arthur Upham, Ackerman Phyllis. A survey of Persian Art: from prehistoric
times to the present, Ashiya ( Japón); New York: Maxwell Alley Literary Associates,
1981.
Ricci, Marco. “La produzione di merci di lusso e di prestigio a Roma da Giustiniano a
Carlomagno” in Roma dall’antichità al medioevo. Archeologia e storia del Museo
Nazionale Romano Crypta Balbi, 78-87. Milan: Electa, 2001.
Schmidt Hanns-Peter. “The Senmurv, of birds and dogs and bats”. Persica, vol. XI,(1980): 101-185.
Schmidt Hanns-Peter. “Simorg”. Encyclopædia
http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/simorg

Iranica,

July

20

2002,

Silvi Antonini Chiara, “The paintings in the palace of Afrasiab (Samarkand)”, Rivista
degli Studi Orientali, vol. LXIII, (1989): 109-144.
Splendeur des Sassanides. L’Empire Perse entre Rome et la Chine (224-642), Bruxelles:
Crédit Communal, 1993.

The Art of Medieval Spain A.D. 500-1200 : Exhibition Metropolitan Museum of Art
1993-1994, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993.
Trever Camilla Vasil’evna. The dog-bird. Senmurv-Paskudj, Leningrado:1938.
Volbach Wolfgang Fritz. Il tessuto nell’arte antica. Milan: 1966.
Williams John. The Illustrated Beatus. A corpus of the illustrations of theCommentary on the Apocalypse. London: Harvey Miller Publishers, Vol I, II, III, 1994.

Endnotes
1. Jean Marie Hoppe (Madrid: C.S.I.C., 2000), 307-355, “Le corpus de la sculpture visigothique.
Libre parcours et essai d’interprétation” in Visigodos y Omeyas, Un debate entre la Antigüdad
tardía y la Alta Edad Media, in Anejos de AEspa, XXIII.
2. M. Bates (1986): 225-229, “Arab-sasanian coins”, Encyclopædia Iranica, Vol. II, Fasc. 3.
3. A. Nikitin G. Roth (1995): 277-279, “A New Seventh-Century Countermark with a Sogdian
inscription”, The Numismatic Chronicle, 155.
4. Françoise Demange Paris: Les Perses Sassanides. Fastes d’un empire oublié (224-642),(Editions Paris-Musées - Findakly, 2006), 116-117.
5. L’Étrange et le Merveilleux en terres d’Islam (Paris : Rmn, 2001), 119.
6. Markus Hattstein Peter Delius, Islam Arte e Architettura (Köln:Könemann, 2001), 123.
7. Giovanni Curatola (1978): 285-302, “Il “Vishap” di Aght’amar: nota sulla diffusione
occidentale di un motivo iconografico”, Oriente Moderno.
8. Roberto Coroneo, Scultura altomedievale in Italia. Materiali e tecniche di esecuzione,
tradizioni e metodi di studio (Cagliari: Edizioni AV, 2005), 70.
9. Roberto Coroneo, Arte in Sardegna dal IV alla metà dell’XI secolo (Cagliari: Edizioni AV,
2011), 290.

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Performances and Archive: Márcia
X, Mabe Bethônico and Marina
Abramović in Migration______________________________________________________________________________________

Vivian Horta
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
ABSTRACTThis paper presents three case studies on performances that operate under
the concepts of displacement and migration: A Cadeira Careca (The Bald
Chair, 2004), by Márcia X; Marina Abramović’s Rhythm O (1975, printed in1994) and Mabe Bethônico’s museumuseu (2006).

A Cadeira Careca by Márcia X (1959-2001) was donated to the Museude Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (MAM/RJ), on the occasion of her death.
The passage between Márcia X’s performance and its exhibition allows us toreflect on the ruptures that are created when an ephemeral work of art
becomes a vestige. In Rhythm O, Marina Abramović invited visitors to StudioMorra, in Naples, to interact with her body for 6 hours, using 72 objects,
which included a pen, a hammer, a chain, knives and even a loaded gun. Mabe
Bethônico's museumuseu articulates collections, activities, texts and images,
constituted by the continuous practice of research, accumulation andclassification of objects and documents shifted from their original context. In
2006, the project was transported for exhibition at the 27th São Paulo
Biennial, thus migrating its archives to a physically accessible presentation.
The migrations in space and time identified in these case studies arepresented as instruments for reflection on the transformation of ideas,
objects and images that occurred during the transit of these works from theircreation until their exhibition to the public.
KEYWORDS
Performance art; Mabe Bethonico; Marcia X; Marina Abramovic; Rhythm O.

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Vivian Horta

Introduction
To understand why we still don't collect performance art in Brazil as much as
we produce them is the main goal of my doctoral research. Therefore, I havebeen trying to identify how some performance art migrates from reality to astatic, imagetic support, visible by the public at any time. In this trajectory,
the way performance artists work the concepts of displacement andmigration seem to emerge more and more.
In this article, I will present how three artists - Marcia X., Mabe
Bethônico and Marina Abramović - work the concept of migration in theirwork. I will try to demonstrate how this concept relates to the transfer
between the individual performing the action and the work, to adisplacement that seeks to bring visibility to a place or a subject, and to theattempt to archive and exhibit the performance. Above all, we will discover
how the concept of migration in these cases maintains a curious relationshipwith the spectator.
Márcia X
Márcia X was an artist from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, who worked from the
1980’s on on the themes of sexuality, childhood, and religion. This was a
combination that, in many moments, shocked the public. She worked
especially with assemblages and performance art. Here, we will address thissecond category.
In the period between 2000 and 2003, Marcia carried out several times
the performance Drawing with Rosaries where, wearing a white nightgown,
she used rosaries to draw penis shapes on the floor.
It is notable how the artist was concerned with assuring thepermanence of her works, even if for a short period of time. Several of her
performances had the classification "performance/installation", given by theartist herself, which indicated that the residues of a performance should
remain in place, on display, for a period after the action. In this aspect, we canalso highlight the way writing was involved in her work. Márcia used to write
instructions about her performances, as well as keep thorough records anddocumentation about the whole process of conception of her works. In______________________________________________________________________________________
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Vivian Horta

addition, she was known to debate in printed media vehicles, through lettersthat dealt - generally - with her own artistic production.

Fig. 1. Márcia X. Desenhando com terços
Performance/installation, 2000-2003.

As one of the results of this performance, the artist created the work Drawing

on rosaries, which was a photograph in which two rosaries are used to draw
the phallic shape over a black background. In 2006, after the artist's death,
this work was included in Erotica - the Senses in Art, an exhibition held by
the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Brasília.
In Rio, it was the target of several complaints, including the filing of acriminal notice by a congressman who declared that it was an "outrage to the
Catholic Church". All this resulted in its censorship and removal from theexhibition, under the bank's claim of "respect for freedom of speech"______________________________________________________________________________________
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Vivian Horta(Figueiredo 2006). The decision was even taken in the absence of the curator,
Maria Ignez Mantovani.

Fig. 2. Márcia X. - “A Cadeira Careca”
Performance, 2004.

The work The Bald Chair was Marcia's last performance, and was held
in November 2004. With the participation of her husband, the artist Ricardo
Ventura, and Aimberê César, the proposal linked the Gustavo Capanema
Building, former headquarters of the Ministry of Education and Health, in theearly capital of Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, and the chaise longue. Both had Le
Corbusier's participation in their projects - the chair had the architect's
design and the project for one of the first public buildings of modernist
architecture in Brazil had his consulting services. Both conferred to the workof the Franco-Swiss architect a sense of permanence. The permanence solonged for the artist in her "instructions" and performances/installations.
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Vivian Horta

During the performance, Ricardo Ventura, wearing a white lab coat,shaved the fur off the chair around Marcia, who was wearing black - the artist
was facing lung cancer - dying three months later.

Tired, she left theperformance in an ambulance. Brazilian art critic Lauro Cavalcanti, in his
essay "The bald chair or the artist was wearing black" refers to the"celebration of the permanence of ideas and the impermanence of people
and objects" (Cavalcanti 2005).

The Bald Chair was donated, along with her entire collection, to theMuseum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro after Márcia X’s death. The
migration between Márcia X’s living performance and her exhibition allows
us to reflect on the ruptures created in imagination and visuality when an
ephemeral work of art becomes a remaining.
At this point, I would like to propose that we reflect on how it was
exhibited after the moment of action. Was it accessible to the general public?
As I mentioned before, The Bald Chair was the artist's last
performance, and it was presented by a Marcia X. already exhausted by a long
treatment against lung cancer. Perhaps because of this, and because it has her
body engraved on its surface, the "Chair" has become both a reminder of her
presence and a strong souvenir of her absence.
An example is this photograph that illustrates the article in "O Globo"
newspaper of November 10th, 2005, about the exhibition "Márcia X. Revista",
which opened nine months after her death, at Paço Imperial, Rio de Janeiro.
We can see the curator Claudia Saldanha, the artist's widower, Ricardo
Ventura, and other artists and employees posing for a portrait with the chair,as if it were there to somehow stand in for Márcia just for a moment.
In some pictures it is possible to grasp a part of the display of "Márcia
X. Revista" exhibition. There, we can see that the “Chair” welcomed the visitor
who walked into the exhibition. I believe that they also make us think about
how Márcia, in a very sensitive and poetic way, appropriated her own destiny
to inaugurate, still in life, the first chapter of her memories.
The concept of migration in Drawing with rosaries and The Bald Chair
can be identified when we think that her performances immediately became
installations when the artist left the scene. When she created a photograph to______________________________________________________________________________________
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Vivian Hortaregister and to make available to the public a record of her phallic drawings,
in a new support, Márcia X. puts migration at the request of the permanence
so desired in her work. This is exactly the goal she achieves when she finallytransfers her silhouette to her own work, in the last months of her life. Just
like the creator of the chair and the building, Le Corbusier, Márcia X. madeher mark in history.
Soon after, the work was featured in the exhibition "Constellations: theportrait in the Museum of Modern Art of Rio collections", which took place
between 2018 and 2019, curated by Fernando Cocchiarale and Fernanda
Lopes.
In this exhibition, photos and a video were presented along with thechair, which also had more complete information. A relevant point is that thesubtitle of the show itself, "portrait in the MAM collections" is already useful
information in the task of unraveling its layers, especially if we think that,after her death, the work was in fact exhibited almost as a portrait of theartist.
Mabe Bethônico
Brazilian artist Mabe Bethônico approaches performance through speech andworks with the concept of research-based art. In this sense, her "conferences"or "performed narratives", records of episodes and negotiations that takeplace in the course of her research, and which are enunciated personallyduring her exhibitions, eventually become ephemeral, in the face of animmense archive of processes that dismember into exhibitions, publications,and objects sold in the gallery that represents the artist - and that end up
financing the survival of her work.
Born in the state of Minas Gerais, which can be translated into English
as "general mines", a state marked by the action of mining companies, andwhich is currently experiencing yet another tragedy resulting from this
exploitation, Bethônico seeks, in her work, to discuss this and other themes
in a political way. Therefore, as a result of a vast research carried out from
Switzerland, where she currently lives, she has created the exhibition"Extraordinary Mineral Stories" which, through tales that seem to mix reality______________________________________________________________________________________
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Vivian Horta

and fiction, explores many different angles of a theme which interest is basedon the artist's origins.
With the work The Collector, started in 1996, Mabe Bethônico creates acharacter who establishes a logic for his collection and follows a very detailed"acquisition policy". Even after being acquired by the collection of the
Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo in 2014, this character, created andembodied by the artist, keeps collecting and assembling newspaper clippings
on four themes (destruction, corrosion, construction and flowers). So as hedid during his stay in exhibitions in many institutions, where an employee
was always assigned to collect images in local newspapers and to add them tothe collection.
The creation of this institutional dialogue dictates the survival of thischaracter, the continuity of the process, and the permanence of the artist's
performance as the character who compulsively collects newspaper clippingson subjects that also outline his peculiar personality.
It is worth noting the artist's concern with the methods of organizing,
documenting, and exhibiting this collection, which, according to her,migrated to an institutional collection as a way of ensuring the integrity andpromotion of this work, which became more accessible to researchers andother institutions that might want to include it in some sort of exhibition.
One of the platforms for publicizing this character's collection is thenewspaper "museumuseu", a project printed and distributed by the artist. In"museumuseu", Mabe Bethônico creates a network of connected works thattogether constitute her "museumuseu" - a collection of collections thatassumes different formats at all times. Furthermore, Mabe incorporates his
processes into works and exhibitions through his performative lectures, talks
through which she shares with the attending viewers fictions that taint visible
objects with multiple hidden meanings. "The Collector", begun in 1996, is oneof his many collections.
Launched by Mabe Bethônico in 2000, "museumuseu" is characterized
as a structure that articulates collections, activities, texts and images,
consisting on the ongoing practice of research, accumulation, collection,categorization and creation of new systems from objects and documents______________________________________________________________________________________
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Vivian Horta

displaced from their original context. The project deals with the boundaries
between fiction and reality, documentation and construction, questioning thetransformation of factual information into selected narratives.
In 2006, the project was transported for exhibition at the 27th São
Paulo Biennial, thereby migrating her archives to a physically accessible
presentation. By including an issue of the "museumuseu" newspaper in her
Biennial module, entitled "Arquivo Wanda Svevo Campaign", the artist once
again underlines her intention to give access and bring to the center of the
discussion matters and agents sometimes made invisible.

Fig. 3. Mabe Bethônico - Campanha Wanda Svevo
installation at the 27th São Paulo Biennial, 2006______________________________________________________________________________________
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Vivian Horta

The Wanda Svevo archive is the place where the memory of São Paulo
Biennial is kept, and it is located in the same building where the Biennial
takes place. Active since 1955, the archive holds photographs, correspondencewith artists and curators, promotional documents, and published catalogs, inaddition to a library specialized in contemporary art.
Within the museumuseu project, the artist proposes an interface
between art and memory, transforming the small but extremely relevant
Archive into part of the Biennial exhibition circuit, by presenting a fiction ofher own authorship. The artist pushes the boundaries between the Archiveand the Biennial Pavilion, taking to the exhibition space schematic drawings
that show the organization of the documents that make up its collection,seeking to present the space to the general viewers.
The struggles and peculiarities faced in the negotiation process with
the Archive in order to execute this work were portrayed by Mabe Bethônico
in performative lectures. These narratives made it clear how the archival
practices still reflect today the relationship between private interests andpublic patrimony in Brazil. In a intersection between History and Bethônico's
work, the São Paulo Biennial itself suffered, during the nineteen sixties andseventies, strong repression and censorship by the military dictatorshipinstated in the country.
Mabe Bethônico's initiative of migrating the Wanda Svevo Archive tothe 27th São Paulo Biennial, through the imagetic representation of theArchive in the Pavilion, through mediated visits and lectures by her, brings ahint of challenge to the rules and the silence imposed during the period ofrepression in Brazil that, by interfering in the way the archives wereconstituted and consulted, intended that the history of an entire country be
told through its lenses.
Mabe Bethônico uses a periodical as a way to circulate her works,
projects and collections among the public. By migrating her works from her
private collection to institutional collections, as well as to the Wanda Svevo
Archive for the São Paulo Biennial, she intends to transform the private into
the public, granting access to her work.

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Vivian Horta

Marina Abramović
Marina Abramović is a Serbian performer who lives and works in New Yorkand is probably one of the world's most recognizable artists in activity. She
believes that performance exists only when in a live situation. According toher, even when we think about the permanence of performance beyond theoriginal action, we must be able to create an environment for that project tobe unfolded by individuals, not photographs or videos.
The artist works with the concept of reperformance - a staging thatseeks to make available to a new audience the live experience of aperformative action that has already taken place. Usually in contexts,
locations, and with performers other than the original ones. In her Institute the itinerant Marina Abramovic Institute - she coaches young artists toparticipate in and to re-enact performances. She claims that there are many
institutes to teach actors, and many artists who use actors in theirperformances. However, there was not, until then, a school for performers.
She says that nowadays an artist can contact her and ask for a performer, andshe will find, among her students, the ideal one. Her works reperformed in"The artist is present", her 2010 retrospective at MoMA, included these"students" in her "cast".
Another motto widely promoted by the artist is that "Performance is atime-based art." In other words, one must have time to attend a performanceand one must endure time to present it.
I will need to go back and forth in time to build my argument. Let's
start with the performance "Imponderabilia," which Abramovic presented in
1977.
MarinaAbramović

and

her

then-partner,

Ulay,performed"Imponderabilia" at the Galleria Communale d'Arte Moderna in Bologna, Italy.
The action consisted of the two individuals, naked, standing facing eachother, with a distance of approximately 30 cm (or 1 ft.) between them. Any
visitor interested in entering the Galleria could only do so by squeezing
between these two bodies. Each individual found his or her own way to
perform this action, in order to find the least awkward way out. Marina andUlay remained in silence, without making any eye contact with the public.
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Vivian Horta

Only after choosing which of the two to face during the passage through thedoor, the visitors, already on the second floor of the museum, foundthemselves observed, as they came across two monitors that displayed theentrance door live.
At the time, Abramović stated that: "If there were no artists, there
would be no museums, so we are living doors."
An hour and a half after the start of the performance, two officers
arrived at the Galleria, passing through the entrance facing Marina, andreturning with two Museum employees who informed Abramovic and Ulay
that the performance should be stopped because it had been consideredobscene by the police.
Marina Abramović thinks of performance as an artistic manifestationthat only makes sense while alive. So, for the retrospectives "The artist ispresent", at MoMA, in 2010, and "The cleaner", at Palazzo Strozzi, in Firenze, in
2018, she made sure that some of her students would stand, naked, in adoorway, taking turns from time to time. However, in these cases, the visitor
could choose whether or not to pass through the door in question, unlike inthe initial proposal. We can also think that, knowing the proposal of the workand how it originally unfolded, the audience could have other ideas of how tobehave in the situation, which would not have occurred to the unaware ones
who came across it by surprise, in 1977. However, it is an undeniable fact: theperformance happened again, live.
That exhibition presented also a huge photograph of the performance,
and a text about it, which, besides going against Abramović's speech, can lead
us to question again the somewhat theatrical content of a performancere-enactment in this context.

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Vivian Horta

Fig. 4. Marina Abramović and Ulay - Imponderabilia Original performance from1977, as it was presented at The Cleaner exhibition Palazzo Strozzi, Firenze, 2018

Since Seven Easy Pieces, an event in which, for seven hours of each of sevenconsecutive days, Marina Abramović has re-enacted performances by fiveartists, concluding with a reperformance of her work "Lips of Thomas" (1975)
and an original performance ("Entering the other side"), Abramović reportsthat several other artists have requested her authorization to re-enact someof her performances.
One of those performances authorized by Abramović was Eva andFranco Mattes' Imponderabilia, in the virtual environment Second Life.
According to her, Second Life is a completely different medium, it issomething that does not compete with live art.
In the iconic performance that gave the title to Marina Abramović's
2010 MoMA retrospective, "The artist is present," she sat in a chair, in silence,for eight hours a day, throughout the three-month exhibition, face to facewith over a thousand visitors, for as long as each of them wanted.

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Vivian Horta

She also authorized the display of "The artist is present" in the exhibition"Marina Abramović: The Cleaner", in Italy. On that occasion, the exhibition
had a scenario that showed video footage of the original performance and thefurniture used at MoMA. In addition to having central focus in the room, we
can observe that there is also a spotlight on the chairs and the table, which
gives an almost sacred atmosphere to the furniture.
But the main object of this analysis is the famous performance"Rhythm 0", which took place in 1974 at the Studio Morra gallery in Naples,
Italy. At that time, Marina thought that artists who worked with performance
were often over the top and decided to create a situation that would let the
public go as far as they could go when the artist herself was doing nothing. So
she created a performance in which she was exposed, as a mixture ofmannequin and puppet, to the action of everyone present, who could use a
total of 72 items laid out on a table to interact with her body. Among themwere everything from a knife to a rose - to a gun loaded with a bullet.
Throughout the work period, the artist lost her clothes - which were
cutted off with a knife -, had a lit cigarette placed in her mouth and a loaded
gun placed on her hand and pointed to her head, with her finger on thetrigger. Through the entire time, she looked at a fixed point, so that facing theindividuals would not turn her, too, into an individual. At the end of thesix-hour performance, when the gallery owner announced that it was over,Marina left the condition of an object and walked towards the public, who
immediately left the place. According to the artist, when she stopped being apuppet and became an individual, people no longer knew how to act in her
presence.

Rhythm O was then presented at the retrospective "The artist ispresent", which took place in 2010, at MoMA, in New York. On that occasion,
the artist, together with the gallerist Sean Kelly, chose to exhibit photographsof the action and a table with the 72 objects available at the time. However, by
her choice, these were not the original objects used in 1974. It was more
important that the public could see the potential of each one of them in thepresented action than to cover them with a fetish aura for having been usedduring the original action.
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Vivian Horta

Fig. 5. Marina Abramović - Rhythm O. Original performance from 1974, as it waspresented at “The artist is present” exhibition MoMA, New York, 2010

So, although she is a strong advocate for reperformance, Abramović believedthat it would not be possible to re-enact that work, even with artists trainedby her, given the emotional charge and violence involved in that action. In
addition to holding a loaded gun pointed at herself, the artist claimed she was
not a rape victim just because it was a performance attended by a large
audience.
Thus, the most effective way to communicate to the public theextremes reached with the inclusion of certain objects in the action was touse photographs of moments in which the integrity of the body and theindividual were compromised. Although Marina states that, in the absence ofthe possibility of reperformance, video works better than photos because it
can "capture the time and energy of life", there are no videos of thisperformance, only photographs, commissioned by the artist herself.

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Vivian Horta

Together with photographs projected on the wall, the presence of thetable with the arranged objects allowed the MoMA public to suddenly finditself involved in that event and to imagine for a moment what it would do if
it were, on that day in 1974, in the Galleria Studio Morra in Naples.
Marina Abramović's early performances were recorded only in black
and white photographs and descriptive texts. In this image we see a
photograph of a specific moment of the performance "Rhythm 0", when
Abramović has her breasts exposed, still holding a rose. A man is standing infront of her, with one hand on her arm, and it is not possible to identify what
action is about to unfold. Below this framed photograph is a listing of theobjects used in the performance. To the left, in another frame, is the text inwhich Abramović presented the instructions for the performance.
In 1994, Marina Abramović selected and edited a series of photographs
among the most representative of her work, one of which became part of thecollection of the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1998, also under thetitle "Rhythm 0." MoMA also owns this work.
As we have seen, the artist is constantly involved in discussions about
the commercialization of ephemeral works and is responsible for the term
"reperformance", which includes both the reinterpretation of other artists'
performance works and the presentation of their performances by her orother artists, duly prepared to do so at her institute. Both the image editing
process and the reperformance promote the displacement of her work.
The point here is not to unmask how certain statements andprinciples of Marina Abramović contradict each other when it comes to thecirculation of her works. What we wanted to expose is how attempts todisplace their bodies or a subject into the medium of their work, attempts toarchive and record performances, and the seek of making them accessible to
the general public often result in controversy, for artists, gallerists, curators...
There is no standard for dealing with these works, and ultimately the mostthat can and has been done is to always seek the best alternative available, ina given context, to make these works accessible to those who were not thereat the time of their original presentation.

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Vivian Horta

Throughout the course of my doctoral research on the subject, which
has already lasted a few years, I could only have contact with the vast majorityof the performances I researched through images and textual reports. I
believe that this has not diminished the meaning or the pleasure of getting intouch with these artistic proposals.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bernstein, Ana. “Marina Abramovic Em Conversa Com Ana Bernstein/Marina
Abramovic in Conversation with Ana Bernstein.” Caderno Videobrasil no. 1,
September 2005.
Bethônico, Mabe. Interview granted to Vivian Horta. Rio de JaneiroBrasil/Genebra-Suíça, 12 out. 2020. [Interview granted through video call.]Bethônico, Mabe and Pato, Ana (org.). Mabe Bethônico: documentos - arquivos eoutros assuntos públicos. Belo Horizonte: Videobrasil, 2017.
Bethônico, Mabe. “De como Mabe Bethônico percorreu a caatinga na Suíça, nosarquivos do autor viajante Edgar Aubert de la Rüe, [...].” Belo Horizonte: Edições
Capacete, 2014.
Bethônico, Mabe and Cohen, Ana Paula (ed.). “museumuseu”, São Paulo, outubro de2006. Ano 01, n. 1.
Bethônico, Mabe. (interview). Museologia & Interdisciplinaridade - Revista do
Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências da Informação da Universidade de Brasília,v.I e II, n. 5, maio/junho, 2014.
https://periodicos.unb.br/index.php/museologia/article/view/15484/13782.
Cavalcanti, Lauro. “A Cadeira Careca/La Chaise Chauve ou A artista estava de negro.,”2005. http://marciax.art.br/mxText.asp?sMenu=4&sText=41.
Figueiredo, Talita. “Folha de S.Paulo - Banco Proíbe ‘Terço Erótico’ Em Exposição 20/04/2006,” 2022. https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/fsp/cotidian/ff2004200601.htm.
Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi. “Marina Abramović. The Cleaner - Fondazione Palazzo
Strozzi,” May 20, 2020.
Furlaneto, Audrey. “Retrospectiva de Márcia X Marca Doação Do Acervo Da Artista
Ao MAM.” O Globo. O Globo, February 2013.
https://oglobo.globo.com/cultura/retrospectiva-de-marcia-marca-doacao-do-acervoda-artista-ao-mam-7456355.
Jones, Amelia. “‘The Artist Is Present’: Artistic Re-Enactments and the Impossibility ofPresence.” TDR/the Drama Review 55, no. 1 (2014): 16–45.
Mabe Bethonico, and Ana Pato. “Perguntas Para Mabe Bethônico. Respostas Para Ana
Pato.” Anais do IV Seminário Internacional Arquivos de Museus e Pesquisa - A
formação interdisciplinar do documentalista e do conservador., 2017.

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Maria, Cleusa. A arte perde uma referência. Jornal do Brasil. Rio de Janeiro, 04 fev.
2005. 6. Caderno B.
Matos, Lúcia Almeida. “Na presença de Marina Abramovic: Notas sobre musealização
da performance.” Revista de História da Arte, Porto, n. 8, 2011.
https://run.unl.pt/bitstream/10362/16701/1/RHA_8_ART_12_LAMatos.pdf.
Garagemca. “Arquivo Histórico Wanda Svevo: An Archive That Was Once Dead. A
Lecture by Ana Luiza Mattos.” June 26, 2018.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqydnu_jvJk.
Marciax.art.br. “Márcia X.,” 2022.
http://marciax.art.br/mxObra.asp?sMenu=2&sObra=46.
Melim, Regina. “Performance nas artes visuais.” Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar Ed., 2008.
Moma.org. “MoMA | Marina Abramović. The Artist Is Present. 2010,” 2022.
Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro. [Exhibition dossier of Márcia X.
collection.] MAM-Rio: 2012.
Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro. “Em polvorosa” (catalog). Rio de Janeiro,
2017.
Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro. “Márcia X.” Rio de Janeiro, 2013.
Obrist, Hans Ulrich. “Marina Abramović.” In. Entrevistas: volume 6. 187-228. Rio deJaneiro: Cobogó; Belo Horizonte: Instituto Cultural Inhotim, 2012.
Sotheby’s. “Rhythm 0 | (Women) Artists | 2022 | Sotheby’s,” 2022.
Westcott, James. Quando Marina Abramović morrer: uma biografia. São Paulo:Edições SESC São Paulo, 2015.

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Colour Reproductions for Modern
Art. Venturi and the Print
Exhibitions in Post-war Italy______________________________________________________________________________________

Viviana Pozzoli
University of Milan
ABSTRACTIn the spring of 1946, the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome opened
the exhibition “Mostra didattica di riproduzioni di pittura moderna”, a display
made by colour reproductions of modern paintings supported by the
Ministry of Education and conceived by the museum direction under theguide of the art historian Lionello Venturi, who came back after the exile
years during Fascism spent between France and the United States, where hepublishedhis

crucialresearcheson

CézanneandthehistoryofImpressionism.
On the background of the Postwar cultural climate, the initiativereflected a reference horizon that included it within a wide network of coeval
events aimed at experimenting similar strategies of art narratives, thus
consecrating the international arise of an exhibition paradigm, alongside thediffusion of Malraux’s concept of “musée imaginaire”.
Focusing on the investigation of Venturi’s operation from such
unprecedent historiographical perspective, this paper aims to explore themigration of new models of dissemination through images in a crucial
moment for the international historicization of modern art. The growing calls
for bringing people closer to art languages – successfully evoked in the slogan“art for everyone” – contributed to redesign the status of photo-reproduction,
its forms and consumption practices. A revolution made possible through thematerial and symbolic features of colour.
KEYWORDS
Art reproduction; Colour; Modern art; Travelling print exhibition; Lionello
Venturi.

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Viviana Pozzoli

Context and protagonists
In 1946 the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome (GNAM) opened acolour print exhibition titled “Mostra didattica di riproduzioni di pittura
moderna”, one of the first projects dedicated to the spread of European
modern artistic culture in the Postwar Italy1. The climate was that of theReconstruction, a background still marked by the suffering of the war and theoccupation years but facing the future and crossed by great intellectual
fervor, by the reopening of institutions, diplomatic relations and places ofculture, including public and private art venues2.
The GNAM, the most important public museum dedicated to modern
art in Italy, had reopened in December 1944 after dramatic years dedicated to
an intense activity of defense and rescue of the works of art3. The reopening
was accompanied by the decision to update the museum set-up andfunctions, the activity of the gallery according to modern criteria, with thedesire to overcome the backwardness of the Italian artistic situation4. Its
director Palma Bucarelli led the process by creating an eminent network ofinterlocutors. Among these, the most influential was Lionello Venturi, who
taked on the role of a mentor.
The art historian had returned to Italy from political exile in 1945 andresumed the teaching of art history by moving to the chair at the University ofRome5. Bucarelli promptly contacted him a few weeks after his arrival. A
letter of March 1945, in which she asks for advice and support in the complex
work of reorganizing the museum, gave rise to a long and fruitfulcollaboration that would have led, among the first and most experimental
projects, to the print exhibition of modern painting6.
Venturi was indeed received with deference and great participation by
the Italian cultural circles. The intellectual authority of the scholar went handin hand with the moral one of the man who rejected Fascism. The art
historian engaged in an intense dissemination activity, among the mostprogressive and incisive manifestations of the European culture of the time,thus contributing to the rebirth of the country. Through interviews,
conferences, newspaper articles he devoted himself to the diffusion of topics
such as the education to modern art, the role of artistic institutions and the______________________________________________________________________________________
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Viviana Pozzoli

social function of museums, in line with a vision mindful of pragmatism andDeweyane pedagogical theories on the democratic vocation of art achieved
during his stay in the United States7. These issues were welcomed by
Bucarelli, who was inspired to imagine the GNAM to become a living
institution, a place of opennes, updating and education to modern art values.
For them, in the name of an advanced museology conception, knowing how
to shift the attention from the work of art to the man, the public wasintended to be the great protagonist. A public not only of aficionados or
insiders, nor mainly of students from art schools and academies – whonevertheless Bucarelli personally worked to involve8–, but the mass audiencefacing to the new democratic society: it was such enlarged public, above all,that the 1946 exhibition addressed. Evidence of this is the strong media
battage orchestrated through press, of which the countless newspaper andmagazine clippings kept in the GNAM’s archives are traces9.
The exhibition

Fig. 1. “Mostra didattica di riproduzioni di pittura moderna”, exhibition catalogue

The “Mostra didattica di riproduzioni di pittura moderna” inaugurated on
April 9, 1946. It was set up in the central hall of the GNAM and remained open
about a month, every day from 10:00 to 18:00, with free admission10. It
brought together 81 large-format colour reproductions of masterpieces bymodern masters, from Manet to Picasso, and 5 original works loaned by______________________________________________________________________________________
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Lionello Venturi11, from whose collection also came part of the printed
images.
At the exhibition closing, on May 8, the art historian held a lecture
titled The origins of contemporary painting. Quoting his words, it investigated
not so much the sources, which “are lost over the centuries”, but the historicalorigins of contemporary painting by isolating two crucial moments defined
as revolutions: the crisis of impressionism (from 1880 to 1890) and theavant-garde (from 1905 to 1914). The conference was a great public successand a version of it was published in newspapers in the following weeks12.
The art reproductions on display, all of them in colour and in large
format, were presented as follows: about half in facsimile were framed andset up on the walls, the others were arranged in special display cases,
depending on the importance, the quality and the dimensions of the printed
materials13. Reproductions were accompanied by captions, short biographicalnotes of the artists and, in some cases, also by commentaries on single works,
as for those of Vincent van Gogh which were depicted by excerpts from his
letters14.
Fig. 2. Frames from “Roma: alla Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna i capolavoridella pittura straniera”, Notiziario Nuova LUCE / NL011, 1946, courtesy Archivio

LUCE

The exhibition was organized in economy of means. The living costs
for the GNAM were only 27.000 lire, that is to say less than 10.000 dollars, if
we rely on current monetary revaluation tables15. This can be deduced fromthe documents preserved up to now, which unfortunately are few, and it is______________________________________________________________________________________
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not only true about administrative and organisational materials or
correspondence, since the visual documentation is practically absent.
A significant exception is represented by a short video taken from a
newsreel of the time that have been traced in the archives of the Istituto
LUCE16. The frames give us an idea of the environment, the set-up solutions,the relationship between the reproduced artworks and the visitors.
Regrettably, the key element of the project is missing. It is colour, a feature on
which instead the reviews widely insisted by speaking of “admirable”, “perfect
reproductions” made with “special graphic processes” by the best foreigncompanies17.
In parallel, by crossing press and archival informations with thecatalogue-guide18, it is possible to get a more precise idea of the exhibition
contents, choises and occurences. As already mentioned, part of the
reproductions were loaned by Venturi: it was essentially one-third of theframed facsimile, while the other two-thirds came directly from the GNAM’scollections19. Their publishers were international: the German Piper and theAmerican Twin were the most frequent, followed by the Swiss Stehli and theParisians Braun and Quatre Chemins20. The reviews agreed that the American
prints – all from Venturi’s own archive – appear clearly superior, technicallyenviable21.
About the artworks, most of them were in the hands of private
collectors or dealers from Europe and the United States, whereas a smaller
percentage belonged to public collections, especially American museums,
MoMA in the lead22. The artists represented were 20 for 81 reproductions. The
most reproduced were Matisse with 13 paintings, Picasso with 10, Bonnard
and Van Gogh with 9 each and finally Cézanne with 8. The other names were,in order of catalogue, Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Sisley, Renoir, Degas, Gauguin,
Seurat, Dufy, Derain, Braque, Rouault, Chagall, Mondrian, Miro23.

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Fig. 3. One of the reproductions on display: Edgar Degas, Jockeys, Piper-Druck
no. 39, courtesy GNAM

The exhibition presented a synthesis of modern art tendencies
respondent to the in the course of canonization scheme Impressionism,
Post-Impressionism, Avant-garde. If the Impressionists counted on about 15
reproductions dedicated and the Post-Impressionists, starting from Cézanne,
about 20, the leading role was entrusted by the exponents of the Avant-garde,
including the artists of the École de Paris, with more than half of theoccurences. But going beyond these arbitrary definitions, it should beconsidered the dating of the artworks for decades, which is a reallyinteresting matter. In fact, despite the massive preponderance of artists fromthe Avant-garde ranks, it wasn’t the first and second decades of 20th century
to rule it, but the ’40s, or rather the present, represented by almost half of thetotal reproductions. The other decade to have a weight was the ’80s, that of______________________________________________________________________________________
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the crisis of Impressionism, with a quarter of the pieces, while the years from1900 to 1930 showed irrelevant numbers24.
Matisse paintings, for instance, like Odalisque. Harmonie bleu, 1937 or
the seated women of the early ’40s, were almost entirely recent25 and so thoseof Picasso, who was exclusively represented by female portraits and still lifesof the biennium 1941-42: 10 reproductions of pieces from parisian leading
galleries of the war years, Jeanne Boucher and Louise Leiris, that wereparticularly attentive to the world of art publishing and print images26.
From a historical point of view, there was not a rigorous proposal behind thechoises. The reproductions on display didn’t provide an exhaustive picture of
the developments of modern painting. The gaps appeared numerous and so
the asymmetries, with a sort of polarization around the great starting
premises – the pioneers of modernity – and some very recent events.
After all, the selection of the works probably depended, alongside Venturi’s
choices, on contingent reasons dictated by the not guaranteed adequate
availability of printed reproductions. At the same time, it is correct tosuppose that the organizers’ intentions were not aimed at completeness, or togive an exhaustive and rigorous panorama of modern art, but rather to makepublic familiarize with its expressions.
The reviews highlighted this aspect by welcoming the exhibition27.
There was no lack of criticism by the most conservative observers, who
expressed a skepticism largely related to the opportunity of using
photomechanicalreproductions

insteadoforiginals,

withresulting28

accusations of demagogy and populism , but except for these voices theconsensus was practically unanimous. The exhibition araused great interest
and was hailed as a success, so much to be repeated, after the closure, inother Italian cities.

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Fig. 4. The exhibition’s travelling edition in Cagliari, 1948, installation view,
courtesy Archivio Bioiconograﬁco GNAM

The “Mostra didattica di riproduzioni di pittura moderna” thus became atravelling exhibition circulating throughout Italy to symbolically restitch thecountry after the wounds of the war. The show touched the big cities but also
and especially the smaller centers, with pedagogical dedication, by giving
shape to a non-stop tour of 3 years accompanied by many events: guided
tours, conferences, debates, concerts29. And the audience didn’t fail to answer
in large numbers. Documentary reports prove a large attendance: in aperipheral city like Cagliari, for instance, there were more than 14.000 visitorsand 2.000 catalogues sold in only 3 weeks of opening30.
The success of the initiative led the GNAM to organize a permanenteducational structure producing travelling vocation projects. The turning
point took place in 1949, with the starting of an avant-garde activity thatwould become a school for decades to come31.

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In 1950 the UNESCO magazine Museum published a contribution
titled “Circulating and educational exhibitions in Italian museums” by Giulio
Carlo Argan, where the art historian – whose interest for such topics would inparallel find a synthesis in the translation of Herbert Read’s Education

through art for the Italian public32 – presented the most recent experiences
and made a first assessment33.
Networks and models
That of 1946 represented a pioneering experience being the first travelling
print exhibition in Italy. The press did not fail to note this unprecedented
aspect when speaking of a “new genre” exhibition34. It was in fact an
unknown concept, introduced for the first time by Lionello Venturi himself
few months earlier in an article of September 1945 where he cited theexample of the traveling exhibitions held in the United States, which – heargued – “were helping to solve the problematic relationship between public
and modern artists”35.
After all, among the possible models of the Italian project, theAmerican one certainly had a weight. Suffice it to recall the experience of the
New York Museum of Modern Art, with its extraordinary influence on theconstruction of an international narrative of modern art. Since the early
1930s, MoMA had started designing print exhibitions and inaugurated a
special department dedicated to circulating shows that made of them aleading sector by launching a long and successful series of projects36, startingfrom “A brief survey of modern painting” (1934), strictly in colour37.
MoMA was also publisher of art reproductions made with advanced
photomechanical processes and put on sale38. It wasn’t something unusual forthe time, but a widespread practice shared by the major international
museums, especially in France, birthplace not only of the so-called pioneersof modern art but also of a glorious print publishing tradition related to thereproduction of works of art with a strong role of the institutions. In 1940, on
the occasion of the Triennale International Exhibition in Milan, in Italy, for its
national section France chose to present a display of modern art______________________________________________________________________________________
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masterpieces colour prints released in facsimile format by the Chalcographyof the Louvre39.
Similar experiences led the progressive spread of such exhibition
trend into the Postwar years. To give just an example, in 1947 the Museu deArte de São Paulo inaugurated with a print exhibition. It was the first of aseries of educational projects – having different subjects and graphics –conceived under the guide of the museum director, Pietro Maria Bardi, who
had arrived to Brazil from Italy in the October of the previous year, a few
months after the opening of the Venturi exhibition, which he certainly had
occasion to visit40.
Aggregator of these practices was a key player of the Postwar cultural’sdynamics, UNESCO, that since the early years of its foundation worked on thecreation of an archive of colour photomechanical prints of world’s
chefs-d’oeuvre41 – sort of ideal museum – to promote, in turn, shows ofreproductions such as the famous “From Impressionism till today”, held inParis in 194942. A few years later, in 1953, UNESCO would publish the Manualof travelling exhibitions for the use by all artistic institutions of the world43,
thus definitively institutionalizing this exhibition paradigm of increasing
popularity recognized as a powerful tool of cultural dissemination, educationand soft power propaganda44.
The centrality of colour
These events can be read as an expression of the growing interest for
reproduced images and facsimile. UNESCO counted on an acquired
understanding of the value of art reproduction in relation to the expansion ofvisual culture, its potential of diffusion in the game of migration among themedia. And it openly identified the centrality of colour in the process: “we are
returning to a civilization full of colour”, was one of the slogans of its
project45.
For the latter, since 1947 the organisation set up a special committee ofexperts, the so called “Colour Commission”, which included, among others,
Jean Cassou, director of the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, Renéd’Harnoncourt, director of the MoMA, and Lionello Venturi46. In 1952 the______________________________________________________________________________________
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Italian art historian signed the introduction to the second edition of theCatalogue of colour reproductions of painting dedicated to modern art byhighlighting

not

only

the

continuous

technical

improvementsofphotomechanical colour reproduction – the quality of the images available
on the market, their fidelity to the originals – but the value of colour, that waspresented as “the only way to entirely return the artwork”47.
The introduction of colour photographic film in the second half of the’30s had in fact made possible for the first time direct shooting in color (orrather without the mediation of filters, as was previously the case, forinstance, of the trichromatic process), thus obtaining at last natural intensity
and chromatic resolutions48. In addition, it offered many advantages,
particularly the absence of grain allowing high enlargements without losing
detail, even during the photomechanical translation of the images. The
quality,thefidelity

ensuredby colour film promised to give an

unprecedented answer to the crucial issue of the reproduction of works ofart, which until then to the imbalances and saturation of the three-colour
process had preferred the reassuring black and white strictness tending, bydefinition, to enhance plastic and linear values. This subverted the problem
of color by presenting it as a great modern possibility, a form of realism. The
progressive achievements in the application to different printing processes
did the rest by experimenting unprecedented ways of representing art able tomodify the very identity of reproduction through the materiality of theimages, and consequently perception and consumption practices.
The communicative potential of colour played a crucial role inpopularization, in bringing the public – a more and more wide public – closer
to art. And art, through reproduction, gained a new place in society. The
images reproduced were preparing to become an important consumption
object in the rising cultural industry of mass society, in parallel to theincreasing expansion of the art publishing sector, its products and market. In
this regard, it should be emphasized that there was a sort of natural mutual
identification between colour and the modern languages, as also noticed in
the debate49. Briefly, modern art war the uncontested protagonist of thisprocess, in the name of a common modernist utopia. And it remains to be______________________________________________________________________________________
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asked how much, and how, colour influenced the development of a canon ofmodern art in a period considered a pivotal historiographical laboratory.
Returning to the “Mostra didattica di riproduzioni di pittura moderna”,
it could be interesting to mention a review focusing on the importance ofphotomechanical processes’ technical issues in relation to the perceptual
aspects of printed images and, finally, to the relationship between
reproductions and public. The author, Gino Visentini, wrote: “in front ofsome facsimiles of Cézanne, I must say, I experienced the same optical andtactile sensations that the thickness and the texture of the painting had raised
me many years ago at the Louvre. In front of the reproductions of Van Gogh,one can count the dense and minute brushstrokes and feel where thematerial is greasy or glazed and inflated by solvent and where it is dry. […] In
front of the three Degas one feels the velvet and soft powder of the pastel
under the fingertips. Of those three reproductions I also own one, and I
assure you that sometimes I wonder if there really is a difference with theoriginal”50. It’s a crucial point in understanding the event, since it considers
the topic of reproduction fruition, its value as an experience.
It would suffice to think of the Italy of 1946, the still present rubble ofbombings, their greyness emblem of the wounds of war and 20 years ofFascist dictatorship. Let’s imagine the significance of an exhibition of color
reproductions of the great works of the European modernity for a wide
audience, for everyone, also as an element of civil participation in a country
undergoing reconstruction51. After the ruins, the light, the colours, thepleasure of painting: the joie de vivre of the Impressionists – with thesuggestions recalling the coeval French cinema, such as that of Jean Renoir,
son of the painter – and besides the formal experimentations of thecontemporary masters. A huge symbolic charge, which disrupted perception
refounding modernity in chromatic memory, defining its figurative sources
looking at the painting of the second half of the 19th century and not at theancients, as in the past. The one conveyed by reproductions wanted to be acollective imagination metaphor of freedom, of belonging to a common
European culture.

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As mentioned, the reviews confirmed the euphoria of the public, itsparticipation, and spoke of a popular initiative. No different, however, were
the intellectual expectations evoked in contemporary artists by theconfrontation with the visual documents of the great modern painting. Years
later, the young Piero Dorazio will remember: “In 1946 Lionello Venturi cameback to Italy and set up at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna an exhibition of colour
reproductions of the most representative works of the century, from the
Impressionists to Chagall. It was the elixir for modern art in Italy because it
was visited and discussed by all artists, from Palermo to Milan, and presented
works and plastic problems of which no one had ever known the existence”52.

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Venturi, Lionello. “Le origini della pittura contemporanea.” L’Indipendente, May 21,
1946, 3.
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Archives:
Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna’s Bio-Iconographic Archive, Rome
Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna’s Historical Archive, Rome
Istituto LUCE’s Historical Archive, Rome
Lionello Venturi’s Archive, Sapienza University, Rome
Museum of Modern Art’s Administrative Records and Papers Archive, New York
Palma Bucarelli’s Archive, Central State Archive, RomeEndnotes
1. The exhibition is widely cited in art historical literature. Among the most pertinent studies
are those dedicated to museology and the educational activity of GNAM, which, however, havenever addressed a critic reconstruction of the event. See, in particular, Laura Fanti, “Ladidattica alla GNAM negli anni di Palma Bucarelli,” Nuova museologia 15 (November 2006):
16-20; Rita Camerlingo, “‘Non ho mai lavorato per gli artisti o per i critici, ma solo per il
pubblico’. Storia della didattica in Galleria (1945-1975),” in Palma Bucarelli. Il museo comeavanguardia, ed. Mariastella Margozzi (Milan: Electa: 2009), 64-71; Stefano Marson, “Su alcuni
musei d’arte moderna in Italia aperti e rinnovati,” in Maria Cecilia Mazzi, Musei anni ’50:
spazio, forma, funzione (Florence: Edifir, 2009), 157-79.
2. On the Roman art scene see the coeval chronicles: Marcello Venturoli, Interviste di frodo(Rome: Sandron, 1945); Libero De Libero, Roma 1935 (Rome: Edizioni della Cometa, 1981); Palma
Bucarelli, Cronache indipendenti. Arte a Roma fra 1945 e 1946, ed. Luigi Cantatore (Rome: De
Luca, 2010).
3. The related documentation is held in the GNAM’s Historical Archive (GNAM-HA), Depositi
temporanei fuori sede per cause belliche, Ricoveri, Protezione antiaerea 1932-1952. See also
Palma Bucarelli, “Opere d’arte alla macchia,” Mercurio, December 1944, 148-151.
4. See Margozzi, Palma Bucarelli.
5. See Laura Iamurri, “Lionello Venturi in esilio,” Ricerche di storia dell’arte 67 (1999): 59-68;
Stefano Valeri, “Lionello Venturi antifascista ‘pericoloso’ durante l’esilio (1931- 1945),” Storia
dell’arte 101 (2002): 15-27.
6. Palma Bucarelli to Lionello Venturi, March 1,1945, published in Bucarelli, Cronache
indipendenti, 9. On their partnership see also Ercole Maselli to Palma Bucarelli, May 9, 1946,
Central State Archive, Rome, Palma Bucarelli’s Archive, folder 7.
7. See, for instance, Lionello Venturi, “Il museo-scuola,” La Nuova Europa, September 9, 1945, 7.
8. See GNAM-HA, folder 1, file 7 “Attività didattica. Mostre 1946”.

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9. The press review gathered about 129 articles. See GNAM’s Bio-Iconographic Archive(GNAM-BIA), “Attività didattica”, folder 51.
10. As indicated in the Press release, GNAM-HA, folder 1, file 7 “Attività didattica. Mostre 1946”.
11. The original pieces were a watercolor by Cézanne, one by the northamerican artist John
Marin, a painting by Chagall (Abraham, 1931) and two by Rouault (Bust of a woman and Sea ofGalilee, 1939).
12. See Lionello Venturi, “Le origini della pittura contemporanea,” L’Indipendente, May 21, 1946,
3. The quotation above is taken from the article. In this paper, all the translations from Italian
are by the author.
13. The list of the pieces on display report the subdivision and related set-up instructions. See
GNAM-HA, folder 1, file 7 “Attività didattica. Mostre 1946”.
14. See Palma Bucarelli, “Le manifestazioni didattiche nella Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna,”
Bollettino d’arte 2 (April-June 1952): 185-189.
15. See GNAM-HA, folder 1, file 7 “Attività didattica. Mostre 1946”, Palma Bucarelli to the
Ministry of Education, April 10, 1946.
16. “Roma: alla Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna i capolavori della pittura straniera”, from
Notiziario Nuova LUCE / NL011, 1946, Istituto LUCE’s Historical Archive, Rome.
17. See, in particular, Fortunato Bellonzi, “Mostra di riproduzioni artistiche alla Galleria
Nazionale d’Arte Moderna,” Domenica, April 14, 1946; Guglielmo Peirce, “Mostra didattica diarte moderna,” L’Unità, April 14, 1946; Gino Visentini, “Alla Galleria d’Arte Moderna: pitture
francesi riprodotte,” Fiera Letteraria, April 25, 1945.
18. See the list of the pieces on display in GNAM-HA, folder 1, file 7 “Attività didattica. Mostre
1946”. It corresponds with the one in the catalogue-guide, Mostra didattica di riproduzioni dipittura moderna: catalogo-guida (Rome: Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione, 1948), that was
published years later, on the occasion of the exhibition travelling edition, with an introduction
by Corrado Maltese.
19. A small group of reproductions from GNAM’s collections on display during the exhibition
has been found in the museum storages: Alfred Sisley, Les bords du Loing à Moret (inventory
no. 4288); Vincent van Gogh, Portait of an old farmer (inventory no. 4289); André Derain,
Landscape (inventory no. 4290); Edgar Degas, Jockeys (inventory no. 4296).
20. Alongside Seemann (Leipzig) and Graphic Society (New York). See Mostra didattica.
21. See, for instance, Bellonzi, “Mostra di riproduzioni”; N.O., “Fotografie di quadri moderni,”
Espresso, April 23, 1946.
22. See Mostra didattica.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. With the exception of The blue window, 1913, from MoMA’s collections.
26. Except for Seated woman, 1941 and Woman with a hat, 1942, from the painter’s collection,and the 1941 destroyed Still life. On Jeanne Boucher and Louise Leiris galleries during the war
years see L’art en guerre. France 1938-1947 (Paris: Paris-Musées, 2012): 161-82, 353, 408-9.
27. See the press review in GNAM-BIA, “Attività didattica”, folder 51.
28. For a summary, see Bucarelli’s answers published in Fiera letteraria, May 2, 1946 and thelater testimony Bucarelli, “Le manifestazioni didattiche”.
29. L’aquila, July 1946; Naples, August-September 1946; Bari, October 1946; Cosenza, November
1946; Reggio Calabria, December 1946; Catania, February 1947; Palermo, April 1947; Messina,
July 1947; Cagliari, January 1948; Sassari, February 1948; Genoa, April 1948; Turin, May-June
1948; Milan, July 1948; Mantua, November 1948; Verona, December 1948-January 1949. For the
related documentation see GNAM-HA, folder 1, file 7 “Attività didattica. Mostre 1946”; for press
review and public program materials see GNAM-BIA, “Attività didattica”, folder 51. After the
first tournée, a second one was undertaken towards smaller cities from 1950. The few
documents on the subject do not allow a reconstruction.

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30. See GNAM-BIA, “Attività didattica”, folder 51, “Relazione sulle edizioni di Cagliari e Sassaridella Mostra didattica di pittura francese moderna”.
31. See Bucarelli’s testimony: Bucarelli, “Le manifestazioni didattiche” and Palma Bucarelli,“Funzione didattica del museo d’arte moderna,” in Il museo come esperienza sociale, ed. Pietro
Romanelli (Rome: De Luca, 1972): 85-90.
32. Herbert Read, Educare con l’arte, trans. Giulio Carlo Argan (Milan: Edizioni di Comunità,
1954).
33. Giulio Carlo Argan, “Expositions itinérantes et éducatives dans les musées d’Italie,”Museum 4, no. 3 (1950): 3.
34. Ercole Maselli, “Una mostra (utilissima) di nuovo genere,” Avanti!, May 5, 1946.
35. Venturi, “Il museo-scuola”.
36. See “Circulating exhibitions,” The Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art 7, no. 5(September 1940): 2-14.
37. Alfred H. Barr, ed., A brief survey of modern painting (New York: MoMA, 1934).
38. See “Museum color reproductions on view” in the press release no. 45306-10 “NewTechnique of Multiple Circulating Exhibitions on Display at the Museum of Modern Art”, March
6, 1935, New York, MoMA’s Administrative Records and Papers Archive.
39. See VII Triennale di Milano. Guida (Milan: SAME, 1941).
40. In the same years, exhibitions of art reproductions were staged by the Art Section of the
Biblioteca Municipal de São Paulo too. See Helouise Costa, “Educating About the Modern:
Between the Library and the Museum,” in MAM 70: 1948-2018 (São Paulo: Museu de Arte
Moderna de São Paulo, 2018): 257-63.
41. See “Art treasures to be put within reach of all,” UNESCO Courier 1, no. 8 (September 1948):
6. The first archive’s catalogue was published in 1949. See Catalogue of colour reproductions ofpaintings from 1860 to 1949 (Paris: UNESCO, 1949).
42. See the catalogue UNESCO Travelling Print Exhibition: From Impressionism Till Today(Paris: UNESCO, 1949), with an introduction by René Huyghe. See also the article “Colour
reproduction: UNESCO’s first travelling exhibition,” UNESCO Courier 2, no. 7 (August 1949): 12.
43. Elodie Courter Osborn, Manual of travelling exhibitions (UNESCO, 1953).
44. On the project and the UNESCO visual policies see Rachel E. Perry, “Immutable Mobiles:
UNESCO’s Archives of Colour Reproductions,” The Art Bullettin 99, no. 2 (August 2017): 166-85.
45. See Jean Leymarie, “Introduction,” in Catalogue of colour reproductions of paintings from1860 to 1955 (Paris: UNESCO, 1955): 12-16.
46. Venturi’s activity for UNESCO is documented in his archive at Sapienza University inRome. For the writings see folder 152, dossier 16; for the correspondence, folder 296, dossier 11;
for other documents, like reports, folder 294, dossier 13.
47. See Lionello Venturi, “Introduction,” in Catalogue of colour reproductions of paintingsfrom 1860 to 1952 (Paris: UNESCO, 1952): 11-14.
48. For an overview on the colour reproduction processes see the standard contribution by
Antony Hamber, “Communicating colour: advances in reprographic technology 1840-1967,”
Visual Resources 15, no. 3 (1990): 355-370.
49. See, for instance, the interesting article by Jean Leymarie, “Masterpieces you can now buy,”
UNESCO Courier 8, no. 7 (1955): 21-26.
50. Visentini, “Alla Galleria”.
51. In the same years, a parallel rethoric was used for the promotion of contemporary Italianart abroad. See Raffaele Bedarida, “Operation Renaissance: Italian Art at MoMA 1940-1949,”
Oxford Journal 35, no. 2 ( June 2012): 147-69.
52. Piero Dorazio, La fantasia dell’arte nella vita moderna (Rome: Polveroni e Quinti, 1955),
142-43.

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Titian and the Circulation of the Oil
Painting on Stone: Beyond
Sebastiano del Piombo's Slate
Painting Technique______________________________________________________________________________________

Yuma Kubo
Kyoto University
ABSTRACTThis paper analyzes the slate oil painting Ecce Homo and the marble oilpainting Mater Dolorosa (both in the Museo del Prado, Figs. 3 and 4) that
Titian created for the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1547 and 1555,
respectively, examining the historical role of Titian’s pendants in the spreadof the new medium of oil on stone in Europe during the late 16th century. In
addition to mural paintings, the technique of painting directly on stone slabs
cut flat and thin for tableaux is said to have been newly developed by
Sebastiano del Piombo, who was active in Rome around 1530. Why did Titianchoose to use Sebastiano’s slate oil technique for Ecce Homo instead of themore common wood panel and canvas? And why did he choose marble, aneven more unusual medium, instead of slate for the Mater Dolorosa eight
years later? In this article, I will examine the significance of stone slab
painting in the Renaissance, compare the techniques Titian used in his
pendants with those of his contemporaries, and discuss the historicalsignificance of the two works in the diffusion of the new medium of oil onstone slab painting.
KEYWORDS
Oil on Slate Painting; Oil on Marble Painting; Titian; Sebastiano del Piombo;
Habsburg Court.

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Slate Oil Painting by Sebastiano del Piombo and Ecce Homo by Titian
The pioneer of the technique of oil painting on thin stone slabs (polisheduntil they become flat) is Sebastiano del Piombo who experimented with thistechnique around 15301. Although he had already gained experience in oil
painting murals in churches such as San Pietro in Montorio in Rome, it is said
that his exploration of oil painting on stone slabs was directly motivated by
the Sack of Rome in 15272. Shocked by the destruction of so many works ofart, he searched for a more durable support for paintings than wood orcanvas and ended up with stone slabs3. In 1530, Vittore Soranzo, who was like
Sebastiano at the service of Pope Clement VII, sent the following letter to thehumanist Pietro Bembo, informing him of the technique of oil on stone slabs
developed by Sebastiano:
You should know that our Sebastiano Veneziano has
found the secret to using the most beautiful oil pigments
to paint on marble, which will make painting nothing lessthan eternal. As soon as the colors are dried, they are
united to the marble in such a way that they are almost
petrified; he has tested it in every way, and it is durable.
He made an image of Christ and showed it to Our Lord4.
Soranzo wrote that Sebastiano had developed the "secret" of marble oilpainting: in fact, it was not marble, but thinly cut slate that the artist later
used to create portraits of popes and tragic religious paintings of the Passionof Christ. Marble, which was widely used for sculpture and architecture(especially Carrara white marble) was a high-grade stone suitable for works ofart, and would have made an excellent support for paintings for thosepainters who were aware of the “paragone” with sculptural art. However, as
Giorgio Vasari later noted in his "Introduction to the Three Arts of Designs" in
his Lives (1568), slate from the Lavagna coast near Genoa was generally
considered the ideal support for oil paintings on stone slabs at the time5.
Slate, which is made of mudstone or shale that undergoes consolidation andcleaves into thin sheets, has excellent waterproofing properties, so it is stillused today as a building material for roofs and floors. During theRenaissance, slate was also often used for oil jars. The slate’s fine stone______________________________________________________________________________________
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composition allowed it to absorb pigments well, with relatively little risk offlaking, and its cleavage characteristics made it suitable to be cut into
tableau-shaped pieces and be polished flat. According to Vasari, Renaissancepainters also experimented with other fine-grained stones such as marble,
serpentine, and porphyry, but the less shiny and moderately dry stones suchas slate were better suited for adhering oil pigments6. Sebastiano wasprobably attracted by these practical advantages to begin exploring thetechnique of oil painting on slate instead of marble.
The rough texture of black slate from Lavagna reflected light diffusely,
enabling a new style of pictorial expression with a unique dull black
background7. It was an ideal support for Sebastiano, who often painted
portraits against a black background. The study for a head (c. 1531) in theMuseo Capodimonte, Naples, is an example of Sebastiano’s use of slate as an
expressive medium, a technique that was firmly established from the
beginning. The head of Pope Clement VII emerges from the darkness, withthe frontal part illuminated and deep shading around the sunken eyes andfrom the right side of the head to the neck. The depth of the shading and theminute changes in the gradation show that the artist’s brush was more careful
and meticulous than when he was working on the canvas. The deep wrinkles
superimposed on the dark shadows around the eyes seem to emphasize thepope’s exhaustion and sense of helplessness in the face of the Sack of Rome.
In the finished work in the Getty Museum (Fig. 1), the artist did not pursue thesame thorough shading as in the study, but he beautifully realized the brightcrimson and furry texture of the pope’s zucchetto and mozzetta instead. The
natural drooping of the white alb and the detailed decoration of the ring andred chair were also carefully rendered, showing that the artist’s expressive
ability was greatly deepened from the oil on canvas from the CapodimonteMuseum (1526), depicting the same subject.

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Fig. 1. Sebastiano del Piombo, Portrait of Clement VII (c. 1531); Getty Museum,
Los Angeles. Oil on Slate, 105.4 x 87.6 cm.

Sebastiano preferred slate oil paintings, which lend themselves to shading
and miniature expression, even for tragic subjects related to the Passion of
the Christ. In the Christ Bearing the Cross (1532-35) from the Museo del______________________________________________________________________________________
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Prado, Sebastiano used the rough texture of black slate to create a detailed
depiction of Christ walking alone in the darkness, his face contorted as hestruggles with the weight of the cross. The light hitting the front of Christ’s
head, the gradation of shading on the left side of the head, and the wood
tones of the cross show that the expression practiced in the portrait of thePope was effectively transferred to religious paintings as well. Sebastiano
created several variation paintings of the Christ Bearing the Cross in oil onslate, but as he progressed into later years, the backgrounds became more
complex and varied. Instead of applying a uniform undercoat to the blackslate, he set up a light source and painted gradations of light and shade on theslate8. In the Christ Bearing the Cross (c. 1535-40, Fig. 2), in the Museum ofFine Arts, Budapest, Christ’s anguish is rendered more naturally by the lightsurrounding Him and by the somewhat rougher yet more vigorous
brushwork.

Fig. 2. Sebastiano del Piombo, Christ
Bearing the Cross (c. 1535-40);
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest. Oilon Slate, 157 x 118 cm.

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Fig. 3. Titian, Ecce Homo (1547); Museo del Prado. Oil on Slate, 69 x 56 cm.

Sebastiano was known for his generosity in teaching the technique of slate oilpainting to the artists around him, and many of them, including Francesco
Salviati, followed his examples in the 1540s. Although there is no record of it,
Titian, who painted Ecce Homo in slate oil in 1547 in the Prado Museum (Fig.
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Yuma Kubo3), probably learned the technique from his old acquaintance Sebastiano
when he visited Rome between 1545-46. Vasari recalled that during his stay inRome, he had presented Ecce Homo to Pope Paul III, but had been severely
criticized by the Roman artists, which may have motivated him to create the
Prado version:
And after Titian had rested for several days, he was given
quarters in the Belvedere so that he could set his handonce again to doing a full-length portrait of Pope Paul
along with those of Cardinal Farnese and Duke Ottavio, alladmirably executed to the great satisfaction of thoselords, who persuaded Titian to paint, as a gift for the pope,a half-length picture of Christ in the form of an Ecce
Homo, but this work, either because it suffered incomparison to the works of Michelangelo, Raphael, or
Caravaggio or for some other reason, did not seem toother painters (although it was certainly a good painting)to possess the excellence typical of many of his otherworks, especially the portraits9.
The Ecce Homo presented to Paul III at this time is not believed to be extant,so we cannot be certain what kind of work it was. Given that there is no
specific reference to the support, it is assumed that it was an ordinary oil oncanvas. Being aware of the unfavorable publicity for the Roman version ofEcce Homo, however, Titian may have sought revenge for the unfair publicity
by creating another work on the same subject for Emperor Charles V10. In
doing so, in addition to the novelty of the support, he was attracted to thedeep shadows developed by Sebastiano for which he decided to re-paint Ecce

Homo in slate oil. Like Sebastiano’s later works, Ecce Homo in the Museo delPrado depicts Christ with a light source in his front and the darkness of the
background weighing down his shoulders. Interestingly, the brown lines on
Christ’s right shoulder, which represent the marks of a whipping wound,seem to blend into the darkness of the background. Also, on the left breast
and right neck, blood dripping from the head covered with a crown of thorns
is clearly but casually depicted. As Pietro Aretino commented, the artist did
not pursue the external effect of painfully expressing Christ’s wounds in this______________________________________________________________________________________
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work, but rather, he infused the entire painting with an atmosphere ofresignation, so that the viewer’s attention would be focused on the somber
expression of Christ’s face11. This is precisely the kind of expression that
Sebastiano pursued in his slate oil paintings and, with this work, Titian
became a faithful successor of Sebastiano12.
When Titian left for Augsburg at the invitation of Charles V in
December 1547, he presented Aretino with a copy of Ecce Homo and brought
the original slate oil painting to the emperor himself. The masterpiece, an oil
on an usual support, was immediately well received at the Habsburg court,
prompting orders for copies from the emperor’s chief advisors, including
Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle13. Thus, Titian’s Ecce Homo is historicallyrecognized as an example of how the new medium of slate oil painting, which
had been stayed around Sebastiano in Rome, was brought across the Alps,and made popular on an European scale.

Diversiﬁcation of Oil on Stone and Titian’s Marble Oil Painting
Mater DolorosaSebastiano died of illness in Rome in 1547, and the slate oil paintings heinitiated began to diversify when he was still alive or shortly after his death.
For example, David and Goliath by Daniele da Volterra (around 1550 now in
the Louvre), is a rare example of oil painting on both sides of a slate panel. As
is well known, during the Renaissance, there was a great deal of debate in
Italy about the superiority between painting and sculpture (paragone). Those
who argued for the superiority of sculpture over painting claimed that
sculpture could be viewed from various angles and in three dimensions, andthat its solid stone material made it durable and suitable for representing
human figures with a sense of substance14. In the letter by Vittore Soranzo
quoted above, the emphasis on the eternity and durability of marble
paintings reflected not only the fresh memory of the Sack of Rome, but also
such Renaissance “paragone” discussions. Daniele da Volterra’s double-sided
slate oil painting is an example of the attempt to challenge sculptural art
from the viewpoint of three-dimensionality. The David attacking Goliath is______________________________________________________________________________________
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flipped left and right on both sides, each with its thorax and abdomen andback facing forward in opposite directions. Thus, by switching back and forth
between the front and back, the viewer can grasp the scene of the fierce
battle in three dimensions. While double-sided canvas paintings were also
created during the same period, as for instance Bronzino’s Nano Morgante(Palazzo Pitti, Florence, 1552), which was intended to be three-dimensional,
Daniele da Volterra used the slate stone material to ensure the solidity of thework and the realism of the figures, which means he was certainly aware of
the rivalry with sculptural art. Thus, from the period that preceded andfollowed Sebastiano’s death, the practice of attempting to create stone slab
oil paintings, out of a different interest than his exploration of shading, began
to emerge in various parts of Italy.

Fig. 4 Titian, Mater
Dolorosa (1555); Museodel Prado. Oil on
Marble, 68 x 53 cm.

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Titian’s 1555 marble oil painting Mater Dolorosa (Fig. 4) is another example ofthe diversification of oil on stone slabs that was occuring. In 1553, as apendant to the slate oil painting Ecce Homo, he proposed to Charles V an oil
on panel painting, Mater Dolorosa (Museo del Prado), which he completed
the following year15. However, upon receiving the oil on panel, the emperor,
through his ambassador to Venice Francisco de Vargas, ordered the artist to
create a stone slab painting of the same subject, so that it would be a suitablependant to the Ecce Homo. There is no record of whether the emperor
specified the material for the support, but according to a letter from theambassador to the emperor in March 1555, Titian replied that it would be
difficult to find a suitable stone16. The stone was eventually obtained in thesame month, although it was not slate, as in the Ecce Homo, but whitemarble, commonly known as "imperial marble," which was probably quarried
from a pedestal in an ancient Roman residence17.
The reason why Titian or Charles V chose white marble as a support inthis case is the subject of much speculation. First, there are few, if any,
examples of oil marble paintings from the same period, and the possibility
that these works may have been the inspiration for the artist’s choice is worth
considering. For example, Portrait of Banker Bindo Altoviti (Fig. 5) in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, is a marble oil painting that has
recently been attributed to Girolamo da Carpi rather than Francesco Salviati,
and it was executed around 1550-5318. The background is entirely painted
black, and the lighting and composition of the work is well calculated toilluminate the dignified face of the banker, who was renowned for his artistic
patronage. Girolamo, shortly after his return to Ferrara from Rome, wasintent on applying to marble the same style of portrayal of the figure in
Sebastiano’s slate oil paintings. The green curtains in the background and thegloss of the red cushions are highlighted by the glossy surface of the marble,
but the artist’s brushwork is restrained throughout, perhaps wary of theslippery nature of the surface, which is particularly evident in the depictionof the banker’s furs. However, in contrast with Girolamo, Titian’s marble oilpainting Mater Dolorosa relies on a brisk brushstroke, and considering thestylistic differences between the two works, it seems likely that Titian was______________________________________________________________________________________
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working from the beginning to establish his own style of painting,independent of any previous examples on marble.

Fig. 5. Girolamo da Carpi, Portrait of Banker Bindo Altoviti (c. 1550-53), Private
Collection. Oil on Marble, 88 x 73 cm.

In the oil on panel painting of the same subject completed the previous year,
Titian depicted the Virgin with her hands clasped tightly, staring sternly into______________________________________________________________________________________
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the void, and holding still in grief over the loss of Christ, full of a sense oftension. In contrast, the Virgin in the marble oil painting seems to express themotherhood of a living woman who is not shy about expressing her raw
emotions, with tears streaming down her cheeks and her whole body
weakened by grief over the loss of her beloved child. It has been speculated
that this new marble version of the Madonna with open arms may have been
inspired by drawings of Netherlandish painters or Greek icons sent by
Charles V19. However, even if Charles V gave specific instructions regarding
the iconography, the receptive expression of the Virgin with open hands, as if
about to welcome the suffering Christ of the pendant Ecce Homo, is
supported by the natural touch of the brush, which is rough and less forceful,obtained by the moderate gliding of the brush on the marble surface. It is alsointeresting to note that the blue mantle of the Virgin in lapis lazuli, so
impressive in the previous oil on slate, was recreated in the marble version
without losing its luster. In general, it was difficult to preserve the blue colorof lapis lazuli well on black slate, and because of such color issues, Titianseems to have been reluctant to create the Mater Dolorosa in oil on slate. Thismay be why, when asked by the ambassador to create a stone slab oil
painting, he replied that it would be difficult to find suitable stone material.
As has been pointed out several times in this paper, marble wasoriginally considered a more ideal support for oil paintings than slate by
Renaissance painters, who were aware of the rivalry with sculptural art.
However, because shiny marble was more technically difficult than slate interms of oil's adherence to it, few artists, except for Girolamo da Carpi,
attempted marble oil paintings before Titian. In response to a challenge fromCharles V, Titian turned again to marble, the once largely neglected support
for oil paintings, and asked to cut out a portion of a pedestal left over from anancient Roman villa. Cutting stone from ancient monuments was notnecessarily unusual at the time, and it was probably the only solution toquickly complete the paintings ordered by the emperor, but Titian may also
have intended to stimulate the archaeological interest of Charles V20. In
addition to sculpture, Titian, considering the rivalry with ancient art, chose
white marble as the support for Mater Dolorosa and, with his skillful______________________________________________________________________________________
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brushwork, he created a new style of expression in oil on stone that differedfrom Sebastiano’s.
As mentioned above, Sebastiano del Piombo generously taught thetechnique to his friends, and Giorgio Vasari recommended the use of Lavagna
slate for oil painting in his Lives. Thus, Lavagna slate became the basic
support for oil on stone slabs and was widely used in Rome, Verona, Prague,and other European cities. Titian’s Ecce Homo is known to have remained in
the collection of the Spanish court even after the death of Charles V,
fascinating artists who visited the Spanish court in the late 16th and early 17th
centuries, and possibly stimulating their creativity. For example, Sofonisba
Anguissola, a female painter from Cremona who was invited to the court ofMadrid in 1559-73, painted one male portrait in slate oil, probably after her
return to Italy. This highly finished portrait depicts a young man looking
somewhat melancholic and lost in thoughts against a brownish-black
monotone background, reminiscent of Sebastiano and Titian’s slate oilpaintings. Although she may have had the opportunity to view slate oilpaintings in Sicily and Genoa after her return to Italy, it is also probable that
she came across Titian’s Ecce Homo during her 14-year stay in Madrid, andTitian’s work may have been one of her sources of inspiration. Also, in in thelate 16th century Venice, several painters created masterpieces in slate oilpainting, including Simone Peterzano, who claimed to be Titian’s pupil, andLeandro Bassano, who was under Tintoretto’s influence. The memory of
Titian’s slate oil paintings may have long passed down through thegenerations of Venetian artists.
On the other hand, Titian’s richly colored white marble oil painting
with free and vigorous brushwork in his Mater Dolorosa was not necessarily
followed by everyone, resulting in fewer successors than the slate oilpaintings. However, in 1564, Federico Zuccari painted a masterpiece ofmarble altarpiece, the Adoration of the Magi, in the Grimani Chapel in the
Church of San Francesco della Vigna in Venice. Although the oil paint has
peeled off in some points, like Titian’s Mater Dolorosa, the blue of the Virgin’s
cloak and the sky painted with lapis lazuli are brilliant and striking, making it
an impressive grand altar piece. It is possible that Titian, who was still alive,______________________________________________________________________________________
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was consulted for the creation of this piece.
The technique of oil on stone slabs was then carried on throughout
Europe until the 18th century, and oil painting was practiced on a variety ofstone materials in addition to slate, marble, serpentine, and porphyry21. For
example, Giuseppe Cesari’s Perseus Rescuing Andromeda (St. Louis Art
Museum), oil painted directly on a small piece of lapis lazuli, has fascinatedart lovers both for the rarity of its support and the brilliance of the blue
background. In the 17th century, more and more works in stone with uniquestripes, such as marble, alabaster and onyx, were used to depict supernatural
phenomena in religious subjects, leaving the patterns as they were. These
works, in which it is difficult to determine where the paint is applied andwhere the original stone pattern begins, are typical examples of thedevelopment of stone slab oil paintings toward the acquisition of playfulness
in the Baroque period. Looking back to the subsequent history of thediversification of oil painting supports, Titian’s pendants Ecce Homo andMater Dolorosa, show respectively the path of inheritance of Sebastiano’s
technique and the path of new attempts to overcome it, as if they were at aturning point in art history when the new media became widespread on aEuropean scale.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Baker-Bates, Piers, Sebastiano del Piombo and the World of Spanish Rome, London;
New York: Routledge, 2017.
Ballarin, Alessandro, “Un nuovo ritratto su lavagna di Sebastiano del Piombo”, Nuovi
Studi 21 (2015): 71-80, 186.
Barbieri, Costanza, Sebastiano del Piombo: i ritratti, committenti, artisti e letterati
nella Roma del Cinquecento, San Gabriele Isola del Gran Sasso (Teramo): Edizioni
Staurós, 2012.
Bembo, Pietro, Delle Lettere da diversi Re et Principi et Cardinali et altri huomini
dotti a Mons. Pietro Bembo scritte, Venetia: Appresso Francesco Sansovino etcompagni, 1560.
Bertling Biaggini, Claudia, Sebastiano del Piombo – Felix Pictor: Raum, Zeit undKlang in Bildern der Memoria, Hildesheim; Zürich; New York: Georg Olms Verlag,
2016.
Cennini, Cennino, Il Libro dell’Arte, edited by Franco Brunello, Vicenza: Neri Pozza,
1971.

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Yuma Kubo

Cerasuolo, Angela, “Osservazioni sulla tecnica di Sebastiano del Piombo”, Nuovi Studi
21 (2015): 81-86, 186.
Cerasuolo, Angela, “Un nuovo modo di colorire in pietra: Vasari e la fortunadell’invenzione di Sebastiano”, In Sebastiano del Piombo e la cappella Borgherini nel
contesto della pittura rinascimentale, edited by Santiago Arroyo Esteban, Bruno
Marocchini, and Claudio Seccaroni, Conference Proceeding (Real Academia deEspaña en Roma, May 13th -14th 2009), 47-53, 153-55. Firenze: Nardini, 2010.
González Mozo, Ana, “Materiales y Técnicas”, In IN LAPIDE DEPICTUM, edited by Ana
González Mozo, 47-101.
González Mozo, Ana, ed., IN LAPIDE DEPICTUM: Pintura italiana sobre piedra,
1530-1555, Exh. Cat. (Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, April 17th – August 5th, 2018),
Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado, 2018.
Falciani, Carlo, Barbara Agosti, and Michela Corso, eds., Vasari per/for Bindo Altoviti.
Il Cristo portacroce/The Christ Carrying the Cross, Exh. Cat. (Galleria Corsini, Rome,
January 25th – June 30th, 2019), Milano: Officina Libreria, 2019.
Hirst, Michael, Sebastiano del Piombo, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981.
Hope, Charles, Titian, New York: Harper & Row, 1980.
Mancini, Matteo, Tiziano e le corti d’Asburgo nei documenti degli archivi spagnoli,
Venezia: Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 1998.
Mann, Judith Walker, ed., Paintings on Stone: Science and the Sacred, 1530-1800, Exh.
Cat. (Saint Louis Art Museum, February 20th – May 15th, 2022), Munich: Hirmer, 2020.
Nova, Alessandro, “I discorsi sull’arte di Sebastiano del Piombo”, In Iconologie: Studiin onore di Claudia Cieri Via, edited by Ilaria Miarelli Mariani, Stefano Pierguidi andMarco Ruffini, 217-29. Roma: Campisano Editore, 2016.
Nygren, Christopher J., “A Stone Through the Window of Art History: Paintings on
Stone and the Legacy of Pictorial Illusionism”, In Steinformen: Materialität, Qualität,
Imitation, edited by Isabella Augart, Maurice Saß and Iris Wenderholm, 75-96, 365.
Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter, 2019.
Nygren, Christopher J., “Titian’s Ecce Homo on Slate: Stone, Oil, and theTransubstantiation of Painting”, The Art Bulletin 99, no. 1 (March 2017): 36-66.
Nygren, Christopher J., Titian’s Icons: Tradition, Charisma, and Devotion in
Renaissance Italy, University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University
Press, 2020.
Reifsnyder, Joan M., “Preparation Techniques for Painting on Stone Surfaces”, In
Paintings on Stone, edited by Mann, 77-86.
Ridolfi, Carlo, Le maraviglie dell’arte ovvero Le vite degli illustri pittori veneti e dello
Stato, edited by Detlev Freiherrn von Hadeln, 2 voll., Berlin: G. Grote, 1914-24.
Tiziano, L’epistolario, edited by Lionello Puppi, Firenze: Alinari 24 ore, 2012.
Varchi, Benedetto, “Della maggioranza delle arti”, In Trattati d’arte del Cinquecento
fra manierismo e controriforma, edited by Paola Barocchi, I, 5-58. Bari: Laterza, 1960.
Vasari, Giorgio, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori nelle redazioni______________________________________________________________________________________
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Yuma Kubodel 1550 e 1568, edited by Rosanna Bettarini and Paola Barocchi, 6 voll., Firenze:
Sansoni, 1966-87.

Endnotes
1. The technique of oil painting spread from the Netherlands to Italy in the 15th century, buteven before that, there are traces of attempts at tempera painting on tableau-shaped stoneslabs that occurred sporadically. For example, in Santa Maria in Via in Rome, there is a slatetempera painting of the Virgin, also known as the Madonna of the Well, which dates to the late
14th century. Cennino Cennini’s Libro dell’arte, written around 1390, introduced the techniqueof oil painting, which was then becoming popular in the Netherland, and stated that it waspossible to paint with oil on iron and stone. Cennini, Libro dell’Arte, 97-98, 102-103.
2. After the introduction of oil painting in the 15th century, for example, Domenico Veneziano,
Andrea del Castagno, and the Pollaiolo brothers attempted to create oil on wall paintings in
Florence. However, according to Giorgio Vasari, their works had constant problems such as
darkening and fading soon after completion. It was Sebastiano del Piombo who solved these
problems by devising and practicing a unique technique for producing high-quality oil
paintings. Vasari, Vite, V, 97-99.
3. According to Giorgio Vasari, Sebastiano del Piombo established the technique of oil on
copper plate in addition to stone slab, but slate oil paintings are by far the most numerous
extant examples of his work on supports other than wood plate or canvas. Vasari, Vite, V,
97-99. See the following monographs on Sebastiano. Baker-Bates, Sebastiano del Piombo;
Barbieri, Sebastiano del Piombo; Bertling Biaggini, Sebastiano del Piombo; Hirst, Sebastianodel Piombo.
4. Bembo, Lettere da diversi Re, 110.
5. Vasari, Vite, I, 137-39. Although Vasari did not mention Sebastiano’s name in the"Introduction," as Angela Cerasuolo pointed out, the slate oil painting technique described inthe "Introduction" is clearly consistent with that invented by Sebastiano del Piombo.
Cerasuolo, “Un nuovo metodo”, 153-55.
6. Vasari, Vite, I, 137-39. Although oil paint adhered better to slate than to other stonematerials, slate was also a support material that was not immune to the risk of paint loss overtime. To ensure the adherence of the paint, Sebastiano scored the surface of the slate to create
minute irregularities. For more information on Sebastiano’s scoring technique, see thefollowing. Reifsnyder, “Preparation Techniques”, 80-81.
7. Slate’s ability to diffuse light and prevent illumination also made it suitable as a support forlarge altar pieces. There are many examples of large slate altar pieces in Roman churches, suchas the Nativity of the Virgin (Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome), completed by Francesco Salviati,
who took over the conception of Sebastiano del Piombo in his last years; the Martyrdom of St.
Lawrence by Federico Zuccari (c. 1580, Santa Lorenzo in Damaso, Rome); the Assumption of
the Virgin by Scipione Pulzone (1585, San Silvestro al Quirinale, Rome).
8. Even the backgrounds of slate oil paintings, which at first glance appear to have been
painted uniformly in solid colors, are known to have been painstakingly primed by Sebastiano.
For example, it is known that in the Portrait of Ippolito de' Medici (private collection), first a
vermilion and then a white layer were applied under the plain gray background, which waspainted uniformly. The texture of the vermilion undercoat, which appears in places, gives a
subtle change to the gray background. Ballarin, “Un nuovo ritratto”, 71-80; Cerasuolo,“Osservazioni sulla tecnica”, 81-86.
9. Vasari, Vite, VI, 163-164.
10. Upon his arrival in Augsburg in early 1548, Titian presented Charles V with a slate oil______________________________________________________________________________________
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painting Ecce Homo and an unidentified "Venus," the latter being announced to the emperor
by the artist on December 8, 1545, while in Rome. Therefore, both Ecce Homo and "Venus"
were probably conceived during Titian’s stay in Rome in 1545. As to whether the Ecce Homo,
which was so criticized in Rome, was in fact a poor work, there is a completely different
record, with Carlo Ridolfi, in his Maraviglie dell’arte, describing it as a masterpiece that “drewtears from eyes and commiseration from hearts”. Titian’s visit to Rome was a great threat to theartists who were working for the Pope at the time, such as Perino del Vaga, who was hostile to
Titian during his stay in Rome. It is quite possible that the Roman version of Ecce Homo was
subjected to more criticism than necessary. Tiziano, L’epistolario, 124-25; Vasari, Vite, V, 156(Perino del Vaga); Ridolfi, Maraviglie dell’arte, I, 178.
11. Letter of thanks from Pietro Aretino for the copy of the Ecce Homo, received from Titian at
the end of 1547. Tiziano, L’epistolario, 140.
12. The following article and book discuss Titian’s Ecce Homo, focusing on the history of thedevelopment of oil on stone slabs and the inspiration for the “Ecce Homo” iconography.
Nygren, “Titian’s Ecce Homo”, 33-36; Nygren, Titian’s Icons.
13. As for the copy ordered by Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle, although the correspondence
between the artist and the client makes it certain that the work was completed, there is noentry for the work in the Granvelle family inventory, and it is unclear whether it is still extant.
Tiziano, L’epistolario, 155-57, 163-64, 167-68, 174-77.
14. The 1546 Lectures by Benedetto Valchi, a treatise that attempts to find a settlement of the“paragone” controversy in fairness to both painting and sculpture, argues that where thesuperiority of sculpture is emphasized, it is closer to recreating the “essence” rather than the“appearance” of the human figure than painting. Varchi, “Maggioranza delle Arti”, 5-58.
15. Between 1553 and 1555, there were various exchanges between Charles V and his
ambassador in Venice Francesco de Vargas, concerning the two Mater Dolorosa by Titian,including reports on their production status, and letters urging the artist to complete them. It
is thought that the first painting mentioned in 1553-54 is the oil on panel version in the Museodel Prado. Titian asked the emperor through his ambassador to send him the dimensions of
the slate oil painting so that it could serve as a suitable pendant to the Ecce Homo. Mancini,
Tiziano e le corti d’Asburgo, 223, 227-30, 232-33.
16. Mancini, Tiziano e le corti d’Asburgo, 236.
17. Mancini, Tiziano e le corti d’Asburgo, 237. The following article analyzes the white marble
used for the support of the Mater Dolorosa, which was probably cut from the pedestal of anancient Roman villa. González Mozo, “Materiales y Técnicas”, 47-101.
18. Falciani et al. Vasari per/for Bindo Altoviti, 22-23.
19. Many scholars, including Charles Hope, have previously claimed that the marble oilpainting of the Virgin with open arms was based on a drawing by Rogier van der Weyden, sentby Charles V. However, no similar examples have been found in Rogier’s drawings. Recently,
Ana González Mozo has suggested that a Greek icon may have been Titian’s inspiration. Hope,
Titian, 122; González Mozo, “Materiales y Técnicas”, 47-101.
20. The 2018 exhibition on Italian stone slab paintings at the Museo del Prado also revealed thereverse sides of Titian’s Ecce Homo and Mater Dolorosa, of particular interest because, inMater Dolorosa, Titian had painted the reverse side red brown to resemble red marble. The
reasons for this choice were perhaps that he thought red marble would be appropriate for theemperor as well as to disguise the thick, uneven white marble surface cut from an ancient
Roman pedestal. González Mozo, In Lapide Depictum.
21. In 2022, the Saint Louis Art Museum held an exhibition that presented a voluminous study
on the 170-year history of the development of oil on stone slabs in Europe, from the attempts
of Sebastiano del Piombo around 1530 to the end of the 18th century. For the catalog, see thefollowing. Mann, Paintings on Stone.

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Media Transformation in a
Transcultural Perspective:
A Portrait of Muhammad in a
Chinese Public Park in the 1920s______________________________________________________________________________________

Yuining Teng
Universität Hamburg
ABSTRACTThis paper presents a case study about an anonymous engraving of theProphet Muhammad, transferred from the Western world to China at the
beginning of the 20th century. It was transformed into a poster for nationalist
and patriotic education. The whole process of image migration across timeand space involved shifts of multiple media including engravings, books,
magazines, illustrated newspapers, posters and photographs. Its significancechanged, while different media also brought complex messages for
re-narrating Muhammad in the Chinese context. This paper traces back allversions of the image and its derivatives, analyzes the changings of various
media as well as the political stances based on the historical and cultural
background of the transfer. It emphasizes how the media carried travelling
images from the West to China, and how the Western depiction of
Muhammad was adapted to a Chinese context, subsequently becoming partof the political strategy of China’s own modern identity. The study offers adistinct case to discuss the theory of “image vehicles”, “Bilderfahrzeuge” (Aby
Warburg), migrating in the modern global network. Moreover, methodologies
of “political iconography” and “archaeology of media” are crucial for the
analysis of this case study.
KEYWORDS
Early 20th-century China;
Political Iconography

Muhammad;Nationalism;

Bilderfahrzeuge,

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In 1925, thirteen years after the Republic of China (1912-1949) overturned thelast imperial dynasty and established itself, a public park opened in Beijing.
The park was named “Jingzhao Park” (京兆公园), after the Capital District of
the Republic of China, which served as the administrative unit including thecapital city of Beijing and the surrounding region from 1912 to 1928. It was theresult of the modern urban renewal movement, which transformed animperial temple (the Temple of Earth). Many experimental measures wereused in the design of this park to construct a meaningful place for patriotic
education. The park only existed for three years under the name Jingzhao (thecapital region) before being renamed. Due to its short existence, few records
remained, with the exception of the only book, the Report on Jingzhao Park
(京兆公园纪实) which gave a systematic introduction to the place.1 The bookwas compiled at the request of the Prefect of Jingzhao District, Xue Dubi (薛笃弼, 1892 - 1973), to document his accomplishment of transforming theTemple of Earth into a public park before he left his job. A special facility, apentagonal pavilion called the “Gonghe Pavilion” (共和亭), was set on the newcenter of the park in order to replace the status of the imperial altar. Gonghe
Pavilion embodied the national policy of “wuzu gonghe” (五族共和, Five
Nationalities United in the Republic), which was the main principle that thepark tried to convey. The five sides of the pavilion were each painted with adifferent color to represent the five official ethnic groups of the Republic, andthe five colors correspond to those on the national flag: red for the Han,
yellow for the Manchu, blue for the Mongol, white for the Hui (Chinese
Muslim) and black for the Tibetan. Inside the pavilion, five portraits werehung on beams, one on each side. The portraits presented five “great men”
who were famous historical heroes to symbolize their relevant nationalities,
including the Yellow Emperor (Han), Nurhaci (Manchu), Genghis Khan
(Mongol), Muhammad (Chinese Muslim), and Tsongkhapa (Tibetan). The
modern statement of “five nationalities” was a political creation, and it was
one of the most popular themes of propaganda, frequently appearing in theform of images in all kinds of media. An example is a banknote on which
portraits of five women in distinguishable dresses acted as observables torepresent different nationalities; yet their identities could not be used to______________________________________________________________________________________
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identify their nationalities from a political perspective.2 On the contrary, thefive male figures in the park were emperors of old dynasties or religious
leaders, and they were bracketed together as “great men”, comparable to the
Italian tradition of the uomini famosi. The concept also aligned with Thomas
Carlyle’s “Great Man theory” which was well-known in China since the late
Qing dynasty.3 Among the five great men, the Prophet Muhammad, who wasused as the representation of the Hui nationality, appears a little weird,
because the founder of Islam, who was unquestionably a non-Chinese, wasfabricated as the symbol of a Chinese ethnic group (Chinese Muslims).
Obviously, this statement here confounded the two concepts of Huizu (回族,
the Hui nationality) and Huijiao (回教, the religion of Hui, that is Islam,although the term “Islam” was rarely mentioned during its development inancient China). In the park, the figure of Muhammad was involved into thenarrative framework produced by the republican China under the slogan of“Five Nationalities United in the Republic”, and it helped to construct theidentity of the modern nation-state.

Fig. 1. Venice Gonghe Pavilion, from Xue, Dubi, ed., Report on Jingzhao Park (京兆公园纪实, Jingzhao Gongyuan Jishi), Beijing, 1925. photo no.44.

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Yuning Teng

Fig.2. A sketch by the author: The ﬁve sides of the pentagonal pavilion were
each painted with a di erent color to represent the ﬁve o cial ethnic groupsof the Republic, and the ﬁve colors correspond to those on the national ﬂag.
Portraits presented ﬁve “great men” of ﬁve nationalities were hung on the
beams inside the pavilion, one on each side. All the photos are from Xue Dubi,
1925, photo no.48-52.

Fig. 3. The portrait of Muhammad in the Gonghe Pavilion, from Xue Dubi, 1925,
photo no.51.

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Yuning Teng

Why was Muhammad chosen to represent the Hui? It must be
explained via the evolution of the Hui in China. For a long time in Chinese
history, the term “Hui” or “Huihui” referred to all Chinese-speaking
communities with Muslim ancestries who were of various origins, but lived
far from the Muslim world. They are always thought to be culturally closer tothe Han majority than other minorities in China. Sun Yat-sen, the founder ofthe Republic of China, defined the Hui people as one of the Chinese
nationalities. It was a political creation as well as a revolutionary tool for
uniting the people. Sun Yat-sen announced in his Inaugural Address of theProvisional President:
The root of the nation lies with the people. The land of
the Han, Manchus, Mongols, Muslims, and Tibetans is
one country; and thus, the Han, Manchus, Mongols,
Muslims, and Tibetan nations are one people. This is a
united “race”. 4
Sun also made an announcement:
All ethnic groups in the Republic of China are equal. The
Hui people have suffered the most from China’s
dynasties. The more the suffering, the greater the
possibility for revolution. As a result, it is important torouse the Hui people and enlist them in the national
liberation effort. Around the world, the Hui faith is
widely recognized for its bravery and willingness tosacrifice. The awakening and involvement of the Huipeople must be a solid guarantee of the revolution’s
triumph. [...] In a word, China’s national revolution
cannot achieve ultimate success without theparticipation of the Hui; the aim of destroying
imperialism cannot be realized without the cooperationof the Hui.5
This doctrine goes far beyond ethnic issues but concerns the territory
and borders of China: the Han inhabited the central part, while other four
non-Han communities took up four frontier regions. The Hui are prevalent inNorthwestern China, but communities may be found across the country.
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Yuning Teng

Through a dialogical process of governmental recognition and selfexamination, the Hui officially became a nationality, playing a role in the
discourse of a Chinese “nation”. 6 In the example of the Gonghe Pavilion, thesymbol of the entire Chinese Muslim community was chosen by the park
designer, who was the Prefect of the capital area and also a representative of
the Han government’s perspective, to narrate how the Hui was defined. Dueto a lack of publications in Chinese, knowledge of Islam was notdisseminated

to

the

non-Muslim

circlein

China.

Chinese Muslim

intellectuals, on the other hand, interpreted and localized the knowledge byintegrating their identities into both mainstream Chinese culture and Islam.
They also converted the prophet into the Chinese concept of a sage.
Muhammad was referred to as zhisheng (至圣, most sagely), and some
Chinese scholars attempted to link him to Confucius in order to validate hissagehood. 7 Even if Muhammad’s legend had reached the non-Muslim social
environment, ordinary people had little opportunity to view Muslim-themed
imagery in their lives, let alone portraits of Muhammad. According to Islamic
doctrine, the Quran castigates the worship of idols. Muhammad’s portraits
were likewise few in number, although the Quran and Hadith do not reallyban portraits. 8
In China, people’s curiosity about the appearance of the figure can be
felt in folklore. They described Muhammad’s portraits as “un-seen”:
P. Dabry de Thiersant quoted a story from the Daogu
Tang Anthology (道古堂文集) which was composed in
the 18th century by a Han scholar, Hang Shijun (杭世骏,
1695-1773). It says in the year of 587, the Tang Emperor
dispatched an envoy to invite Muhammad to China,
Muhammad didn’t come but gave his portrait as a gift tothe Emperor. The portrait was drawn with some special
material, and it completely faded once the Emperor saw
the Prophet’s looks. 9
The story reflected that the common perception of Muhammad’s
appearance was “un-seen”. In another story, Muhammad was imagined tohave typical features associated with men from “the Western Regions” (西域).

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Yuning Teng

People had a general idea that Muhammad should not look like the Chineseof the Central Plains. According to a tale in Huihui yuanlai (Origins of theHui), Tang dynasty emperor Tai Zong (626–49) dreamt about Muhammad anddescribed his appearance: “The man wore a green robe, and a white turban
was wound around his head. He had a towel draped over his shoulder and awater kettle in his left hand. He had deep eye sockets, a high nose bridge, anda brown face.”10 To this point, the Chinese discourse is similar to EuroAmerican discourses which have been all too keen to focus on Islam’s“differential” character—that is, what makes it “other”.11 Chinese people tried
to interpret the figure within their own cultural context. There is an example
in the Chinese encyclopedia Sancai Tuhui:This is the very place where the local god Maxia(麻霞, i.e., Muhammad) was born. In that country,
they call the gods (神) as buddhas (佛), and every
year all the people go there and worship. Behind
the temple lies the god’s tomb which emits lightfrom day to night, and no one dares to approachit. 12The image used to illustrate this entry of Mecca depicts a balding man
with curly hair and a significant amount of hair on his chest and feet; he isdressed in an ample robe and is walking barefoot. The figure in theillustration functions as a depiction of the Prophet rather than an ordinary
pilgrim of Mecca.This curly hair and body hair, together with the robe, werestereotypical markers in China and Japan denoting men from India, theMiddle East, and Central Asia. This figure also shares similar facial featuresand robes with portraits of Buddha Śākyamuni and the Zen patriarch

Bodhidharma. Furthermore, this image also influenced illustrations in a
Japanese encyclopedia Wakan sansai zue published around 1712. Images
depicting a man from Mecca, whether in Chinese or Japanese versions, arestrongly influenced by contemporaneous East Asian iconographical codes ofsainthood.

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Yuning Teng

The Image of Muhammad in the Gonghe Pavilion
Given the historical background and previous visual tradition, the Gonghe
Pavilion offers a rather remarkable and unique example of a public display of
Muhammad’s picture as the symbol of the Hui nationality. Both the words
and image on the billboard presenting the great man reflect the mainstream
understanding of Muhammad, Islam, and Hui history. The figure was
depictedwitha distinct exotic appearance, far from the Chinese

iconographical tradition, in contrast to the style of Buddha or Chinese sage.
There must be some extrinsic model from which the poster-painter learned
how to create the image. It begs the issue of where the visual style originatesfrom or what the original image looks like. An engraving (lithograph?) of
Muhammad’s full-length portrait resembles the one in the park. The picture
initially appeared as the frontispiece of The History of the Saracens,published in London in 1847. 13 The book was written by Simon Ockley(1678-1720), a British Orientalist at Cambridge University. On the page below
the picture, two names, “Duflos” and “Hinchliff”, are written, referring to thedesigner Pierre Duflos (1742-1816) and the engraver John James Hinchliff(1805-1875). Ockley’s book, for a long time, was regarded as the standard
history of Muhammad and his eventful period. The only illustration in thebook, like other pictorializations of Muhammad motifs, was more expressive
than the texts themselves. 14 It’s not farfetched to think that the Chineseposter has relevance to the European engraving. Many aspects of both
pictures are strikingly similar, such as the outline, dress, gesture, and even thewrinkles in the clothes (e.g., each figure is painted with a thin white line on
the part of the right sleeve near the elbow). However, it is almost impossiblethat the painter learned the image directly from Ockley’s book since it was
not translated into Chinese and was not widely circulated in the society of
China. Even if the book was taken into China by missionaries or merchants,
the probability of a local painter reproducing an illustration from an English
book is quite unlikely. Thus, other sources should be used as references, suchas the illustrated paper.

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Yuning Teng

Fig.4 The portrait of Muhammad in Simon Ockley, The History of the Saracens:comprising the Lives of Mohammed and his Successors, to the Death of
Abdalmelik, the Eleventh Caliph. With an account of their most remarkable
battles, sieges, revolts, etc. Collected from authentic sources, especially Arabic
mss. London, 1847.

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Yuning Teng

The earliest illustrated papers in China had a tradition of reproducing
pieces from foreign materials. According to this clue, one illustration from a
Chinese newspaper was found, which might be a bridge connecting images in
the British book and the Chinese park. It was published in one of the mostinfluential comprehensive publications in China in the early 20th century. The
picture of Muhammad is one of the three illustrations of the 1914 article (The

Observation of Today’s Islamic Countries), which was translated from theJapanese newspaper Tokyo Daily News. 15 This fact also serves as a reminderthat Japan was instrumental in introducing new learning to China. The 1914
illustration is clearly based on the 1847 engraving in every detail, including not
only the main figure, but also the building and armed people in the
background. The copy was not created using photographic techniques, but itshould be reprinted with a new plate made by some local engraver. When thethree pictures are juxtaposed, it is reasonable to speculate that theposter-painter may have borrowed the method of drawing from the 1914
illustration, but not the original one from 1847, based on the proportion,
outline,shading,andcolor.

The

comparisonof the three images

demonstrates how the image evolved from 1847 to 1925, as well as from the
British publication to the Chinese poster. The basic features have beenpreserved, but some parts have been distorted. Despite the fact that manyother pictures were being replicated at the time, the one from the 1847 bookappeared more frequently than others and was picked to be displayed in thepark. This figure must precisely correspond to the propagandistic aim of thepark, thus, it was chosen. But why? First, the 1847 engraving carried on theeighteenth-century tradition of depicting Muhammad as a great man,portraying him as a hero and a revolutionary who shaped history with his
extraordinary leadership abilities. Learning from the building, the Kaaba in
Mecca, the most sacred Muslim pilgrim shrine, the scene in the picture
depicts “Muhammad leading his people to capture Mecca and take power.”This topic may allude to the Republican China’s path to revolutionary victory.
Thus, the image, along with the introduction, gives the audience a clear anddirect impression of the figure of a leader. Secondly, the figure also
corresponds to the general public’s imagination of Muhammad, which is the______________________________________________________________________________________
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Yuning Teng

stereotypical image of him “holding the Quran in his left hand, but a sword in
his right” (左经右剑). This is a misunderstanding in which Muhammad usedviolence to accomplish missionary work, but the incorrect saying has spread
extensively, even in China.16 In this picture, the gesture of Muhammad“holding the Quran and sword” had acquired a widespread consensus insociety, allowing people to recognize the figure.

Fig.5 The illustration titled“The Hui Hierarch
Muhammad” (回教教主摩诃末) comes from “The
Observation of Today’s
Islamic Countries(translated from Tokyo Daily
News)”（囘敎國現勢之探察[譯日本東京日日新聞]), Dongfang
Zazhi (东方杂志),vol.10, no.11,
1914.

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Yuning Teng

Apart from image appropriation, the figure of Muhammad was also
modified to resemble a Chinese man, most likely to avoid deviating too far
from Chinese visual tradition, because using an exact foreigner’s portrait torepresent a Chinese nationality may confuse the targeted visitors. The
portrait on the poster is painted in a typical Chinese painting style,combining image and text. This pictorial composition can be traced back to
the visual conventions of Chinese memorial portraits, such as eulogies of
portraits, pictorial biographies, and cyclopedias of pictures. Moreover, thefigure of Muhammad in the 1925 poster resembles a Chinese person rather
than a foreigner because of his beard. His beard is not curly, but it appears to
be more manageable. In traditional Chinese art, beards are used to
distinguish between Chinese and outsiders. For example, in Yan Liben’s (阎立本, 601-673) famous painting, Emperor in a Sedan Chair Receiving a Tibetan

Envoy (步辇图), the beard is one of the key features on the face thatdifferentiates the Chinese Emperor from the foreign envoy. The 1925 poster
also resembles the typical profile with changran (长髯, long beard) in Chineseart, which is a conventional iconographic code depicting the elderly wiseman, such as Confucius, or the brave warrior, such as the God of Gate, which
always appears in woodcuts. Artificial beards are also used by actors in
traditional Chinese operas, and the gesture of holding the long beard with
one hand, which shapes the beard to shrink at the tail, is a stylized positionon the stage. It can be guessed that the poster-painter mimicked theconvention of the beard from the visual tradition and employed theChinese-style beard to depict Muhammad, making him appear like a Chinese
sage.
Brief Summary
The poster at the Gonghe Pavilion in Jingzhao Park reflects a complicatedbackground in which the Hui were defined as a nationality belonging to theChinese nation under Republican China’s modern nationalist building.
Meanwhile, Muhammad, the prophet and founder of Islam, was selected as
the symbol of the newly formed Hui nationality. The figure was not chosen by
the Hui people, but was re-narrated by the Han (majority nationality)______________________________________________________________________________________
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Yuning Tenggovernment as a hero and revolutionary in the modern perspective of nationand state construction. The image in the poster was adapted from a British
engraving but modified for the Asian context to assist in the introduction ofknowledge about the Hui origins and Muhammad’s accomplishments. It
underwent Sinicization and became a new figure that was readily accepted by
the local Chinese. This case proves the existence of a transformed image ofthe 1847 engraving that spread throughout China. The example shows how,around the turn of the twentieth century, illustrated papers served as a
medium for transferring Western images to China (perhaps via Japan),enhancing Muhammad’s popularity in China. It also demonstrates that imagetransmission was a prominent trend at the time, with knowledge andinformation diffusing across cultures through the migration of images andtheir carries. The whole process of image migration through time and space
involves

various

media

shifts,includingengravings,

books,

magazines/illustrated newspapers, posters, and, eventually, photographs. The
printing technique facilitated the image’s global dissemination. When theimage was expressed via different media, the form was adjusted for new
functions and the significance changed, while various media also provided
complex meanings for re-narrating Muhammad in the Chinese context.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bai, Shouyi (白寿彝), General History of Islam in China (中国回教小史), Shanghai: The
Commercial Press (商务印书馆), 1944.
Ben-Dor Benite, Zvi, The Dao of Muhammad: A Cultural History of Muslims in Late
Imperial China, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2005.
Carlyle, Thomas, Heroes and Hero-Worship, 1840, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship andthe Heroic in History, Fredrick A. Stokes & Brother, New York, 1888.
Dabry de Thiersant, P.(Philibert), Le Mahométisme en Chine et dans le Turkestan
Oriental, Paris: E. Leroux. 1878.
Gladney, Dru C., Muslim Chinese : Ethnic Nationalism in the People's Republic,
Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1991.
Gruber, Christiane, “Images of the Prophet Muhammad: Brief Thoughts on Some
European-Islamic Encounters”, in Seen and Unseen: Visual Cultures of Imperialism,
edited by Sanaz Fotouhi and Esmaeil Zeiny, Brill, 2017.

______________________________________________________________________________________
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Yuning Teng

Gruber, Christiane J. & Avinoam Shalem (eds.), The Image of the Prophet between
Ideal and Ideology, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013.
Ma Kuangyuan, Huizu wenhua lunji (Collected Essays in Hui Nationality Culture),
Kunming: Zhonggu Wenlian, 1998.
Ockley, Simon, The History of the Saracens: comprising the Lives of Mohammed andhis Successors, to the death of Abdalmelik, the Eleventh Caliph. With an account of
their most remarkable battles, sieges, revolts. etc. Collected from authentic sources,
especially Arabic mss. London, 1847.
Saviello, Alberto, “Muhammad’s Multiple Faces: Printed Images of the Prophet inWestern Europe”, Constructing the Image of Muhammad in Europe, 2013.
Sun, Yat-sen, Inaugural Address of the Provisional President, 1912. Translated by
Christopher C. Heselton.
Wagner, Rudolf G., Joining the Global Imaginaire: The Shanghai Illustrated
Newspaper Dianshizhai huabao, Joining the Global Public: Word, Image, and City in
Early Chinese Newspapers, 1870-1910, pp.105-173, New York: State University of New
York Press, 2008.
Wang, Qi (王圻), and Wang Siyi (王思义), Sancai Tuhui, vol 14 of figures, no.31,
Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1988.
Xue, Dubi, ed., Report on Jingzhao Park (京兆公园纪实), Beijing, 1925.

Endnotes
1. Xue Dubi, ed., Report on Jingzhao Park (京兆公园纪实), Beijing, 1925.
2. Wang Feng, “Five Female Portraits on the Banknote (民国中南银行纸币上的五女图)”, Fuzhou:
Shoucang Kuaibao (收藏快报), 2021-02-24, p.14. See the link:
http://epaper.dfsc.com.cn/html/2021-02/24/content_1764_4054194.htm.
3. About Thomas Carlyle’s theory, see his two books: Thomas Carlyle, Heroes andHero-Worship, 1840, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History, Fredrick A.
Stokes & Brother, New York, 1888.
4. Sun Yat-sen, Inaugural Address of the Provisional President, 1912. Translated by Christopher
C. Heselton.
5. Bai Shouyi (白寿彝), General History of Islam in China (中国回教小史), Shanghai: The
Commercial Press (商务印书馆), 1944, Chapter 9.
6. Dru C. Gladney, Muslim Chinese : Ethnic Nationalism in the People's Republic, Council on
East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1991, p.97.
7. Zvi Ben-Dor Benite, The Dao of Muhammad: A Cultural History of Muslims in Late Imperial
China, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2005, ff.162.
8. Christiane Gruber, “Images of the Prophet Muhammad: Brief Thoughts on Some
European-Islamic Encounters”, in Seen and Unseen: Visual Cultures of Imperialism, edited by
Sanaz Fotouhi and Esmaeil Zeiny, Brill, 2017. pp.34-52.
9. P. Dabry de Thiersant, Le Mahométisme en Chine et dans le Turkestan Oriental, Paris: E.
Leroux. 1878. pp.27-28.
10. The Huihui yuanlai (Origins of the Hui) was first printed in Nanjing, ca.1712. The version
cited here is ‘Huihui yuanlai (zhengli ben),’ in Ma Kuangyuan, Huizu wenhua lunji (Collected______________________________________________________________________________________
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Yuning Teng

Essays in Hui Nationality Culture). Kunming: Zhonggu Wenlian, 1998. Ma Kuangyuan, Huihui
yuanlai (zhengli ben), pp. 53-4.
11. Christiane Gruber, “Images of the Prophet Muhammad: Brief Thoughts on Some
European-Islamic Encounters”, in Seen and Unseen: Visual Cultures of Imperialism, edited by
Sanaz Fotouhi and Esmaeil Zeiny, Brill, 2017, p.50.
12. Wang Qi (王圻,)and Wang Siyi (王思义), Sancai Tuhui, vol 14 of figures, no.31,
Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1988, p868.
13. Simon Ockley, The History of the Saracens: comprising the Lives of Mohammed and his
Successors, to the Death of Abdalmelik, the Eleventh Caliph. With an account of their mostremarkable battles, sieges, revolts, etc. Collected from authentic sources, especially Arabic mss.
London, 1847.
14. Alberto Saviello, “Muhammad’s Multiple Faces: Printed Images of the Prophet in Western
Europe”, Constructing the Image of Muhammad in Europe, Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter, 2013,
p.89.
15. The illustration titled “The Hui Hierarch Muhammad” (回教教主摩诃末) is from “The
Observation of Today’s Islamic Countries”（囘敎國現勢之探察[譯日本東京日日新聞]), Dongfang
Zazhi (东方杂志),vol.10, no.11, 1914.
16. “A Letter from a Non-Moslim comrade: does Muhammad holds the Quran in the left handand a sword in the right hand?” (一位非回教同志的来信：穆罕默德是否左手掌经右手持剑), Huizu
Wenhua (回族文化), first issue, 1948, pp.34-35.

______________________________________________________________________________________
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The First European Wheel: A Prehistoric
Instrument of Indo-European Migrations
and its Reﬂections in CroatianContemporary Design______________________________________________________________________________________

Zvjezdan Vuković
Independent scholar
ABSTRACTThe first Indo-European migrations and occupation of the territory ofmodern Croatia occurred on the banks of the second largest European river,
Danube. Innovation that occurred in the Danube valley was the first wheeledvehicles - wagons and carts. Its appearance marked the landscape and caused
the transition from the traditional agricultural economy to the animalhusbandry, as well as the first appearance of the social stratification.
The impact of the first Indo-European migrations and the occupationin the territory of Croatia can be studied through the wheels in its materialand symbolic aspects. Moreover, the remains of the wagons and carts and thefinds of its clay models open the perspective of comparison with thecontiguous cultures on the same technological stage of development.
It is fascinating that more than 5000-year-old migration still has an
impact on contemporary creativity. The purpose of this paper is to point out
the persistence of the idea that has been transferred from archeologicalremains and preserved through the timeline until the modern days.

KEYWORDS
Indo-European Migrations; Vučedol Culture; Wheeled Vehicles; Prehistoric
Design; Contemporary Jewelry

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Zvjezdan Vuković

Wheels emerge around 3500 BC almost simultaneously in different
areas of the world.1 The evidence can be divided into direct and indirectindicators for the knowledge and usage of the wheel; direct being represented
by actual wheel or axle finds and indirect evidence being derived frommodels, petroglyphs, pictograms, etc.2, with a third distinction to make:
Vehicles with four wheels are called wagons, vehicles with two wheels carts.
Belongings of the Baden Culture can be divided into two phases. The firstwagon models from the Budakalász phase of the Baden Culture arerectangular vessels with fish bone decoration and loops for wheels or lugs.3
Some of them show protome that broke off in old times but probably
depicted the draught animals. In the second, classical phase of the Baden
Culture highly decorated wagon cups are found in graves.4 Also, present are
paired burials of bovids which might be symbolic for the burial in a wagon.5

Fig. 1. Wheeled wagon model from Vučedol

______________________________________________________________________________________
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Zvjezdan Vuković

J. Maran has emphasized the connections between Baden culture andthe earliest wheeled vehicles.6 The perhaps two most significant innovationsof the Late Copper Age (3600/3500–3000/2800 BC) were the invention of thewheel and of wheeled vehicles, which sparked further major inventions inthis early period.7
Croatia is situated in the southeastern part of the European continent,
having maritime border with Italy on the Adriatic Sea and eastern border on
the banks of the long and wide river Danube.
The river Danube is the second-longest river in Europe, after the Volgain Russia. It flows through much of Central and Southeastern Europe, fromthe Black Forest in Germany into the Black Sea. Since ancient times, theDanube has always been a traditional trade route in Europe. The Danube
River basin is home to many fish species and as such, it has always been an
important source for a food and water supply.
Once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire, the river passes
through or touches the borders of 10 countries, including Croatia. Just here in
the Croatian Danube valley in the third millennium BC was established one
prehistoric culture.
The bearers of that culture were the people of one Indo-European
tribe for which homeland was proposed to be the area of south Ukrainian andsouth Russian steppes. It was supposed that one branch of Indo-European
tribes, migrating from its homeland to west passed the Danube and settled intoday’s eastern Croatia, assimilating the indigenous population living on thecrop and animal husbandry. Gradually, this area became the center of aflourishing culture, named after Vučedol, eponymous archeological site nearmodern town of Vukovar.8
Indo-European herders, moving in that migration, were using wagons
with wheels. In the Museum of Vučedol culture there is ideal reconstructionof one of such wagons, made after the clay wagon model, possibly achildren’s' toy. Testifying the importance of such artefact there is one wheelfrom Vučedol now kept in Vienna's Naturhistorisches museum.9
When they finally came and inhabited Croatian Danube valley, they
gradually developed their culture and moved their borders. Maximal area of______________________________________________________________________________________
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Zvjezdan Vuković

distribution of Vučedol culture was from Adriatic Sea and Mediterranean
world on the south to far to the north all the way to the Czech capital Prague.
It is obvious that in the third millennium BC it occupied a much larger area,
encompassing the territories of many of today's Central European countries,
than the area of today's Croatia.10
The former prehistoric settlement of Vučedol has occupied the area of
today's vineyards and cornfields, of which archaeologists have excavated justover 10%. Thanks to its excellent position on the banks of the river Danube
and fertile soil, it was possible to draw resources. The life and economy ofculture flourished, and the situation in that area is similar today. The
migrations were carried out not only by wheeled wagons, but also by water. In
the museum there is an ideal reconstruction of an oval-shaped Vučedol
house, divided into a living room and a bedroom, with a fireplace andlamp-vessels.11
Because of the importance of the site and culture, in 2014 a brand-new
museum of Vučedol culture was built and opened to the public. The authors
are the architects of the architectural bureau Architecture Workshop, headedby the architect Goran Rako. The museum building connects the valley along
the Danube riverbank and the archeological site of Vučedol, which is locatedon the top of a hill. That is why the Museum is in the shape of a serpentine.
Climbing these "serpentines", which are placed on a slight slope, whichaccording to the standards allows people in wheelchairs to move around thespace, visitors get familiar with everything that is of importance for the rich
Vučedol culture. And finally, at the end of the museum exhibition, they exit in
the authentic location of Vučedol, the origin of Vučedol culture. Outside, themuseum is lined with natural material - brick, and together with the grassroof is perfectly integrated into the natural environment.12
In the immediate vicinity of Vučedol, the town of Vukovar has beendeveloped from the Middle Ages, and it also gravitated towards the Danube
River. In 1991, very soon after Croatia declared the independence and left the
Yugoslavian socialist federal state, the town was attacked by its easternneighbor Serbia. The town was severely devastated and occupied, and the
population fled.
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Zvjezdan Vuković

Nowadays, on the anniversary of the fall of the city of Vukovar,
November 18th, every year it’s held a commemoration dedicated to the victimsof the Vukovar tragedy. The town of Vukovar became a symbol of that war. It
took years and years for the city to recover. The symbol of the city, Eltz Castle,
has been restored. The sufferings of war belong to the past today, the industry
is rising and with it the need to strengthen the identity, given that the Danube
is still the border with the state that attacked the city 30 years ago.
The identity is sought in the Vučedol culture famous for its
ornamented ceramics. Two examples, one vessel with the presentation of theconstellations, considered to be the oldest Indo-European calendar, what was
important because this culture was depending on agriculture. And second,the cult vessel, a bottle in the shape of the bird. There are objects that became
two symbols and let's say trademarks of the Vučedol culture, but also an
inspiration to the Croatian contemporary design.13
Vučedol vessel with solar motifs served the young Croatian designer
Goran Raukar to develop the visual identity of the Vučedol Culture Museum.14
Julijana Rodić Ozimec, jewelry designer, known as JoR, was inspired by that
motif for her necklace.

Fig. 2. Vučedol museum visual identity by Goran Raukar

The JoR pseudo name stands for distinctive art jewelry made by
Julijana Rodić Ozimec, a jeweler. Every piece she makes is characterized by a______________________________________________________________________________________
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Zvjezdan Vuković

specific synergy of shapes, materials, applied jewelry making techniques andinspiration. JoR’s artistry is visible in shapes and selection of specificmaterials as well as in technically and artistically demanding surface
treatment (polishing, sandblasting, engraving). The magical synergy theycreate is a material, non - verbal manifestation of the transcendental,
powerful and unique. JoR’s openness to the world of nature, to the abundanceof the human heritage, intimate experiences, and civilization values isreflected in her inimitable artistic expression.15
The shape of triangle of this logo of the Museum of Vučedol culture
does not exist in the material remains of the culture. It is a brand-new designof young designer Goran Raukar. But he filled it with the ornaments inspiredby the similar ornaments in Vučedol culture vessels. On the other hand, thetriangular logo itself was the inspiration for an original souvenir – guitar pick.
The clay vessel from Vinkovci site is the calendar, particularly its
symbols representing constellations on the winter sky in the norther
hemisphere, like Orion, Swan, Pleiades, Sun, Gemini, Pisces-Pegasus andCassiopeia were furthermore inspiration for the artistic jewelry shaped anddeveloped by the JoR designer.16
The

shoe

factory

Borovointhevillage

Borovo in Vukovar

neighborhood, founded 1931 and demolished during War for the Yugoslav
succession during 90s', when it was closed, found new strength andinvestment most recently, becoming one of the engines of the new prosperityof the whole region. Designers of the factory were inspired by the symbols of
the constellations which were put as a pattern in one of the most popular
Borovos' sneakers among the young people. That is how the old symbol
become part of new national identity.17
When talking about shoes, it should be mentioned that according to
the material remains, the people of Vučedol culture were making and wearing
leather shoes. They developed very sophisticated and advanced technology –the shape of shoes was different for both left and for right foot. On theexamples of the clay shoe model, possible children's toy, we can see thetraces of incrustation representing rich ornamentation.18 There is the sawn______________________________________________________________________________________
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Zvjezdan Vuković

ideal reconstruction that is exhibited for the museum exposition, and again,
the model itself was inspiration for the pendant jewelry by JoR.
One clay figurine from the Vučedol culture excavation in the town of
Vinkovci is modelled like it was dressed.19 M. Milićević proposed the possible
look of the clothes of the Vučedol women, and T. Karavidović sewed it, which
is now exposed in the new museum of Vučedol culture.20 Moreover, applied
artist and designer J. Kosanović puts the symbols and ornaments on her
unique women bags.

Fig. 3. JoR
pendant
inspired by
the Vučedol
dove

Vučedol culture knew how to extract a metal from the ore, producing
axes of so-called arsenic bronze, even using mold for a serial production.
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Zvjezdan Vuković

Despite of being recognized as a stereotype male weapon, one fan-shaped
axe became an inspiration for this unique earrings and necklaces by JoR
design. the clay vessel in the shape of bird dove or partridge is the most
iconic symbol and famous artefact of the whole Vučedol culture. Excavatedbetween two world wars, now is kept in the Archeological Museum in Zagreb,
the capital of Croatia. On her neck we can see motif of clepsydra, or labris,
double axe, possibly connected with the Minoan Crete.21 It was also an
inspiration in JoR jewelry for pendants and bracelets.
The designers of Vupik, an important Croatian agricultural company
for food and wine, found the inspiration for their trademark in the Vučedol
Dove as well as the style ornaments from the wings.22

Fig. 4. Vupik company visual design

The project #dovetales was the successful idea of archeologist Ana
Solter for an interactive souvenir. Little colorful plastic doves are produced in
the three-dimensional printer device, and they travel around the world with
their owners that take photos with it and upload it to the concrete social
media pages, promoting the culture itself as well as symbolically sharing
peace among the people.23______________________________________________________________________________________
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Zvjezdan Vuković

Fig. 5. An example of the #dovetales project at ﬁnal stage

At the end of the third millennium BC, Vučedol culture was replacedby another culture, and slowly disappeared and been forgotten for centuries,______________________________________________________________________________________
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Zvjezdan Vuković

until almost one hundred years ago hardworking archaeologists revealed it on
the light. Most recently, it became the source of inspiration for the artists anddesigners for making something new, fresh, and attractive. And that is how it
is reborn again through its ornaments and symbols.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Burmeister, Stefan. Neolithische und bronzezeitliche Moorfunde aus den
Niederlanden, Nordwestdeutschland und Dänemark. In: M. Fansa/S.Burmeister [Hg.],
Rad und Wagen. Der Ursprung einer Innovation. Wagen im Vorderen Orient undEuropa. Ausst. Oldenburg 2004. Arch. Mitteilungen aus Nordwestdeutschland 40(Mainz 2004) 321-340.
Bondár, Maria. ‘’ Prehistoric innovations: Wheels and wheeled vehicles ‘’, in: Acta
Archaeologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 69 (2018) 271–298.
Durman, Aleksandar. The lame God of Vučedol: why do all Gods of metallurgy limp?,
Vukovar: Gradski muzej Vukovar, 2004.
Durman, Aleksandar. The Vučedol Orion and the Oldest European Calendar , Zagreb:
Arheološki muzej, 2000.
Durman, Aleksandar. Vučedol: Three thousand years B.C, Zagreb: Muzejski prostor,
1988.
Furholt, Martin. '' Pottery, cultures, people? The European Baden material
Hayen, Heinrich. Zwei in Holz erhalten gebliebene Reste von Wagenrädern aus
Olympia. Die Kunde. in: Mitt. des Nieders. Landesvereins für Urgeschichte 31/32,
1980/81, 135-192.
Maran, Joseph. Die Badener Kultur und ihre Räderfahrzeuge. In: M.
Fansa/S.Burmeister [Hg.], Rad und Wagen. Der Ursprung einer Innovation. Wagen im
Vorderen Orient und Europa. Ausst. Oldenburg 2004. Arch. Mitteilungen aus
Nordwestdeutschland 40 (Mainz 2004) 265-282.
'’Muzej Vučedolske kulture’’, DAZ/ORIS 6th July 2015.
http://www.d-a-z.hr/hr/vijesti/muzej-vucedolske-kulture,3066.html (approached 21thJune 2022.)
Solter, Ana. '' #DoveTales, Vučedolska golubica putuje s Vama – predstavljanje
projekta http://dfest.nsk.hr/2018/2016/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Stopfer-Ana.pdf(approached 21th June 2022.)Težak-Gregl, Tihomila. ''Vučedol culture'' in: Prehistory , Zagreb: Naprijed, 1998.
22-67.
Vukanović, Katarina. ‘’Batina“ tvornica i naselje u Borovu kraj Vukovara’’, in: Essehist
6, (2014): 119 -126.
Vupik – O nama 2019. https://www.vupik.hr/?page_id=22 (approached 21th June 2022.)Žunić, Alen '' The Vučedol Effect'', in: ORIS 85 (2014): 94-103.
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Endnotes
1. Burmeister, ‘’ Neolithische und bronzezeitliche Moorfunde aus den Niederlanden,
Nordwestdeutschland und Dänemark, 321.
2. Hayen ‘’ Zwei in Holz erhalten gebliebene Reste von Wagenrädern aus Olympia’’, 193.
3. Maran '' Die Badener Kultur und ihre Räderfahrzeuge'', 270.
4. Ibid., 271.
5. Ibid., 272.
6. Furholt '' Pottery, cultures, people? The European Baden material re-examined '', 617.
7. Bondár ‘’ Prehistoric innovations: Wheels and wheeled vehicles ‘’, 271.
8. Durman, '' Vučedol: Three thousand years B.C '' , 13.
9. Ibid., 15.
10. Ibid., 17.
11. Ibid., 18.
12. Žunić '' The Vučedol Effect'', 96.
13. Durman '' The Vučedol Orion and the Oldest European Calendar '', 12.
14. ‘’Muzej Vučedolske kulture’’, DAZ/ORIS
15. JoR
16. Durman '' The Vučedol Orion and the Oldest European Calendar '', 13.
17. Vukanović ‘’Batina“ tvornica i naselje u Borovu kraj Vukovara’’, 119.
18. Durman, '' Vučedol: Three thousand years B.C '' , 18.
19. Težak-Gregl ''Vučedolska kultura'' , 43.
20. Durman, '' Vučedol: Three thousand years B.C '’, 24.
21. Durman, The lame God of Vučedol: why do all Gods of metallurgy limp?, 11.
22. Vupik – O nama
23. Solter, Ana.

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35th CIHA World Congress | MOTION: Migrations
1299