viz. - King James Bible

Viz Partners with Harry Ransom Center for Spring Exhibitions

Marjorie Foley — Tue, 08 May 2012 17:51:45 +0000

This biography of Marc Chagall discusses his Hasidic upbringing, his escape from Europe during World War II, and the influence of war on his work.

This blog post by Jay Voss analyzes the elements of the first page of the New Testament in the King James Bible.

Steven Lemieux's blog post about Eric Gill's Golden Calf considers representations of calves as both virile and innocent, as both animals and gods.

This blog post from Harry Ransom Center curator Danielle Sigler describes the King James Bibles influences on campus and in culture.

Jacob Lawrence's memories of Adam Clayton Powell Sr.'s sermons at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, New York are detailed here by viz. blogger Ty Alyea.

This short and highly amusing video shows how the King James Bible has influenced the English language.

You can read more about Jacob Lawrence's life growing up in Harlem and his work during the Civil rights movement on this website.

If you're interested in seeing more of Jacob Lawrence's work, you might consider visiting the Whitney, which has a nice collection of his works.

This video, created by the Manifold Greatness curators of this exhibition, details the influences the King James Bible has had on literary works.

This exhibition was created by a partnership of the Bodleian library, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the Harry Ransom Center. Their website, Manifold Greatness, is a wealth of information about this exhibition.

If you find the presence of Jewish artist Marc Chagall's work in this exhibition, you'll want to read about how the artis was influenced by Christian forms in this post by viz. blogger Marjorie Foley.

Writing for the Harry Ransom Center, Richard W. Oram and Ryan Hildebrand discuss the intersections of modernism and the Bible.

What do Bob Marley, R. Crumb, and The Book of Eli have in common? That's right, the Bible! Read more here.

In this video, you'll learn all about printing errors in early versions of the King James Bible.

The creators of Manifold Greatness have digitized a number of images from the first edition of the King James Bible. You can explore those images here.

Through reading this post by viz. blogger Lisa Gulessarian, you'll learn all about François-Louis Schmied’s engravings of the Creation and Ruth stories and the Art Deco and Orientalist influences on his work.

You can see an online collection of François-Louis Schmied’s works here.

In this post, viz. blogger Jay Voss explains how the title page of the King James Bible page relates to King James’s succession to the English throne and his creation of the Union Jack

In this video, Dr. Daniel Wallace, an expert on New Testament Greek, explain the difference between the King James Bible and modern translations.

In this post, including Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, viz. blogger Ty Alyea examines the theme of wandering in Christian works.

Form, Function, and Fonts: Eric Gill’s Branding Type

Rachel Schneider — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 06:03:09 +0000

Image Credit: The Library of Congress

Eric Gill’s illustrated 1931 The Four Gospels of the Lord Jesus Christ According to the Authorized Version of King James I may be the most beautiful text in the Harry Ransom Center’s King James Bible exhibition. Gill, who was a graphic designer, a sculptor, and a firm Catholic, melded his minimalist design aesthetics with Catholic art’s gilded tradition to make what the Library of Congress calls “a modern homage to the tradition of illuminated text.” Gill’s black and white figures, however, dance around the elegant typeface to create a Catholicism aesthetically rebranded for the twentieth century: sparse but still striking.

(Slightly NSFW after the break.)

Image Credit: Wandering the Dream Space

The rationale for Gill’s design choices can perhaps be understood in his Essay on Typography, which was first published the same year as the Four Gospels:

It is now clearly understood that modern building must not rely upon ornament, it must rely simply upon grandeur, that is integrity and size. There are things which can be measured; with these alone can the modern architect, employing the modern workman, concern himself. Of beauty there need be no lack, for the beautiful is that which pleases being seen, and those things are pleasing when seen which are as nearly perfect as may be in their adaptation to function. Such is the beauty of bones, of beetles, of well-built railway arches, of factory chimneys (when they have the sense to leave out the ornamental frills at the top), of the new concrete bridge across the Rhine at Cologne, of plain brick walls. (8-9)

Reading this against the Gospels, what strikes me is Gill’s interest in form and function. He writes here that beauty comes not from ornament but from forms adapted best to function—thus, why “plain brick walls” may be beautiful, but perhaps not jewel-encrusted objet d’art. Typography, however, has different functions than a chimney. As Christopher Micklethwait has previously discussed on viz, graphic design concerns itself with typography, layout, and chromatics. The New Typography, represented by Jan Tschichold as well as Eric Gill, concerned itself with clarity instead of beauty. If text’s designed function is clarity and legibility, Gill’s designs do not get in the way of reading—in fact, they enhance and draw attention to text as his characters sometimes seem to perch over the letters. The iconographic figures resonate with a medieval religious tradition, but the design avoids being overly florid.

Image Credit: The Harry Ransom Center

This illustration is particularly interesting as the major figure’s alignment with the downstroke of the N draws our attention to the word—both the one on the page and The Word of the Gospels. Also running parallel is the squiggly line of the snake, climbing towards the innocent Adam and Eve, who almost seem to greet the fall awaiting them. In this way, Gill’s design highlights the function of the text: to bring the reader to a greater appreciation of Christianity.

Image Credit: Wandering the Dream Space

However, Gill’s designs are not without art. As a Catholic in the mode of Hilaire Belloc, Gill’s designs also provide an interpretive gloss. The starkness of Jesus being taken from the cross invokes not the Second Vatican Council but a much more medieval tradition. It also doesn’t seem coincidental that Gill’s famous Gill Sans typeface has effectively served to brand other organizations, like Penguin Books’ famous paperback designs.

Image Credit: William Wu Books

Gill Sans also has power as a nationalistic British brand, as the BBC has used Gill Sans in its logo since 1997.

Image Credit: The BBC

Martin Lambie-Nairn, the designer responsible for the new logo, redesigned the BBC logo not only because the slanted letters used previously did not transfer well to pixels, but because “by choosing a typeface that has stood the test of time, we avoid the trap of going down a modish route that might look outdated in several years’ time.” As a brand that attempts to be associated with solidity and seeks the trust of its viewers, it seems a good choice on the BBC’s part. However, it leaves me to wonder how the University of Texas at Austin's and the Harry Ransom Center’s type brands them.

Image Credit: The Harry Ransom Center

The Harry Ransom Center’s classic logo not only conveys a certain stylish solidity but also includes its windows and its materials as a design element alongside the font. By putting Gill’s lettering not only in its exhibitions but also on their windows, the Harry Ransom Center nods to Gill’s design legacy and its value for research institutions today.

The opinions expressed herein are solely those of viz. blog, and are not the product of the Harry Ransom Center.

Wandering Christians and Illustration in the Biblical Tradition

Rachel Schneider — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 18:27:48 +0000

Image Credit: Posters 555

All those who wander are not lost—in fact, wandering is sometimes the point. I did a little of this while touring the Harry Ransom Center’s new exhibit on The King James Bible: Its History and Influences. I particularly enjoyed examining the numerous visuals on display: exquisite Jacob Lawrence and William Blake illustrations, colorful posters for The Ten Commandments and David and Bathsheba, and patterns for Robert DeNiro’s Biblical tattoos in Cape Fear. While some might oppose word and image, the Harry Ransom Center’s combination of both in a single exhibit highlights illustration’s importance within the King James Bible and the wider biblical tradition. Visual illustrations, which once served to transmit biblical stories before widespread literacy or vernacular bibles, work hand in hand with the Bible’s narrative techniques—specifically, Jesus’s parables in the Gospels. In this post, I’d like to briefly consider how one major biblically-inspired text—John Bunyan’s novel Pilgrim’s Progress—incorporates visual illustration to complement its narrative parable, and how tropes of wandering in particular reoccur in both kinds of illustration.

Image Credit: Strawdogs

The image above (of which a slightly larger version is available here) is a frontispiece for the 1833 edition of The Pilgrim’s Progress, to which is prefixed the Life of the Author, with a Key to the Allegory, and a Critique on its Beauties. The Pilgrim’s Progress, an allegory originally printed in 1678, tells the story of Christian, a man who leaves home for a journey to the Celestial City. On the way there, he gets waylaid in variously places—mostly famously, Vanity Fair. According to the University of Texas’s library catalog entry for the book, the frontispiece was tipped in, which means that the illustration was a loose page incorporated into a bound volume. The image, called “Plan of the road from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City,” was originally published by George Virtue, who made his reputation producing illustrated books. While frontispieces generally depict specific incidents or characters from the text (like the frontispiece to Gulliver’s Travels, which presents Lemuel Gulliver to his readers), the “Plan” does not merely serve as précis for the text. This picture, like the Key to the Allegory and the Critique on its Beauties, glosses the Progress’ meaning.

The “Plan of the road” presents a visual representation of Christian’s path to salvation. It shows all of his stops along the way, including the Slough of Despond and the Hill of Difficulty. Yet the illustrator does not draw the path as a straight line—he instead illustrates it as a spiral. But here, the spiral’s direction moves inward, not outward. As Christian wanders in his journey, even at moments when he feels lost, he continually draws closer to his intended destination. Bunyan’s allegory and the accompanying illustration suggest that all Christians approach salvation, even if they stray off the preferred path. This message appears several times in the Bible, specifically in Luke 15 where Jesus recounts the parables of the lost sheep and the prodigal son.

As recorded in the King James Bible, the prodigal son leaves his father’s house and “waste[s] his substance in riotous living. When he is in need, however, he remembers his father’s beneficence:

“I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. … the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.” (Luke 15:18-24)

When the Pharisees object to Jesus’s communion with sinners, he uses this parable to illustrate the message that God accepts those who return to him, even if they might spend all before then. God’s compassion celebrates the return of the wasteful son: “he was lost, and is found.” This language, transformed by a late eighteenth-century poet into a famous English hymn, directly sets the two states in relation—being lost doesn’t mean you can become found. While the King James Bible contains no visual illustrations, embedded in the text are images in words that have the same effect. Jesus argues his meaning through recourse to illustrations, just like the owner of this copy of Pilgrim’s Progress.

Image Credit: The Blake Archive

What this exhibit highlights for me is that while there is a rich tradition of images in the biblical tradition—as the exhibition carefully demonstrates with hieroglyphic Bibles and frontispieces like the “Plan,” the King James Bible appears within the rise of a hard-line Protestant movement, in which particularly strict sects like the Puritans interpreted the Bible’s commandment against worshipping false idols as critiquing practices of visual representation. Eamon Duffy’s excellent histories The Stripping of the Altars and The Voices of Morebath record how the Henrician Reformation removed artistic aspects of worship—including altar pieces and stained-glass windows—from churches to implement Protestantism. Duffy’s work explains how worshippers adapted Catholic traditions to new religious dictates which threatened communal forms of worship like feast days. While the Bible embeds illustration within its text, it has often been perversely read as against the visual. Perhaps what the Harry Ransom Center’s exhibit shows best is that binaries of word and image collapse into each other—while images of word are not processed by the brain in the same way, both kinds of illustration carry powerful rhetorical effects.

The opinions expressed herein are solely those of viz. blog, and are not the product of the Harry Ransom Center.

An Art Deco King James in the Orientalist Vein: François-Louis Schmied’s Engravings of the Creation and Ruth Stories

Lisa Gulesserian — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 17:08:36 +0000

Image Credit: The Harry Ransom Center

Just before viz. took a break for spring, we visited the Harry Ransom Center’s newest exhibition, The King James Bible: Its History and Influence. Instead of finding only illuminated manuscripts, we were surprised to find contemporary art, literary manuscripts, film posters, and even a sculpture of a golden calf. The exhibition is not just a collection of well-preserved historic Bibles—it’s a unique collection of visual artifacts tangentially related to the King James Bible. As the viz. team walked around the exhibition, one grouping of images caught my eye. Art Deco engraver François-Louis Schmied’s artwork to accompany a French translation of both Genesis and The Book of Ruth from the King James Bible is absolutely stunning. The artwork is most interesting for its fusion of the geometric lines of Art Deco with the Orientalism of its creator and the lyricism of the Biblical stories it illustrates.

Art Deco was a remarkably successful and widespread architectural and artistic movement at the beginning of the twentieth century. The movement was one focused on decoration—the geometric, symmetrical forms of the buildings and drawings of the movement were influenced by ancient Egyptian flourishes. As Edward Said reminds us, since Napoleon’s foray into Egypt in the 18^th century, “Egypt was to become a department of French learning.” Along with Napoleon’s soldiers, “chemists, historians, biologists, archaeologists, surgeons, and antiquarians” were tasked with “put[ting] Egypt into modern French.” Started around the heyday of archaeological work in Egypt (King Tut’s tomb was discovered in 1922), Art Deco internalized the general Egyptomania of the times. “Art Deco,” says British historian John M. MacKenzie in his book Orientalism: History, Theory, and the Arts, “though not oriental in any obvious overall way, owed much to oriental influences: the geometrical patterns, often brightly coloured, the strongly projecting corbels, the sunbursts, winged elements, (like clocks rendered as solar discs), and other features.” Most of us are familiar with the architectural epitomes of this style, NYC’s Chrysler Building and Empire State Building. Both of these buildings make use of Egypt-inspired tropes, such as the lotus decorations on the elevators in the lobby of the Chrysler Building.

Image Credit: Archaeology.org

François-Louis Schmied’s artwork to accompany a French translation of the books of Genesis is no different when it comes to using Egypt-inspired visual elements. His depiction of the Creation is composed of brightly colored animals bursting (like sunrays) off the page. The whales spew water in symmetrical arcs, while a tidy group of partridges march along the bottom of the engraving.

Image Credit: The Harry Ransom Center

Schmied was an Orientalist in the clearest sense. Working in the 1920s and 1930s, Schmied internalized the Egyptomania of his times. He even painted himself in “Oriental dress” at the beginning of his career in 1927. His willingness to take on the dress of the Other might be a sign of Schmied’s identification with the Orient of the past.

Image Credit: The Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia

Shmied’s clear investment in the Orientalist project is critical to reading his illustration of the Book of Ruth. In his engraving for the marriage of Ruth and Boaz, Schmied chose to depict Boaz with darker skin than the outsider from Moab, Ruth. Moabites were excluded from the Jewish community as stipulated by God in Deuteronomy 23:3–6.

Image Credit: The Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia

Ruth, as a Moabite, was allowed to congregate with Israelites because she was a woman (and Moabite women were begrudgingly accepted by Israelites). The story of Ruth and Boaz’s marriage is one of acceptance and compassion—Boaz marries the widowed and impoverished Ruth and fathers a son with her in the direct line of David and Jesus. Their story is not one of passionate love—nowhere does the Bible describe Ruth’s and Boaz’s physical attributes. So, it’s especially interesting that Schmied made Ruth into an olive-skinned beauty and Boaz into a dark-skinned savior. Schmied’s artistic choices might reflect his internalization of another culture, that of “the Orient.” In any case, his engraving is a unique one of an oft-depicted Biblical scene that merits much critical analysis.

See the engravings yourself at the Ransom Center’s exhibition, The King James Bible: Its History and Influence. The exhibition is up until the 29^th of July.

Eating the Golden Calf

Steven J LeMieux — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 21:41:37 +0000

Image Credit: Harry Ransom Center

Eric Gill’s Calf is currently on display at the Harry Ransom Center as part of their new exhibition The King James Bible: Its History and Influence. The calf first appears in the King James Bible in the following verses. “Make us gods, which shall go before us... And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me...And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt (Exodus 32:1-4). In both the statue and in this chapter of Exodus we can begin to consider the relationship between these humans and gods and animals.

The molten calf, bought and paid for with the recently freed people’s golden jewelry, isn’t an idol intended for the veneration of animals. Instead, it seems as though this golden calf is taken up and used by humans just as an actual calf might be. The calf remains a beast. Derrida’s in his recently published lectures The Beast and Sovereign proposed that culturally both the beast and the sovereign have been perceived as operating outside the scope of law--the sovereign because his actions operate as the law and the beast because it is incapable of stupidity, and without the ability to respond it only ever reacts.

Image Credit: Steven LeMieux

We see this same configuration played out upon the body of the golden calf. It is rendered as both animal and god, doubly beyond the scope of the law (and it was precisely when Moses was receiving the commandments that his errant followers took up with the calf). And with both gods and animals outside the scope of the law they become null spaces. Humans then build law, desire, impetus upon their bodies. The calf is constructed not so that they might follow it but rather so that they might drive it before them. Even as they chase it its flight and footsteps are rendered as guidance. The golden calf is caught up in human use just as much as its fleshy fellows.

Image Credit: Eric Gill via 1st-art-gallery.com

Gill’s statue plays along these lines. It is both innocent and virile. The calf’s outstretched head with its slight frown and large, vacant eyes gives it the look of a newborn creature. It sees all the world in a dull wonder. The statue also prominently features its penis and set of still gilded scrotum. The statue, made of hoptonwood stone in 1912, was originally gilded. Over time, though, most of the gilding has flaked off. Gill’s involvement with the calf, though, didn’t follow the same purpose as much of his religious works. He designed the calf for the newly created avant-garde nightclub the Cave of the Golden Calf.

With this we might begin to look at the decadence heaped upon both the images of the calf and its representation in Exodus. “And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount. And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it” (Exodus 19-20). Moses, displeased with the tenor of the celebration surrounding the calf, forces the people to eat their calf—one use is simply turned to another. And with the calf eaten he replaced the nascent path built upon the body of the animal with his textual commandments.

The first page of the New Testament in the King James Bible

Jay Voss — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Two weeks ago I posted on the title page of the 1611 edition of the King James Bible. This week, I thought it’d be fun to consider the first page of the New Testament in that same edition. [Click here for a large-sized image of the page.] This first page of the New Testament contains as much imagery as the edition’s actual title page, which is surprising given that it comes nearly 4/5’s of the way through the book. And though I am no expert in seventeenth-century bibliography, it does seem a little bit odd that such a detailed woodcut would come in the middle of a book, but perhaps this was commonplace for bibles in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In any event, there’s a lot going on in this image, and I thought you might find it enjoyable to take a moment this week and consider the page.

At the top of the first page of the 1611 edition of the King James Bible, is the Holy Trinity. The Hebrew letters stand for YHWH; the lamb symbolizes Christ; and the dove represents the Holy Spirit. The writers of the four Gospels frame the title page’s text, each sitting next to their symbolic beast. On the left side of the page the twelve tribes of Israel are depicted in a chain ascending the page. On the right side, the twelve apostles are depicted in a similar fashion (see above). Just below the actual title of the New Testament is a sacrificed lamb on a pedestal (see below). Below the page’s text there is an image of a lamb being sacrificed.

I find the repeated image of the lamb on this page interesting. Above the lamb is framed within a circle. It holds a cross and marches on top of a sphere in front of sun and clouds. This is astute, as the New Testament frames the life of Jesus Christ. The chains of tribes and apostles on the sides of the page resemble the Jesse Tree. The Jesse Tree is a medieval art trope that depicts the ancestors of Christ in an ornate way. The oldest complete example of the Jesse Tree can be found in Chartres Cathedral (see below). I’m not sure if there’s a connection to be made between the Jesse Tree and the images on the side of the New Testament’s first page in the 1611 King James Bible, but their resemblance is interesting.

Image Credit: Wikipedia

Readers wanting to learn more about the King James Bible should try to visit the Harry Ransom Center and enjoy their ongoing exhibition, The King James Bible: Its History and Influence.

The views expressed herein are strictly those of viz. blog, and not those of the Harry Ransom Center.

Some thoughts on the title page of the King James Bible

Jay Voss — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 15:00:00 +0000

Image Credit: Wikipedia

As I was perusing the new Harry Ransom Center exhibit, The King James Bible: Its History and Influence, I couldn’t help but linger over the first edition’s title page. The image is gorgeous and what one would expect from King James I’s own printer, Robert Baker. It features Moses and Aaron flanking the title, with the four Evangelists around the corners. Above them, the remaining Apostles are depicted, each holding the various symbols that are associated with their individual iconographies. Of these figures, the one that caught my eye was St. Andrew. Prominently on top of the title page, St. Andrew’s saltire is much larger than any of the other objects that the various figures are holding. To a certain extent, its largeness is obvious and expected given that it’s a slightly rotated crucifix. But one can’t but help also thinking about why St. Andrew might have been given special primacy here. After all, this was a Bible commissioned by King James.

Ask any Scottish person about the union of England and Scotland, and they will proudly tell you that Scotland conquered England. In 1603, King James VI of Scotland succeeded the last Tudor monarch, Elizabeth I, to the throne of England (thus becoming King James I). James VI of Scotland was the great-grandson of James IV and Margaret Tudor, and at the time of Elizabeth I’s death, he was determined the only acceptable heir to the thrown. All of this can be seen in the United Kingdom’s flag (below), which has flown over the island ever since James I came to the thrown (with the exception of the further addition of St. Patrick’s Cross after the Act of Union 1800, when Ireland became a part of the United Kingdom). Prior to the Union, Scotland’s flag featured St. Andrew’s Cross in white on a blue background (see below). The English flag featured St. George’s cross in red on a white background (see below). These two were combined on James I’s accession, and result in the iconic Union Jack that we see everywhere today.

Image Credits: Wikipedia

So it should not be surprising that St. Andrew and his saltire are featured prominently on the top of the King James Bible’s title page, even when one considers how rarely St. Andrew is figured prominently in iconography. He is featured here because a Scottish king commissioned this Bible. With this in mind, as I further looked at the title page, I began to wonder who the other Apostles at the top of the title page were, and whether or not there was any significance in their placement. Opposite St. Andrew, holding a sword, is St. Paul. It shouldn’t be surprising that he’s featured prominently, given that he’s long been the patron saint of London. Behind him, holding a chalice, is John the Apostle. Historically, John the Apostle’s been considered a patron of booksellers, so there’s no doubt the King’s printer worked to get John near the top. Between John the Apostle and St. Andrew is hidden St. Thomas, cast in shadow for his reluctance to believe in Jesus’ resurrection. St. Thomas holds an architect’s tool because it is believed he established the first church in India. I wonder if his placement is due to the fact that the King James Bible was published just as the United Kingdom was gaining a foothold in India.

The views expressed herein are strictly those of viz. blog and not the Ransom Center. The King James Bible exhibition will continue at the Ransom Center through 29 July, and those in the Austin area encouraged to attend.