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This weeks art isn't art as much as it is an interesting and important cultural relic, at least for people in my line of work. See, in the seventeenth century in Holland, there were books called emblem books. There would be a little motto, like a proverb, and a picture which represented it and a little explanation. Through this, a whole visual language of images with attached meanings developed. It was pretty common, too. There were more emblem books than Bibles in the Netherlands at one point!

Anyway, there's a sample page behind the cut...

this is from Roemer Visscher's Sinnepoppen. The motto means something like "not catching any fish", which I like to think of as "You can't catch fish with a tennis racket." No, I don't know what the rest of the Dutch says (yet) and I have no idea what exactly the motto means. But I like the image of the hand of God reaching out of the sky with a giant tennis racket, so I thought I'd post it.

I'd like to post art more regularly, but picking a painting is always so hard. So...request time! anyone have any subjects or themes they'd like to see?

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I love that. The idea in general, and the tennis racket in particular. Heeee!

God may not play dice with the Universe, but tennis is fair game.

Not exactly a request for a painting, as much as teaching me how to fish...

I know what painting I want to base an outfit off of. Aside from googling the artist name and the title, is there a good place to go to get a good, detailed view of the painting, short of travelling? I figure you might know what sites are most useful :)

I find that the Web Gallery of Art has really good quality images, if they have what you are looking for.

http://www.wga.hu/

Also, http://www.artcyclopedia.com/ is awesome because if you give it an artist, it'll link you to museums that have work by said artist as well as online image sources.

The tennis racket is great -- my previous favorite emblem book image had been of devils bowling (lawn bowling, kind of like bocci), but this surpasses it in outrageousness.

if you want to see more, here's the whole book:

http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/Dutch/Renaissance/Facsimiles/VisscherSinnepoppen1614/index.htm

Though I rather think this is one of the cooler ones.

though the one immediately following of the lice comb is pretty cool too - not something I've seen illustrated frequently, esp in religious contexts. The whole work has an interesting set of objects illustrated, very different selection than the ones I've seen in English emblem books (though my survey has been brief).

the only english emblem book I know is peacham, and my recollection is that it's more clearly allegorical, with more people, though there are people and animals later on in Visscher as well.

they remind me of Tarot cards. :)

God is goin' to swat you with his tennis racket of DOOOOM!

yay doom!

Propaganda as a theme?

rhetoric, maybe. propaganda implies a conscious agenda, and this was just sort of part of the moralizing humanistic milieu...

or were you suggesting propaganda as a theme for future art?

Suggesting a theme for future art.

that could be very fruitful. I'll try to cull some examples from multiple centuries for variety.

Clearly, they hadn't gotten around to dynamite fishing yet.

Their loss.

The interesting thing is that you can catch a fish with a tennis racket! It's not the best tool, but it's not the worst either.