Emblematic Images in the Age of Genius

By Dale Schilling

What are Emblematic Images?• An Image that is meant to read

as a book.• Their main purpose was to

explain the hidden meanings of the natural world.

• Also very popular with alchemists

• Popular in the 16th & 17th in almost every European Country.

• Most Emblematic books with topics of the natural world, religious, or amorous in nature.

• What might be the meaning of this image?

• Its title is “Doctor of Fools” by Johann Theodor de Bray.

Some of the early creators of Emblematic Images

• Andrea Alciato – Considered the Father of Emblematic Images.

• Most of his images consisted of a short motto, picture (Emblematic Image) and a Epigrammatic Text (a witty poem)

• His book Emblems which consisted of 212 poems and published in 1532 started a craze in Emblematic Images.

Against Flatterers – Emblem 53• The chameleon is always

gaping, always breathing in and out the thin air it feeds on, and it changes its appearance, takes on diverse colours, except for red or white. Likewise the flatterer feeds on an air of popularity, and, open-mouthed, devours all; he mimics only the dark habits of the Prince, incapable of the pure and the chaste.

Immune to Cupid’s Arrow – Emblem 78

• Lest cruel love conquer you, or any woman ravage your mind with her magic arts, let the bird of Bacchus, the motacilla, be made ready to attend you. This quadriradial bird you should place in a circular orb, so that it forms a cross with its beak and its tail and two wings. This shall be an amulet for all enchantment. With this sign of Venus, it is said, Pegasean Jason could be unharmed by Phasian treacheries.

Love the most powerful passionEmblem 106

• See how the boy Love, unconquered charioteer, engraved on a gem-stone, overcomes the power of the lion. See how with one hand he holds the whip, with the other he directs the reins. See how in the face of this boy there is much beauty. May the dreadful affliction be kept far off. Would he, who overpowers such a beast, ever restrain his hand with us?

Fortune Companion of Virtue Emblem 119

• Encircled by a pair of snakes and wings, the caduceus rests upright between the horns of Amalthea. Thus it shows that a great abundance of things blesses men who are strong of mind and skilled in speaking

Robert Fludd• He was one the most famous

of the 17th Century creators of Emblematic Image artists.

• Believed in observational & experimental evidence but saw the Scriptures & ancient occultists carried more weight when trying to understanding the natural world.

The Soul of the World by Johann deBry used in Fludd’s “Utriusque cosmi historia.”

• Look at your copy and what do you think he was trying to say about the role of:

• God• Nature• Animal Kingdom

Frontispiece from Balduin's Aureum superius et inferius

Woodcut from Francesco Petrarcha, Das Glückbuch Beydes des Guten und Bösen,

Augsburg, 1539.

Engraving from C Gesner, The Practice of the New and Old Physicke, London, 1599

Woodcut from Petrarch Das Glüchbuch, Augsburg, 1539.

The mind of the microcosm from Robert Fludd Utriusque cosmi... historia, 1619.

The Decline of the Usage of Emblematic Images

• The overwhelming use of observational & experimental science in interpreting the natural world.• The rise of Deism and the decline of a

belief in the literal interpretation of the scriptures.• The decline in the theories put forth by

occultists and alchemists.