iPad

Mountain View, Computer Science Museum. A man and his iPad.

The Masters' and the Forgers' Secrets

An announcement slightly out of category, as we don't usually deal with art history in these pages, but of a publication which may interest this readership: art historian Roger Marijnissen's final legacy of lifelong work: x-raying great works of mostly Netherlandish art.

Marijnissen started x-raying art works in 1950. Even though the author's name features prominently on the cover (the publisher's decision), this work has been executed as much by Guido Vandevoorde, Leopold Kockaert, Roger Van Schoute, and Francis Cuigniez. Sixty years later, their work is published in The Master's and the Forger's Secrets. X-Ray Authentication of Paintings (Mercatorfonds, 2009 - ISBN 978-90-6153-929-2).

The author has been much maligned here in this country, as he always has been a staunch defender of leaving precious works exactly where they are, thus blasting any blockbuster exhibition. He's been known to say to many an obtuse colleague that even the slightest transportation can damage these works irreparably.

He has also become isolated with this technique, even though this team of researchers do state very honestly if and when x-raying remains inconclusive. However, there aren't many art historians today who possess either the knowledge about x-ray technology nor the practical lore of how the old masters prepared a canvas.

For non-specialists too, this work is alluring, because it is an invitation to learn how to see.

R.H. Marijnissen. The Master's and the Forger's Secrets. X-Ray Authentication of Paintings (Mercatorfonds, 2009 - ISBN 978-90-6153-929-2). Numerous black and white and color illustrations. 431 p.

"The Jewish Book in a Christian World": International Conference at Antwerp (25-27 June, 2008)

With the recently inaugurated exhibition "Hebraica veritas: Sprak God Hebreeuws? (did God Speak Hebrew, see our April 25, 2008 post)" up and running until August 17, 2008, the Plantin-Moretus Museum (MPM) is about to close its Spring season festively with the international conference "The Jewish Book in a Christian World" (25-27 June, 2008).

Apart from MPM and the University of Antwerp's IJS (Institute of Jewish Studies), co-organizers are the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies of the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA), and the Universitair Centrum Sint-Ignatius at Antwerp (UCSIA).

Keynote lecturer at 5 pm on Wednesday at the City Hall of Antwerp is Princeton professor of Renaissance history and the history of scholarship, Anthony Grafton. Grafton's first book was an intellectual biography of Joseph Scaliger. He's been a frequent visitor at the University of Leiden, where he received an honorary doctorate in 2006, and where he has found colleagues to edit Scaliger's collected letters. The University of Leiden Library has a Scaliger Institute to promote research of its holdings.

This blogger has some interesting links in connection with Grafton's latest book, Codex in Crisis. It's a bibliophile edition limited to 250 copies based on an article from the New Yorker in which Grafton expresses to what extend some reserve is due about digitization.

On Thursday June 26, 2008, two sessions will be held at this conference: "The Printing of the Hebrew Bible and Judaica in Antwerp and the Low Countries" (morning) and "Christian Publishers and Readers of Hebrew Literature (afternoon). Location is the Print Room at the Plantin-Moretus Museum (morning) and University of Antwerp's Hof van Liere (afternoon).

A morning session on Friday June 27, 2008 will close the conference: "The Impact of Print on Jewish Culture." Location that day is the University of Antwerp's Hof van Liere. The conference will be held entirely in English. Admission is free, but registration is mandatory.

Illustration: cover of the exhibition catalogue of Hebraica veritas. Book design of the catalogue by Louis van den Eede, who drew the front cover's design by hand. Details: Hebraica veritas. Christoffel Plantijn en de Christelijke Hebraïsten. Catalogus bij de tentoonstelling: Hebraica veritas. Sprak God Hebreeuws? Antwerpen, Museum Plantin-Moretus/Prentenkabinet, 16 mei-17 augustus 2008. No ISBN. Inquiries should be made at the museum.

Quaderno fiorentino

The curator at Cultura Fonds just got back from a short off duty experience. We mention this for some entertaining ties to the book world.

First, our guidebook was Quaderno fiorentino, with reminiscences about Florence, Italian art mainly of the Rinascimento, as well as interviews with Italian literary figures in a bleak postwar period, written by Luc Indestege in 1951 (In Dutch, published at Davidsfonds). Despite its antiquarian state, the book effuses lively writing, pared to reliable guidelines, still today, to the art of this city.

Luc Indestege (1901-1974) counts as a Belgian specialist on bookbindings, with many studies tied to his name, e.g. on an archive of rubbings of Flemish panel bookbindings by Prosper Verheyden. Indestege is also the father of Belgian book historian Elly Cockx-Indestege, former Head of the Rare Books Department at Belgium's National Library.

The retirement of Elly Cockx-Indestege was marked with a study in three volumes, by Hendrickx F. et al., editors, E Codicibus Impressisque. Opstellen over het boek in de Lage Landen voor Elly Cockx-Indestege (Leuven, Peeters, 2004). Miscellanea Neerlandica series, 20 (ISBN 978-90-429/-1423-0, /1422-3, 1421-6). In 1951, Elly Indestege had just embarked on reading history.
Secondly, we visited the Bibliotheca Medicea Laurenziana. Luc Indestege documents his visit in 1951. But this is how the Laurenziana discloses itself as of 2007: by thematic forays into the holdings, in the shape of small, permanent exhibitions, accompanied by booklets -not exceeding one hundred pages, with color illustration, published by Mandragora, in Italian or in English, sold at 14 Euros.

We mention by way of example the three English titles so far:
Imaginary Creatures. 2007 (ISBN 978-88-7461-098-3).
The World of the Aztecs in the Florentine Codex. 2007 (ISBN 978-88-7461-102-7).
The Shape of the Book from Roll to Codex (3rd century BC-19th century AD). 2008 (ISBN 978-88-7461-116-4).
The Laurentian building, splendid design by Michelangelo, reopened April 1, 2007, after a long period of being closed to the public. Its research facilities were never in cessation. Therefore, the thematic exhibits seem to serve mainly as a permanent reminder of the function this magnificent architecture once had.

PS: The execution of the glass windows, with references to the de Medici benefactors, some dated 1568, is attributed to an Antwerp artist.