"Eligible Apartments," from A Tangled Tale by Lewis Carroll (1832-1898).
Straight down the crooked lane,
And all round the square.
... "He didn't say anything about pudding," said Hugh, "-and here's the Square,"
as they turned a corner and came into sight of the "eligible apartments."
"It is a Square!" was Balbus's first cry of delight, as he gazed around him.
"Beautiful! Beau-ti-full! Equilateral! And Rectangular!"
The boys looked
round with less enthusiasm. "Number Nine is the first with a card," said
prosaic Lambert; but Balbus would not so soon awake from his dream of
beauty.
"See, boys!" he cried. "Twenty doors on a side! What symmetry! Each side
divided into twenty-one equal parts! It's delicious!"
..."Does the window open?" was always Balbus's first question in testing a
lodging: and, "Does the chimney smoke?" his second. Satisfied on all points,
he secured the refusal of the room, and they moved on to Number Twenty-five.
...after the usual questions, they went on to Fifty-two.
...At number Seventy-three they found only a small shy girl to show the house,
who said "yes'm" in answer to all questions.
"One day-room and three bedrooms," said Balbus, as they returned to the hotel.
"We will take as our day-room the one that gives us the least walking to do to
get to it."
"Must we walk from door to door, and count the steps?" said Lambert.
"No, no! Figure it out, my boys, figure it out!" Balbus gayly exclaimed, as he
put pens, ink, and paper before his hapless pupils, and left the room.
"I say! It'll be a job!" said Hugh.
"Rather!" said Lambert.
"Alberti's conception of the pictorial image as a visual analogue to an actual scene provided the foundation for his equation of painting with historia. If painting was to be historia, it had to function simultaneously on at least two level; it had to present a convincing depiction of the world and it had to convey the higher meanings of the scene it presented. Prior to Alberti, writers attributed the multilevel significance of pictorial historia to the literary subject of the painting. Accordingly, the significative value of painting depended upon its being an accurate illustration of a text, not a representation of or a pictorial analogue for the visual world. If painters turned to the world around them, it was only to see beyond it." [Greenstein, Mantegna and Painting as Historical Narrative, p. 41.]
fig. 1: Antonio del Pollaiuolo, finished 1475; fig. 2: Antonello da Messina, c. 1475.
fig. 3: Mantegna, c. 1459.
fig. 4: Cloud detail from Mantegna, c. 1459; fig. 5: Archers detail from Mantegna, c. 1459.
After painting St. Sebastian, Mantegna accepted the invitation of the Marquis of
Mantua, Ludovico Gonzaga, to be a court artist. Also in 1459, Alberti accompanied Pope Pius II to Mantua, at which
time Gozaga commissioned Alberti to construct a church dedicated to St.
Sebastian. Although work on this church began the same year, it was delayed due
to lack of stone and weather, among other problems. Alberti's intentions are
best reflected in the plan of the church, since many aspects of the design were
altered both during and after Alberti's lifetime.
In the construction of his own house in the neighborhood of the church of St.
Sebastian, Mantegna included a circular courtyard in which he collected
fragments of roman masonry, brought to the city in 1483 during a visit by
Lorenzo il Magnifico. Some of these fragments were used in another painting of
St. Sebastian by Mantegna (fig. 6). Ten years later, Mantegna again represented
this theme (fig. 7).
fig. 6: Mantegna, c. 1480. fig. 7: Mantegna, c. 1490.
Images collected from a Veronica search of Gopher space:
fig. 8: La trahison des images (The Betrayal of Images) 1929.
fig. 9: La reponse imprevue (The Unexpected Answer) 1933.
fig. 10: La clef des champs (The Door to Freedom) 1936.
fig. 11: La duree poignardee (Time Transfixed) 1939.
fig. 12: Les valeurs personnelles (Personal Values) 1951-2.
fig. 13: La Chambre d'ecoute (The Listening Room) 1952.
Postscript: a non-western example of interpretation.
Mandalas are ritual diagrams used in Buddhist Tantric initiation and empowerment. There are many types of mandalas, but all share the basic characteristic of being two-dimensional representations of three-dimensional "houses." Perception of this three-dimensional space requires a complex interpretation of the two-dimensional representation.
fig. 14: A mandala represented in two-dimensions.
fig. 15: A mandala represented in three-dimensions.
fig. 1: "Antonio del Pollaiuolo. St. Sebastian. Finished 1475. Panel, 9'7"x6'8". National Gallery, London." Hartt, Colorplate 43.
fig. 2: "Antonello da Messina. St. Sebastian. c. 1475. Canvas, transferred from panel, 67-1/4x33-7/8". Gemaeldegalerie, Dresden." Hartt, Colorplate 60.
fig. 3: "San Sebastiano, c. 1459. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum. Il gusto classico del maestro padovano e tutto racchiuso in questa piccola tavola, firmata umanisticamente in lingua e caratteri greci. Con un senso quasi nostalgico della classicita, Mantegna si sofferma sul nitore delle superfici, sulla precisione nella riproduzione "archeologica" dei dettagli architettonici, sull'eleganza ricercata della posa del martire." Zuffi, plate 7.
fig. 4: From "San Sebastiano, c. 1459. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum." Zuffi, plate 7.
fig. 5: From "San Sebastiano, c. 1459. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum." Zuffi, plate 7.
fig. 6: "San Sebastiano, 1480. Parigi, Louvre." Zuffi, plate 27.
fig. 7: "San Sebastiano, 1490. Venezia, Galleria Franchetti alla Ca' d'Oro. Dal fondo bruno e neutro emerge la grandiosa figura del santo, dai contorni incisi come una statua. E una nuova interpretazione del tema di San Sebastiano, frequentemente replicato da Mantegna, che abitava, a Mantova, nei pressi della chiesa dedicata al santo." Zuffi, plate 31.
fig. 8: La trahison des images (The Betrayal of Images) 1929.
JPEG scanned by Michael Shephard, University of New South Wales, Australia
(michaels@jake.chem.unsw.EDU.AU).
fig. 9: La reponse imprevue (The Unexpected Answer) 1933.
JPEG scanned by Michael Shephard, University of New South Wales, Australia
(michaels@jake.chem.unsw.EDU.AU).
fig. 10: La clef des champs (The Door to Freedom) 1936.
JPEG scanned by Michael Shephard, University of New South Wales, Australia
(michaels@jake.chem.unsw.EDU.AU).
fig. 11: La duree poignardee (Time Transfixed) 1939.
JPEG scanned by Michael Shephard, University of New South Wales, Australia
(michaels@jake.chem.unsw.EDU.AU).
fig. 12: Les valeurs personnelles (Personal Values) 1951-2.
JPEG scanned by Michael Shephard, University of New South Wales, Australia
(michaels@jake.chem.unsw.EDU.AU).
fig. 13: La Chambre d'ecoute (The Listening Room) 1952.
JPEG scanned by Michael Shephard, University of New South Wales, Australia
(michaels@jake.chem.unsw.EDU.AU).
fig. 14: Guhyasamaja Mandala. Photograph of a sand mandala from an exhibition at The University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, 1990.
fig. 15: Vajrabhairava Mandala. Frame from the video "Exploring the Mandala," by Pema Losang Chogyen of Namgyal Monastery and the Program of Computer Graphics, Cornell University.
Camesasca, Ettore. Mantegna. Milano: Edizioni per il Club del Libro, 1964.
Carroll, Lewis. "Eligible
Apartments," from A Tangled Tale, Knot II. 1880; rpt., New York: The Modern Library.
Greenstein, Jack M. Mantegna and Painting as
Historical Narrative. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Hartt, Frederick. History of Italian Renaissance
Art. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1987.
Zuffi, Stefano. Andrea Mantegna. Milano: Arnoldo
Mondadori Arte, 1991.
Patrick A. George
http://dolphin.upenn.edu/~georgep/PAG.html
