Printmaking Art + Aine Scannell's Blog: I is for Imago Mundi

Monday 15 April 2019

I is for Imago Mundi

I suppose when people hear the phrase Imago Mundi, they tend like me, to associate it with a medieval vision in the form of a map of the world.

And as Medieval Illuminated manuscripts have always been one of my great loves, it would seem that a project whose title was Imago Mundi, would inevitably be something that would appeal to me.

The first Imago Mundi was written by Honorius de Autum in the 12th Century.

The "Imago Mundi" was his most important work; it would best be described as encyclopaedia of sorts which featured world geography, history and cosmology among other things.
I suppose you'd call this person an intellectual, who lived in Germany or possibly England , , anyway he was someone who wrote prolifically on many many subjects. Oh and it is said that he was probably of Irish origin.
His writings were said to be lively and informal, making them approachable for those few citizens who
a). had the means to learn to read and write and b) could afford to somehow be able to access these works of literature. It wasn't as it is for us, ie we can access a lot of knowledge in the English language. And if we can't understand an article in a foreign tongue - we can always use Google translate.

Just imagine someone from the 1300's suddenly traveling through time and discovering the WWW email + all that's possible now. They would probably be in shock for a few days trying to comprehend all of the evolutionary stages that got us to where we are today. Nonetheless it is said that his writings were actually translated into some other languages. Bear in mind that at that time these books would have had to be handwritten copies.
One anecdote that I find very amusing is the mentions of his inclusion in this encyclopaedia of a scheme for the 'operation' of guardian angels. I'm not clear as to what this means. Perhaps it's to do with the procedures of the guardian angel 'club' so to speak. An outline of the process of obtaining a guardian angel. Maybe it was the etiquette as in how to address them and the do's and the 'don'ts' etc etc etc !!

By the way here is Wikipedia link to a selection of Medieval Maps of the World if you would like to see more. Anyway it sometime in 2017 that I got an invitation from Layla Rose. It informed me of an international project being organised by the Benetton Foundation called Imago Mundi.

Apparently. this is how the whole thing got started according to Loui Benetton, business entrepreneur of the the well known “Colours of Benetton” branding in the 80’s and 90’s (much of it caused controversy).
Anyway so of course someone like that invariably traveled internationally + as he was always interested in art and design - recreational time was dedicated to a variety of cultural pursuits. Funnily enough it was while he was in Ecuador, the same place where my very good friend Tatiana comes from. (photo at foot of post) THAT he got the inspiration for the project.

Yes it was while he was in Ecuador, in 2006 that he first got the idea - where from - wouldn't you know - AN ARTIST. By the way when I was studying advertising within the design studies of my Bachelors degree programme, it was clear that advertising appropriates/ borrows however you want to phrase it, a lot of ideas formats etc etc from Fine Art.

In Ecuador -Loui met artist Miguel Betancourt whose ‘business card’ came in the form of a miniature painting a 10 x 12 cm.(one of his paintings is shown here). LIGHTBULB!
In 2017 that I got an invitation from Layla Rose, who got the job of coordinating the artists for the 'collection' of artists for Scotland.

MY PROCESS AND APPROACH
I started by getting together a load of mount board and lightly drawing fairly sparse iconographic symbolic like images onto these in pencil.
My idea being that I would then score/scorch into these with a pyrography tool that I have hardly ever used. So I did about 5 or 6 of these - you can see some of the images in the photo taken in my worktop there. However ultimately I was not happy with any of them. My intention was that after the 'burning' I would then add a layer of beeswax. I had previously done this a long time ago and I had even put a little post on here about it.

It took me a bit of an effort to make the 'frame' to mount it on, as I am not good at that type of thing ...but it looked fairly OK in the end. As far as I remember you had to go into Glasgow to collect the little canvas that was being made available to participating artists. I suppose looking back on it - I should have insisted they post it to me being as my 'disability' prevented me from being able to collect it.

The piece of my work that's now part of this Imago Mundi I titled "Beatus". which refers to a series of manuscripts called The Beatus Manuscripts. The Beatus of Facundus made in 1047, (image on left is from Facundus) See more about this + an article + further images from an excellent website called Public Domain Review. Its a website that you could get lost in, as there is so much fantastic food for visual artists well for anyone really.
In the 8th century, in a monastery in the mountains of northern Spain, 700 years after the Book of Revelation was written, a monk named Beatus initiated a project of books writings art etc to illustrate a collection of writings he had compiled about this most vivid and apocalyptic of the New Testament books. I absolutely love this stuff.......

The image here shows just one of the pieces I did that I wasn't happy with. There were about another five. You can see I added pencil pastel pencil and even some scalpel-ing.
This is something that sometimes happens as all visual fine artists will know. Its all very well having the ideas and that can be the most fun part of the project......however when it comes to realising those ideas into something physical ...........well then that's another matter all together. As it was such a very small size - I felt somewhat inhibited, by it I have to admit.

My accompany text for my piece: Inspired by medieval illuminated manuscripts, this artwork represents the complexities of human life and culture. Using Russian text from a child’s story book along with images of petrified infant skeletons, it alludes to the atrocities of war and the innocence of children. It celebrates the acquisition of knowledge and our search for beauty.

Title: "Beatus"pigment inkjet on paper with wax over layer, size: 12 x 10 cm

Here is what the SCOTLAND catalogue book looks like. I still don't actually have my copy of it. They were sent to DCA in Dundee for us artists to go along to, to collect. I managed to ask the print studio staff to agree to go collect them and requested that they hold on to mine until I next visited there to do some printmaking.
The awful thing is that I probably have been along there since but typical me, I completely forgot to ask for it. I mean its April 2019 now.........a lot of time has elapsed so I just hope that it is still there in the office.

I do like the look of the item and the title; Myth/Reality. I dont know whether it has an ISBN......I will find that out eventually hopefully

Of course I was able to go along to the Imago Mundi Art Project website to look through the Scotland catalogue that way. Here are some pieces that I selected from the Scotland Catalogue