{"id":3391,"date":"2020-02-19T14:58:39","date_gmt":"2020-02-19T19:58:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/?p=3391"},"modified":"2020-03-28T11:45:17","modified_gmt":"2020-03-28T15:45:17","slug":"pet-book-introduction-egypt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/2020\/02\/19\/pet-book-introduction-egypt\/","title":{"rendered":"BEWARE: Pet Book"},"content":{"rendered":"

Art as a discipline has been irreversibly influenced by the history of its presentation to the public. The development of \u201cthe canon\u201d in art and its mass distribution in Europe influenced who could learn art, what types of art were produced, and what art was deemed worthy of study. The presentation of art influenced the European way of thinking about art and the development of \u201cthe canon\u201d continues to impact the way art is produced and how art history is taught today.<\/p>\n

For these reasons, there is much to be learned from old texts discussing art and how these texts are translated into tangible objects. I investigated a few different books that present histories of art, eventually selecting Egypt: three essays on the history, religion and art of ancient<\/em> Egypt<\/em> by Martin Brimmer published in 1891. I was drawn to this book by its incredible cover, interesting typography, and interplay between the text and photographs.<\/p>\n

This book is a medium size (about 10\u201d x 7\u201d) and contains 86 pages made up of alternating thick, hand-made pieces of paper on which the text is printed and thinner, smoother, machine-made pieces of paper on which the photographs are printed. The hand-made paper has watermarks, most of which are hidden in the gutter. I was able to identify some shapes and letters, “Van G … (I or T?)DER”, and I hope to identify the paper-maker with more research. The pages are not of uniform size and have a deckled edge.<\/p>\n

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Figure 1: Cover of Egypt: three essays on the history, religion and art of ancient Egypt <\/i>by Martin Brimmer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The cover is bound in green suede which is now very dirty and requires careful handling (figure 1); the book is otherwise in a stable condition, although there are some signs of wear along the edges of the cover. Due to the differing page widths, there is visible light damage at the edges of the wider pages, most likely signifying that the fore edge of the book was exposed to light. The embrittlement caused by light on the fore edge of the book leads me to think it was not kept on a shelf, but the wear and tear along the edges of the binding contrast this view. Therefore, this book has most likely lived in different places, or was shelved in a very bright library. The book is very tightly bound and does not stay open well, possibly pointing to limited or very careful use in its lifetime. There is no marginalia in the book. There are, however, some sporadic fingerprints (pages 5, 55, and 60), to whom could these belong? How was this book used? The book was donated by the Perrys, and I look forward to further investigating the provenance of this book.<\/p>\n

The cover of Egypt: three essays on the history, religion and art of ancient<\/em> Egypt<\/em> was designed by Sarah Whitman. I\u2019m excited to research Sarah Whitman\u2019s career as a successful, self-supporting woman in the late 1800s and this human aspect of the book. In addition to the history of the cover and its designer, I would also like to investigate further the current conditions of the dirty suede cover. Is there anything that could be discovered (with the correct resources) from the dirt itself? How does cleaning a book conceal or reveal its history? I am interested in art conservation and preservation as a career, and thus look forward to researching cleaning methods for dirty suede. I also look forward to pondering the impact of art conservation on the history of a book; har far should conservators go when making repairs?<\/p>\n

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Figure 2: Egypt<\/i> title page<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Figure 3: Egypt<\/i> pages 2-3<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The text of the book is printed in a standard font and medium font size. Each page has very large margins (figure 3), confining this text to a small portion of the page. Why were large margins chosen in this book? The text on the cover and the title page has a very interesting font, perhaps intended to align with the contemporary views towards Egyptian culture at the time of the book\u2019s publishing (figure 2). This interesting typography is something I look forward to studying further; how does its visual signals allude to the ancient Egyptian world? How would this appeal to the book\u2019s audience or potential buyers?<\/p>\n

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Figure 4: Egypt<\/i> pages 18-19<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The book is separated into three essays: history, religion and art. The start of each essay is marked by an illustrated initial, and the end by a floral design (figure 4). The photographs are included in the text at regular intervals, alternating with the pages of text (with some exceptions where there are multiple pages of text in a row). The text is printed on both sides of the paper, but the pages with photographs are all single-sided. This leads to some discontinuity in the text, and I look forward to investigating the relationship between the location of the illustration-specific text and the corresponding illustration. Will the photograph and its description always be on adjacent pages? Or will the text sometimes come after the illustration, resulting in page-flipping to refer to the image? How is this different than modern texts where technology enables text and images on the same page? How does this specifically affect the study of art?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Art as a discipline has been irreversibly influenced by the history of its presentation to the public. The development of \u201cthe canon\u201d in art and its mass distribution in Europe influenced who could learn art, what types of art were produced, and what art was deemed worthy of study. The presentation of art influenced the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9855,"featured_media":3404,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31902,499941],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3391"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9855"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3391"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3503,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3391\/revisions\/3503"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bookhistory2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}