Dürer and his tarots - Presentation

Transcription

PRESENTATION
A. DÜRER &
HIS TAROTS
The tarots of Nicolas Conver
Yvo Jacquier -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE LANGAGE OF IMAGE
------------------------------------------------------------------------ January 2014 ------
Yvo Jacquier © ALBRECHT DÜRER AND HIS TAROTS - PRESENTATION
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TAROTS DE MARSEILLE
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Do you know the Tarot de Marseille? These game is used to draw
cards with friends. It hides many secrets, and divination is only a part
of its wealth. The images take their symbols in a distant and
mysterious past, and they serve as a support for meditation and
spiritual initiation.
The tarot cards are emerging in northern Italy in the early 15 th
century. They became famous in the 18th century in Marseille, when
many card makers produce these woodcuts images, colored by
stenciling. Marseille has however not the exclusivity. Thus in the 17 th
century, Jean Noblet in Paris edits a very original version of this
game. Also located in Lyon, in 1701, the Tarot of Jean Dodal...
Number of cartiers base their production on a
single model. The most complete version of this
tradition is that of Nicolas Conver from
Marseille. The only complete set that has
survived resides at the Bibliothèque Nationale
de France. It is dated on the 2 Deniers : Conver
has engraved 1760 next to his name. In fact,
Nicolas Conver was born in 1784 ... The
explanation of this singular anomaly plunges us
into the archives of Freemasonry, but the story
that interests us is even older. It leads us to Italy,
during the Renaissance...
When printing develops, the painters are
embarrassed. The printed book means the death
of painting, worse its subservience to a text
terribly enhanced by its wide distribution. The
writing will then classified as the main source,
and the image will be considered under the
status of illustration.
Five centuries later appears the ebook and unlimited internet access.
The image can compete again with the text.
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THE TESTAMENT OF THE RENAISSANCE
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The Renaissance artists gather in academies called guilds. With
Venice , Florence is one of the most active cities in the Quattrocento.
The names like Verrocchio, Botticelli, da Vinci and Michelangelo are
enough demonstrative. Under the protection of the rich Medici
family , the Company of St. Luke (Compagnia dei fiorentini pittori di
San Luca) attracts not only Italian artists but also their European
counterparts. It took more than ten years of research to reconstruct
the knowledge which is transmitted in this school. Besides the
technique, in particular it is taught the art of composition. And if the
perspective finds at that time his mathematical rules, it is not the main
system of composition. Contrary to popular belief, perspective helps
to “make real”, but it does not carry the symbolic meaning of the
works. To do this, for millennia, painters and architects apply a
completely different system : sacred geometry. So much unknown, up
to be often presented as a legend, this extraordinary technology really
exist . And there are two ways to understand : one with pure
geometry and its formidable figures, and the other with pure images
that build puzzles, as an authentic language.
We will approach this second aspect, but first we need to understand
the exact role of Albrecht Dürer in this story. Printing, perspective
system, the emergence of thoughts in break with tradition, all of this
put the artists on alert. The ancestral status of image is threatened by
a text which was friendly before. “Saving the legacy” : write a
collective testament. This attitude is a reflex for those who practice
this art. A major problem arises. If the geniuses of the Italian
Quattrocento are many, they are not engravers. But the success of
such a project can not do without the engraving. The testament to this
culture should be written in the language of pure image , and in a
multiplied form, to insure the perpetuation, and to avoid any
fragmentation. Dürer appears as the exact answer. Engraver of
genius, lover of mathematics and christian in the heart. It shows such
a passion for construction, that he is adopted by the finest people of
this era, especially in Venice by Bellini family. About mathematics,
he finds a master in Fra Luca Pacioli, author of the Divine Proportion
and inheritor of Byzantine knowledge.
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THE BYZANTINE KNOWLEDGE
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It takes several hundred pages to expose the multiple sides of this
fabulous story. This presentation can not be totally summarized, it can
just give a taste. And mathematics that Dürer uses avoid calculation
not to frighten numbers. This geometry with eyes is built on a grid. It
allows to demonstrate figures, and their measure leads the translation
into human language. The principle of unity is the basis of Platonic
thought. On this occasion we (re)discover the origin of humanism :
ΑΓΕΩΜΕΤΡΗΤΟΣ ΜΗΔΕΙΣ ΕΙΣΙΤΩ
The mythical inscription “Let no one unversed in geometry enter
here” adorns the door of Plato's Academy . Legend or reality , the
statement is relevant. The geometry with the grid is in the education
of the disciples. These pre-euclidian mathematics do not define the
axiom, that they practice under the status of obviousness. The
obviousness of similar triangles are sufficient to reconstruct the
theoretical corpus of sacred geometry. This knowledge, for which
Thales and Pythagoras went to Egypt, includes the properties of
triangle 3-4-5 , in particular the four expressions of the golden ratio,
and many other structures (p. 12 - Scientific References ). The vesica
piscis products figures such as a hexagram and a nice pentagram. All
goes without any calculation, and without the concept of surface. This
« thinking before writing » applies to read the geometrical figures and
devotes the angles - hence the term “geometry with eyes”, where
demonstrations are monstrations.
Meanwhile, an art of numbers develops in Mesopotamia. The famous
Babylonian tablet Plimpton 322 shows a very high level of
development, eighteen centuries before our era. This large stream will
produce the Kabbalah, and he will join the shapes of Egypt in the
school of Pythagoras - the “ The J-S Bach of the music of the
spheres”. Plato will constantly refer to the Pythagoreans, for proof the
solids that bear his name. All of this knowledge, shapes and numbers,
will spread thereafter in the world, including the muslim world. In the
Middle Ages, Byzantine monks are the only ones in Europe to read
Greek in full. This culture settles naturally at Constantinople - in spite
of iconoclasm. Finally, the fall of the city, in 1453, is one of the major
circumstances of the Renaissance. The scholars migrate partly in
northern Italy, bringing with them the project of tarots.
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THE LANGAGE OF L'IMAGE
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Responding to the invitation of Italian artists, Dürer will exceed their
expectations. He designed a “Noah's Ark for lost symbols”. But in
addition to save the legacy, he wants to be a teacher. The artist
produces a series of engravings on wood and copper, which deserves
the name of « Didactic Project of Dürer ». The wood for the tarot, and
four copper engravings called Meisterstiche :
- Adam and Eva
1504
- The knight, the devil and death
1513
- Saint Jerome in his study
1514
- MELENCOLIA § I
1514
These works are designed to be
assembled. This principle concerns
their geometry and as a consequence
their symbols. Both aspects work
together, but it is easier at first to see
the image associations.
It works like a puzzle. Just put the
engravings on each other and look
through the stack.
Le Bateleur (I) of tarots
Saint Jerome...
MELENCOLIA § I
The knight...
Adam and Eva
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Adam becomes centaur
First degree of visual language:
the association of symbols. Here
is a particularly didactic
example. The bust of Adam
(Adam and Eve) joins the body
of the horse (Knight) to produce
the image Centauri. The curves
of the chest of the animal join
precisely those of the man's
body. It should be noted that the
horse's neck is (deliberately)
exaggerated.
The combination of cards
The Emperor and the Judgement
The tarots are an encyclopedia of symbols,
and they combine their subjects to produce
consistent messages. By association, clouds
of Judgment (XX) extend the beard of the
Emperor (IV) which thus becomes God the
Father. The trumpet of judgment (XX) comes
to nest in the neck of the eagle found on the
coat of arms (IV). The eagle (female name in
french heraldic) is the dynamic actress of the
message. On the one hand she covers the
body of the person who gets up in his grave
(XX), on the other hand, the greenhouses
join, on either side, the hands of the two
characters of the couple in prayer (also XX).
This eagle becomes the symbol of the soul
of the dead, which rises, and it delivers a
message that can be stated as follows:
« Heaven says we must pray for the dead so
that their soul rises to God »
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MELENCOLIA § I
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The fifth centenary of this engraving is celebrated in 2014. During
the Renaissance, « MELENCOLIA § I » is the world's most famous
work. Mona Lisa outclasses Melencolia, in the mind of public, much
later. Despite this virtual competition, the engraving of Dürer is still
the one which inspires the greatest amount of words. Articles, theses,
comments and poems invest various genders with a fairly uneven
happiness. However an approach is still missing in this catalog : the
strict observation of the work. For five centuries, essential details
have been ignored, while they enable to solve many mysteries...
The « leçon de choses »
Consider two examples. 1°) The left eye
closed, and the other open, Cupid holds
his tablet like a bow. He could take an
arrow with his right hand! The scales in his
back, refer to his mother Venus, which
governs the sign of Libra...
2°) His feet do not touch
the ground, as evidenced
by the inner edge of the
right shoe: it passes the
head that forms the handle of the plane. In the inclined position of the
angel, if he was sitting on the bench he would fall forward. Dürer
emphasizes his heavenly nature, the angel floats in the air even
without using his wings... He is Saint Michael !
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The title and the date
The date of 1514
The date of the work recalls the tarots
with the cards XV and XIV. The
Temperance is one of two
representations of Saint Michael (the
other being the Justice). The presence
of the scales, at the center of the
engraving, with the letter ω (omega),
completes the bundle of the attributes
of the archangel. They refer to the
last judgment, where St. Michael
weighs souls. The compass of
measurement on the thigh completes
this picture.
The title of the engraving
The most accessible proof of the Archangel identity is here :
« MELENCOLIA § I » is the anagram of « LEO IN MIC§AEL ».
The sign § is a Joker to make the encoding not too much obvious.
This missing H finds a reciprocal term in the one of Hermite (card IX
of Tarots). The etymology of the word shows that this H est
superfluous. This H means Hermes, sign of Hermeticism (Hermes
Trismegistus). We discover the esoteric dimension of the project.
Symbolic index
The wing of the Archangel approximates
two numbers. XIV - the curve of the wing
aims this direction, and I. The reference to
the 14 of the Temperance is constant in
Melencolia. And here it is accompanied by
1. We will see that the engraving is 14
units height. Fourteen times the unit tile of
the grid, divine diapason... Saint Michel,
“who is like God”. Dürer took his finest
feathers to write. And it took five centuries
to see it.
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LES STRUCTURES MATHÉMATIQUES
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The “de Cène language”
This expression refers to the combinations of numbers that
Christophe de Cène has identified about tarots. Each card has, in a
unique way, a correspondence of two dices for the major cards, with
21 possibilities. Following the same principle, it takes three dices for
minor cards - and 56 cases. The Fool doesn't get a combination, under
these conditions. Finally the major arcana are linked to the minors :
each three-digit combination products (at maximum) three
combinations of two numbers (e.g. 1.3.4 gives 1.3, 3.4 and 1.4).
The most amazing fact concerns the sixteen picture cards. The sum of
their three digits accurately restores the series of numbers from 3
(combination 1.1.1) to 18 (combination 6.6.6). In removing 2 from
the amounts, we get a series from 1 to 16... Precisely that of the
magic square of Melencolia : just place the cards in the boxes of the
square, the distribution is perfect, even the Kings and Queens
complete the diagonals. There are 880 types of magic squares of
order 4. Such a coincidence therefore is quite improbable.
This element, there is a decade, put me on the path of Melencolia*
when I was looking for a father to the Tarots of Conver - more
exactly their model. The costumes on their side, incline to think that
their origin lies in the Quattrocento. Then I needed a very great
engraver... The magic square of Melencolia has been a milestone, and
the graphic research that followed brought a lot of observations
equally amazing.
(*) I am a painter since 1980, and my educational background is
scientific (upper and special mathematics). This allowed me to
understand the content and the scope of the work of my friend
Christophe de Cène. Before this revelation, I was not feeling
concerned by the esoteric. Some reading (admittedly rather sketchy)
gave me a very poor opinion of that "kind". In contrast from then, a
search became possible where spirituality, art and science come
together instead of to ignore each other.
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The geometry of composition
The composition of the etching meets the one of the tarots. They
accord to each other. The radius of the sphere in Melencolia gives the
unit of a valid grid for both. To realize this we need to know the
series of seven astrological triangles of tarots. It was the case when I
confronted the cards to the engraving for the first time.
Seven triangles (3-4-5 type, held in the cone of an homothety) form
the backbone of tarot cards, the base of their composition. The
triangles are similar, and each carries a symbolic star. Two of them
are involved here : that of the Sun and Jupiter. Should we be
surprised? The magic square of order 4 is also attributed to Jupiter.
According to the grid, the radius of the inscribed solar circle is simply
1, and that of Jupiter is 7/6.
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The inscribed circle of the Sun corresponds to the sphere, by
definition. Then the circumcircle of the triangle of Jupiter fits with
the circle of the rainbow. And that's not all... When we put the
composition of the tarot according to the sphere, the bisector of the
upper angle of the sun indicates the upright of the ladder. Why the
grid of tarots is it rotated to 45° ? Because of this orientation, the
hypotenuse of the triangle adopts a slope of 7. 7 This is one key of
Melencolia. Dürer has even written this indication on the sleeve of
the archangel !
[No indication from the artist is superfluous]
Scientific references
In the background of this research, it was necessary to reconstruct the
"hard part" of the geometry with the grid, called “geometry with
eyes”. I had the chance to collaborate with mathematicians from
IREM (Institute for Research on Mathematics Education), including
Jean-Paul Guichard, specialist in the history of mathematics. A first
publication took place in the journal
Repères-IREM N ° 87, March 2012 :
http://www.univ-irem.fr/spip.php?article=71&id_numero=87
More recently, I was invited to give a lecture at Charles University in
Prague. Department of mathematical education, at the Faculty of
Mathematics and Physics :
« Geometry and Art » - 2 avril 2013 - Sokolovská 49/83, Prague 8
Hôtes: Mgr. Zdeněk Halas, DiS. et
Ph.D. et PhDr. Alena Šarounová, CSc.
Several aspects of my research interest mathematicians (I can even
say that they are passionate). The first aspect relates to the discovery
of forgotten geometry properties, such as the presence of the golden
ratio in the triangle 3-4-5. The reconstitution of transitional figures
like the vesica piscis when it produces a pentagram.
Then the corpus of pre-Euclidean geometry (geometry with eyes) is
particularly interesting for teachers. These elements can integrate
mathematic teaching since college. However paradoxically, the full
understanding of the most evolved systems, esoteric numbers and
sacred geometry in major works, needs a level of 4 years after
baccalaureate in mathematics.
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THE DANCE OF THE CARDS
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Pleasant surprise, the agreement of the geometry corresponds to a
concrete physical reality. Melencolia and the cards accord naturally
their formats. Further evidence, knowing that Dürer left nothing to
chance. The best of all is what that the symbolist Christophe de Cène
was pleased to analyze. Melencolia is the background of tarots. Dürer
has designed this engraving to accommodate the cards, to allow them
a symbolic dialogue, “layer on layer”.
Tarot cards are often considered as a series of ternary :
I - II - III then IV - V - VI then VII - VIII - IX etc. where the first card
is termed spiritual, the second astral, and the third physical. This
scheme, much discussed, is confirmed by the reading of geometry. In
summary the first blade, spiritual, pose a question. The second, astral,
establishes a bridge between the earthly and the heavenly, and
provides advice. The third, physical, sees the change made.
Three consecutive cards find their natural place at the top of the
engraving, occupying all the space from left to right . The horizon
cuts the three cards in their middle, making the placement of Chariot
particularly expressive . The scales of the Justice coincide with the
ones of engraving, while the sandglass is hold by the Hermite instead
of his lantern. The Hermit is a representation of Saturn, and the sands
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of time that passes without return is his attribute. Moreover, he “has
eaten” the magic square of Jupiter to meet the mythological tradition.
Additional Note : according to Christophe de Cène, Venus has three
representations in the tarot . The Star is the earthly representation.
The Empress is the heavenly. The Justice is the astral. Cupid is thus
logically in the skirts of Justice. Further details make sense , as the
location of the clapper of the bell instead of the heart of the Hermit ,
the coincidence of the ω adorning the balance of Melencolia with the
hand of the Justice. This visual is a textbook case
The central place of the cards
Each card has its place in the engraving. Meanwhile there is a generic
place (called central) where all the cards are somehow confront the
archangel, especially his eyes... Do not forget that St. Michael is at
the heart of the last judgment. Only death dares to challenge this
impressive gaze...
Left : the structure of the tarots at its central place, hanging by its
grid at the corner of the polyhedron. The bisectors of the triangles of
the Sun and Jupiter slip between the rails of the ladder.
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Right : Here we discover the composition of Melencolia and its large
greek cross. The right foot of Ankou (tarot) is cut by the black
triangle of the millstone (etching). This triangle is a symbol of
fertility, the only way to combat the physical death. The scythe ends
in the light of the dress of St. Michael : he receives the souls of the
dead, this is the only way for the soul to escape the night.
The medians of the greek cross show, in white : the horizontal
reaches the angle of the polyhedron, where clings the grid of tarot.
The vertical median crosses the iron of the saw and the wood of the
rule. In this ballet, the tarots (woodcut) cross indeed Melencolia
(metallic engraving).
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CONCLUSIONS
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The perspective of Melencolia is also restored with the help of
Thierry Ciblac (High School of Architecture Paris-La Villette). The
focal distance is terribly short, so that most of the engraving,
including carpenter tools, escape the natural cone of human vision.
Moreover, the scale does not make any sense, it is anything but a
ladder, what that the illusion of perspective hides. Dürer warns us
about the notion of progress that is associated in our mind with this
new system. Melencolia would it be the vision of an angel? A first
exposure occurred on this topic in the International Contemporary Art
Festival Tina b, held in 2013 in Gask gallery, Kutna Hora, Czech
Republic :
http://www.jacquier.org/Art_contemporain/Tina_B-Installation.pdf
It is not possible to expose all in fourteen pages (and to disclose all).
The ebook presented here has several hundred pages (between 250
and 500 according to the readers).
The weight of image is at the total more than one Gigabyte. This is
the weight of its revenge on the text. To relieve the ebook, the highdefinition visuals have been placed on websites, with external links.
Their lightweight version resides inside the ebook, ensuring its
autonomy. Finally, the weight of the book does not exceed 100
megabytes. The concept could be successful.
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Dürer and his tarots - Presentation

Transcription

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