The CMT is now on Facebook!
For those of you who also have a Facebook presence, please find and ‘like’ the CMT page. Currently 3,090 people ‘like’ the page for the wonderfully named CRASSH (the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities, also based at the University of Cambridge) – how long before we match this?!
On today’s feast of the Epiphany it is a custom in many parts of the world for people to mark the front door of their house using specially blessed chalk. The date of the new year is inscribed as above, along with the letters C, M, and B, which stand for the three names traditionally given to the Magi – Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar – or for Christus mansionem benedicat, ‘may Christ bless the house’. As well as the highly symbolic location of these letters, the use of chalk is also symbolic – it is a substance from the earth itself, and while its traces will gradually fade away as the year passes, their meaning is invisibly inscribed forever in the hearts of the faithful.
There is a prayer for blessing chalk in the Rituale Romanum, one of the official Roman Catholic ritual books, but I don’t know how far back this tradition goes. Can anyone enlighten me?
Some New Year spring-cleaning uncovered these images of a couple I spotted gracing the windows of a high street shoe shop some time in the autumn. I couldn’t see through the glass which books they were wearing, but the use of printed texts to emulate textiles certainly gives a visually impressive effect.
On which note, let these two also be harbingers of an exciting CMT event planned for later in the year… the details are secret at the moment, but look out for news before too long!
Some of the most beautiful festive material texts are those aimed at children. Jan Pienkowski’s creations have already been mentioned amongst the CMT stocking-fillers, but today’s treats are from the American ‘paper engineer’ Robert Sabuda, who has designed numerous pop-up books. He often uses only white card to construct his pop-ups, emphasising shapes and forms rather than colour. On the left (apologies for the poor photography) is a page from his version of the classic poem The Night Before Christmas; ‘as dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly’, Sabuda’s energetic white reindeer burst out of the book, seemingly restrained only by their silver ribbon harnesses. Just as lovely is his A Christmas Alphabet, below, in which each flap conceals elaborate snippets of festivity.
Sabuda’s comprehensive website offers some fascinating designer’s insights into the pop-up world. Usually intended for children, such books are thought of as novelties, objects which are not as seriously bookish as other books. However, Sabuda’s descriptions of the processes involved in designing and mass-producing these objects is thought-provoking. These are books which emerge at the skilled hands of the designer, and then go on to depend on the hands of the reader to open them and reveal the surprises they contain, not to mention to carefully fold them away again and ensure they do not get damaged. When we read a pop-up book, we cannot but be highly conscious of its materiality; of the simultaneous strength and fragility of paper and glue and stitches. Sabuda writes: ‘people love the surprise of not knowing what is going to be on the next page of a pop-up book. At our studio we call that the “WOW” moment. When someone opens a pop-up book and goes “WOW!” they are really affected by the magic of a pop-up and amazed that they have the power in their hands to make it happen because they themselves are turning the pages.’
In France, seasonal greetings cards are traditionally exchanged at New Year rather than Christmas.
This village scene with houses made from postage stamps is a lovely handmade example of one such carte de voeux from exactly a century ago.
Best wishes for 2012 from all at the CMT!
The Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge preserves many of the manuscript sources associated with British polar exploration, including journals, logbooks and correspondence. Some of these documents are on display at the recently renovated Polar Museum, based at the Institute, but the SPRI has also begun to make some material available online, beginning with Scott’s diary from his last ill-fated expedition to the South Pole in 1910-1912.
In his entry for Christmas Day in 1911, after making his usual notes on the weather conditions and the party’s progress, Scott writes of the feast the explorers enjoyed that night: ‘We had four courses. The first, pemmican, full whack, with slices of horse meat flavoured with onion and curry powder and thickened with biscuit; then an arrowroot, cocoa and biscuit hoosh sweetened; then a plum-pudding; then cocoa with raisins, and finally a dessert of caramels and ginger. After the feast it was difficult to move. Wilson and I couldn’t finish our share of plum-pudding. We have all slept splendidly and feel thoroughly warm – such is the effect of full feeding.’
For many, the text itself will not be unfamiliar – the diaries, gifted to the nation by Scott’s family, are in the British Library, and have appeared in many print editions since 1913. What makes this publication project different is the combination of different communication methods and media – using a linked blog, Twitter account, and photostreams to document the expedition day-by-day in this centenary year, the SPRI staff are hoping to see whether modern communication methods can provide a better understanding of the past. As the introduction to the project explains, ‘reading the journals over a few days is a very different experience from following the daily events of the expedition as they happen. It is hoped that the blog will enable readers to gain a deeper appreciation of the challenges faced by the expedition and the sacrifices made by Scott and his men. This is our first attempt to bring the diaries of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration to a worldwide audience by electronic means.’
The commemoration of a centenary, as for any anniversary, is about marking time, and so it is appropriate that this project particularly emphasises the dimension of time. Being given a daily excerpt from a document which is about the daily act of writing and recording is indeed very different from racing through a print edition at one’s own pace, and the online media of blogs and Twitter timelines allow this dimension to be explored in a new way.
Books for children are often some of the most experimental when it comes to physical form and the material potential of paper and card. More is to come here on this topic, but for now, here is a peep at one of well-known author/illustrator Jan Pienkowski’s beautiful scenes in his telling of the Christmas story, The First Noel. Through the layering of intricately cut pieces of card, Pienkowski’s pages form cavernous spaces, reminding us of the essentially three-dimensional nature of the book as object.
One of the most lovely Christmas cards I received this year was this one, produced by the Fitzwilliam Museum, which features an illumination from a fifteenth-century French Book of Hours (MS 69).
In this scene of the nativity, the infant Christ is not in the arms of his mother, but lovingly propped on the knees of Joseph. Meanwhile, the Virgin Mary rests in bed, holding an open book, perhaps her own Book of Hours. The juxtaposition of baby and book makes this tiny scene at once ordinary and extraordinary, a beautifully intimate depiction of the Word made Flesh.
On Christmas Eve exactly one hundred years ago, two children left a letter for Father Christmas in the chimney of their family home in Dublin. The letter stayed in the chimney for many decades, until it was discovered by the current owner of the house. Miraculously, it has survived with only a few scorch marks. ‘I want a baby doll and a waterproof with a hood and a pair of gloves and a toffee apple and a gold penny and a silver sixpence and a long toffee’, the author of the letter instructed. I wonder if Father Christmas obliged? Read more about it in this article from last week’s Irish Times.
This is the first in a special series of festive material texts – if the elves aren’t too exhausted, we hope there will be one for each of the twelve days of Christmas…
Happy Christmas from all at the CMT!
One of the windows of the Cambridge University Press bookshop is currently staging a display of beautiful creations by book sculptor and paper artist Justin Rowe. Based on the traditional carol, the collection consists of a work for each of the twelve days of Christmas. From the interiors of books, Rowe brings forth delicate, intimate scenes in paper, of dancing ladies, drumming drummers, and milking maids. On close inspection, some of the scenes have an unsettling, dark element too – why are the ten lords leaping off a bibliographical cliff? I particularly like his use of gold leaf, one of the traditional materials for book ornamentation, which both reinforces the material origins of his creations as books, and transforms them into something else. You can see photographs of these and other works on Rowe’s own website.
‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ are being raffled for Romsey Mill, a Cambridge charity, and tickets are for sale inside the CUP shop.