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| From 1001 Nights |
Gerard Genette’s term “paratext” is an interesting one when thinking about all of the elements that constitute a book/text/object.
A paratext is any associated part of that text that is not
directly its narrative but instead works to present the text in a certain way.
Paratexts include titles, covers, font, introductions,
attached essays, pictures and illustrations, even interviews by the author or publisher about the book – a
kind of marketing of the text, for some reason, by its paratext.
A text like the Nights
certainly seems like a book embedded in several paratextual layers. Richard Burton’s paratextual addtions, for example,
especially his incredibly numerous footnotes and essays, presented the Nights as a "true" picture of the people
of the “Middle East,” even though they largely were not a true picture of anywhere.
An important paratextual amendment to many versions of the Nights are its pictures - accompanying
illustrations - and Robert Irwin’s book Visions
of the Jinn sheds some light on the illustrators responsible for visually
representing what the Nights seemed
to be about.
Like the translators of the Nights, everywhere and anywhere, these illustrators had vastly
different conceptions of their object of study. And like any writing or historical document these pictures
also seemed to say something about the time period and place they were borne
out of.
Robert Irwin is the author of several contemporary works on
or about the Nights including the well known Nights-history book The Arabian Nights: A Companion. His latest book, Visions of the Jinn: Illustrators of the Arabian Nights (2010) provides both a great overview
academically of the subject and also a great introduction to a general audience
to the splendor of the visual Nights.
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| From 1001 Nights |
Irwin gives an overview of many of the illustrators of the
many different variants of the Nights
over the years. Some interesting
stand-outs include:
William Harvey (1796-1866) who made over 500 illustrations
for Edward William Lane’s English translation, and, according to Irwin, it was
“Harvey’s illustrations, rather than Lane’s text, that attracted the most
attention and praise” (65).
Also, according to Irwin, Harvey’s illustrations were the
first serious attempt at rendering a truthful anthropological/architectural
visions of the Middle East in the Nights,
something which certainly changed the character of the Nights forever in its 19th century European variants.
Much attention is given, as well, to Edmund Dulac, early 20th
century illustrator who incorporated a great deal of color and expressionism in
his renderings, and a ton of information about the many different illustrators it
can feel a bit overwhelming. In
addition there isn’t much information about the various countries represented
and how much of an international work the Nights
is.
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| From 1001 Nights |
In the book movements from print to engraving to color are
all covered. Different artistic
styles based either in classical visual arts or popular culture depictions such
as comic books are also given some attention.
There are scores of artists, many relatively still unknown, and the book
as a whole can feel a little scattered due to the amount of content and the
breadth of its topic. Given that
it appears to be one of the first studies to address the illustrators of the Nights, however, this is to some extent
forgivable. Each artist of the Nights could easily have their own book,
just as each version of the Nights
has its own incredible biography as well.
It is also forgivable given what is the book’s incredible
strength – its visual reproductions of the illustrations of the Nights, from full-page pictures to
reproductions of actual Nights’
volumes, the plates are visually stunning and done at a level of reproductive
clarity that I have not really seen in a book of visual arts, particularly
regarding reproductions of books.
I’ve seen other reviews of this book that feature digital
pictures but I don’t think the pictures these reviews have are from Irwin’s
book itself, if they were they would have looked much better.
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| From 1001 Nights |
The book is a part of a series based around the collection
at the Arcadian Library, a private library in the UK holding one of the world’s
best collections of the Nights.
I think this book is a must-have for any serious library at
any research institution, any researcher or fan of the Nights, and it would make a good gift as well for anyone interested
in art or literature. It is a large coffee-table sized book with 240 pages.
Its price, at over $200 new, however, will undoubtedly limit
its reach, however most comparable visual arts books are priced typically over
$100 if not more, so it’s not completely out of the ballpark.
It's currently on sale on Oxford University Press' website (in the US) for $180, which is $40 less than listing - http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/28778/subject/ArtHistory/ModernContemporary/?view=usa&sf=toc&ci=9780199590353
