A New Book of Emblems

It’s been a while since the last entry, and I planned to further investigate the Rose and Serpent (“A Ring Eternal and Transient”) emblem from Barthélemy Aneau’s, Picta Poesis; however, I’d like to take a little departure from analyzing past emblems to introduce a project I’ve been involved with. The project in question is very much in line with the subject of this blog, since it does deal with an emblem book just not one from the past however, but a new emblem book—one of my own creation.

Being so inspired by the wonderful and often times weird images from the emblems I’ve studied in old books I thought, why not create an emblem book of my own. I didn’t want to simply recreate a historical work though. This project would be “in the spirit” of that which came before, but very much an original work. There will be imagery and concepts familiar to what one might see in Alciato or the Picta Poesis, yet many more of the ideas were never explored by past emblem creators and a good deal of the pictures have contemporary influences such as video games, music, and thoughts from current thinkers. It’s a book which will inspire through beautiful imagery; instruct and cause one to ponder with rich and meaningful texts; and bring a sense of wonder by showing the world from a deeper perspective.

For the past 5 years I have been working on the images and texts which comprise this book. It will feature 100 emblems divided into 3 sections: The True, The Good, and The Beautiful. I would like to spend some time in subsequent posts to tell everyone about the contents in further detail, show examples, and give some in depth explanations much as I have done with the sampling of past emblems undertaken on this blog so far. For a more in depth description of the project please refer to the Emblem Book Project page and stay tuned checking back frequently as we begin to explore this new creation.