“Ut Pictura Poesis”: the Poetic and Pictorial Emblem of the Baroque

Abstract

The article describes parallelism of the two arts, poetry and painting, in the emblematic books of the Baroque epoch. In the Baroque art, an emblem, as a visual metaphor, formed stylistic singularity of the culture of the 16th-17th centuries. The emblem represented the principle of simultaneity, a picture with a brief motto coexisting with a didactic or spiritual text. Not only was the emblem an ornamental “insertion”, a piece of encrusted graphics, but it also reflected the Baroque principle of a witty game. A book of emblems could act as a visual dictionary of signified objects. The significance of finished emblems was not limited to their pictographical meanings, they could also include some symbolic senses. Such verbal pictures illustrating abstract notions can be found in the “Emblemata” (1531) by Andreas Alciatus. The synthesis of the verbal and the visual, as an allegorical way of defining the world and the exegesis of Biblical texts, provided wide opportunities for the emblematic signification. The Picta Poesis Baroque book “Graphical Poetry. Alchemy” (1552) by Barthélemy Aneau contained an alchemy symbolism reflecting the character of the Renaissance worldview. Dutch artists of the 17th century developed the theme of evanescence and vanity in their emblematic still-life painting.