G.4.1 Imagining Character Transformation: The Case of Shahrzad in Thousand and One Nights

Elham Etemadi, Hunan Normal University

Sani' ol-Molk's illustrated version of The Thousand and One Nights (1852–59) was commissioned by the fourth king of the Qajar dynasty in Iran and was completed with 3,845 illustrations. Despite her central role in the narrative, Shahrzad is depicted only five times in the whole manuscript: in the first three, she is in her role as the storyteller, and in the last two, she is the king's wife; in the very last image, she also seems to be the mother of three sons. As this change of role from a storyteller to a wife/mother happens, the way she is presented also transforms: traces of European influence are visible in her garments when she is the storyteller; in contrast, in the last two images, she is wearing the traditional clothes of Qajar era women.

In this paper, I argue that the visualization of Shahrzad as a storyteller deploys icons to present her as a wise and knowledgeable woman—familiar with history; in this role, she temporarily has the privilege of power because she tells stories and consequently rules the king's imagination to "cure" him. On the other hand, when Shahrazad's mission has been accomplished, her role suggests the notion of an ideal wife/mother in the Qajar society, whose sons guarantee protection against any harm. Investigating Shahrazad's visual features as the storyteller and wife, I will discuss how Sani' ol-Molk imagined her position through the use of visual icons with the intention of communicating meaningfully and effectively with his audience. To doing so, I use an eclectic method for the study of Iranian illustrations by investigating presented icons both diachronically and synchronically. This double perspective primarily aims at overcoming the limits of the Iconological and Semiotic approaches when they are applied to Iranian 19th-century visual texts.

G.4.2 A New Methodology to Study the Illustration-Poetry Relationship in the "Moxon Tennyson" (1857)

Larissa Vilhena, Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin

The inherently interdisciplinary character of research into illustrated poetry books, which comprises not only the fields of art history, literary criticism and illustration studies, but also material culture studies and book studies, permeates any attempt to study the 1857 illustrated edition of Alfred Tennyson's Poems, more commonly known as the "Moxon Tennyson." The volume set a standard that numerous other illustrated volumes — or gift books — would strive to attain in the next two decades. The fifty-four illustrations were designed by a team of eight British and Irish artists, five of whom were Academicians and three of whom were Pre-Raphaelites, and converted into wood engravings by various professional engravers, resulting in a palimpsest of different pictorial styles and illustrative approaches.

This paper centres primarily around a new methodology by which the illustrations in the "Moxon" can be studied with regard to their relationship with the poetry. It aims to inquire into the degree to which the picture illustrates the verse so as to evaluate the image's agency in the book based upon two key terms: a "literal" and an "interpretive" approach to the text. Due to the large number and wide range of illustrations in the volume, two case studies will be used to allow for an in-depth understanding of the methodology being employed. The main questions addressed are to what extent the illustration is informed by the poem and, conversely, how far the text is influenced by the image on the page. Whereas "Moxon" scholarship to date has tended to make use of methods of investigation that revolve around literary-critical or illustration theories, this paper shall make an original contribution to this field by adopting a visual viewpoint to conduct the investigation in order to survey the interconnectedness between illustration and poetry in the 1857 Poems.

G.4.3 La tradition inventée au secours de la mémoire collective. Le cas du Canada français au tournant du XXe siècle.

Anne-Philippe Beaulieu, Université de Montréal

Mes travaux s'intéressent à la communauté des dessinateurs de presse montréalais du XIXe siècle et portent sur la nature et la fonction de certaines images ''traditionnelles'' qu'ils ont produites pour le compte des médias de l'époque. Je m'intéresse au rôle qu'ils ont joué dans la consolidation de l'identité canadienne-française, notamment à travers la production sérielle d'illustrations sur le thème des traditions nationales. Des représentations stéréotypées qui avaient pour but de nourrir l'imaginaire du peuple, à ce moment clé de l'histoire de la province. Ma communication s'attardera à l'une des facettes de ce grand phénomène observable dans le contexte particulier du Canada français à la fin du XIXe siècle : l'invention de la tradition. Intimement lié aux thèmes de l'imaginaire, de la nostalgie restauratrice et du mythe, la tradition inventée est un mécanisme sociologique souvent employé au secours de la mémoire collective.

J'exposerai le cas du Canada français, en m'attardant aux relations étroites qui se sont tissées, à la fin du XIXe siècle, entre les milieux, les acteurs et les médias. Saisir comment s'est effectuée sous leur autorité, outre la circulation des idéaux nationalistes, le développement du mythe agraire, l'invention des traditions nationales et la construction d'un imaginaire savant. Je m'attarderai au rôle des artistes et des médias dans la construction d'un âge d'or des origines du Canada français : la Laurentie. J'analyserai la production en série d'illustrations sur le thème des fêtes religieuses, des héros historiques, des traditions nationales et us et coutmes, afin de comprendre les différentes fonctions qu'ont jouées ces images sur le renforcement de l'identité nationale. Interrogeant divers supports et contenus médiatiques, la tradition inventée se dévoilera alors comme un procédé des plus efficace sur lequel se sont appuyées les élites dirigeantes de l'époque pour remodeler l'imaginaire populaire. En arrière-plan, l'esquisse d'une analyse intermédiale et transmédiale du mythe agraire se dessinera.

G.4.4 An Elusive Allusivity: Paradox in the Representation of Plate Glass in Canada, 1851–1900

Stephanie Weber, Concordia University

This paper attempts to define a visual culture of plate glass in Canada during the second half of the nineteenth century. I approach this material through descriptions and depictions in Canadian periodicals of Victorian-era structures that utilized large expanses of plate glass, namely, Canadian versions of the "Crystal Palace" exhibition building and modern mass-market department stores with large storefront display windows. In Canadian publications, these plate glass surfaces often take on certain metaphorical significance, coming to stand in for modernity, to signify purity by their clarity, or to promise a quintessentially modern honesty and openness, as their solid surfaces maintained visual limpidity. However, though glass is allusive in many ways, its signification also remained elusive. Any meaning that glass may encompass is always accompanied by its own opposite; glass can change in a moment from lucid to reflective, from refracting beams of bright light to darkening and dulling, and though it is a physically protective layer, it also permits unmitigated visual connection. The relationship of nineteenth-century Canadian periodicals to the material is marked by this ambiguity. I suggest that glass's physical capacity for dualism is an apt metaphor for the way that the meanings it signified were often contradictory, even when simultaneous. I argue that in the Canadian context, the paradoxes encompassed by the developing cultural imaginaries around glass are mirrored by the paradoxes of Victorian Canadians' ambiguous and conflicting relationships with nationalism and modernization.