Humotropy

An Explanation to my Frontispiece

After the private session of my thesis defense, after I had waited paitently outside while my committee debated my future, AFTER they had told me that I had passed, they had one additional question for me:  what’s the deal with my frontispiece?

The frontispiece is the left-sided page in a published book which faces the right-sided title page.  In a thesis, this is a completely useless concept since pages are printed single-sided only, but never-the-less it is an option for those of us writing a thesis.  In practice, it can contain anything: a word, an drawing, a phrase, an elaborate engraving, etc. I was certainly not going to let such an opportunity pass me by and I lost several hours of work searching for the image I wanted on my frontispiece.  I found perfection.  It’s a long post, so I’ll put it behind the jump.

The question from my committee was simple enough, but I quickly realized that I would never have their full attention again, so I launched in to a 15-20 minute art history lecture (which I am reproducing here in greater detail).  I’m sure they were hoping for something simple: “Me like frogs.”

The image comes from a medieval text entitled Sancti Patris Nostri Epiphanii, Episcopi Constantiae Cypri, ad Physiologum. Eiusdem in die festo Palmarum sermo.  No, I have not been able to say that title aloud.  It was printed in 1588 by Christopher Plantin in Antwerp and was edited by Ponce de Leon…no, not THE Ponce de Leon.  This is ANOTHER Ponce de Leon (Consalus Ponce de Leon) because, apparently, ‘Ponce de Leon’ is the medieval European version of ‘John Smith.’  The image in question is a copper plate engraving done by Pieter van der Borcht of Malines, Netherlands.

There are many section of this book, but the image comes from the bestiary, the Physiologus, which was, as rumor has it, is based on the writings of Saint Epiphanius (believe this at the risk of your own gullibility).  A bestiary is a compendium of chapters about animals, a description of those animals and commentary on those descriptions.  This being a medieval text, you just KNOW that these chapters are chock full of highly scientific observation and reasoning.  Really, the stories of the animals are used as metaphors for Christian moral ideas.  Thus, this is one big Christian allegory.

Specifically, this image comes from the chapter on frogs, as evidenced by frogs at the bottom of the scene.  The description of frogs gets interesting very quickly.  The text says that there are two basic types of frogs: land frogs and water frogs.  The land frogs are able to tolerate all manner of adverse conditions: the blowing winds, the freezing cold, the burning sun.  However, if exposed to the rain or to water, they will perish.  The water frogs, on the other hand, loooooove the water - love the rain too.  They, however, cannot abide the harsh conditions of heat or cold or wind and must retreat in to their cool pond when exposed to weather outside their narrow tastes.
The commentary on this description fascinates.  Land frogs represent the penetent, abstinant farmer, peasant and monk who toil patiently through adverse conditions, bravely facing accepting discomfort in exchange for the moral purity which, in the Christian worldview, accompanies sacrifice.  When exposed to worldly desire and sin (as represented by rain and water) their purity and grace perish as do the land frogs.  Water frogs, you may guess, represent those who cannot abide sacrifice.  They must indulge in worldly pleasures and cannot be persuaded to abstain from comfort for the sake of their moral purity.  It’s an allegory!  GET IT!?

Now look at the image.  Sure, in the lower left corner there sits a frog on the land and under the sun.  In the pond bob the heads of five happy little frogs, and if you look closely, you can see that they are being rained on.  Now, where is the morality tale?  Where is the abstinence, where are the worldly desires?  de Borscht did not see fit to include them.  In fact, the frogs take up only a very small portion of the engraving near the bottom.  The rest is devoted to the bucolic scene of a sunny medieval day.  Why is it, then, that in a Christian allegorical book, attributed, no less, to the writings of Saint Epiphanius, that THIS image appears.

Well despite the lack of allegorical symbolism, this image is replete with symbolic imagery.  Observe that there are three distinct regions of the work.  The bottom of the engraving contains images of wild vegetation, animal life and the murky pond.  This is the cthonic world of nature: the muck, the mire, the untamed growth red in tooth and claw and all that.  It depicts the woods and forest surrounding the medieval village shown above.

Here we see the world of man and woman: the institutions produced from our creative, rational mind.  We see images of architecture (the homes), agriculture (the farmers), societal hierarchy (the village in the background) and even the church.  This pastoral scene sits atop the world of nature, both visually and in the grand pecking order of value.  Indeed you could say that society is an enclave against the encroaching forest and a means of controlling its excesses (that pond does look planned, doesn’t it?), but that’s a subject best left to Camile Paglia.

Above all that we see the celestial world with the benevolent (hopefully) sun-god figure looking down on the world of man and muck.  Thus, we have the three worlds in a single image: nature, man, and gods.  This reminds me greatly of my favorite Esher drawing, Three Worlds.  Most surprising, though, is that such a juxtaposition of symbolism is used to focus the viewer’s attention on the subject of frogs, who sit at the nexus of these three worlds.  Here the frog represents that element which unites the disperate worlds and is able to traverse them with ease. What an appropriate role for an amphibian, no?

This is not new symbolism, though.  the Egyptian goddess Heqet is also known as the frog-headed goddess and is depicted (duh) as having the head of a frog.  Heket is the goddess of, among other things, childbirth - a semonal transition between worlds.  Perhaps more significant, though, is the relation of frogs to Hecate.  Hecate, also a goddess of childbirth, originated in Anatolia (modern day Turkey) and has made her way through various pantheons and even in to the Buffyverse - an accomplishment not to be taken lightly.  So that this post doesn’t become an extended essay on Hecate (who is a fascinating figure) let me skip to the good part.

Hecate is, among other things, the goddess of three-road crossroads.  The origins of this association are diverse, but it parallels well with her unique ability to walk among the three worlds: the heavens (though she was never comfortably assimilated in to the Greek Pantheon), the earth, and the underworld (she accompanied Persephone in Hades). Her association with frogs likely stems from the amphibian’s transitional nature.

Back to van der Borscht’s engraving: three worlds - heaven, earth, nature - and frogs.  So what the heck is ancient pagan imagery doing in a medieval Christian allegory? I dunno, other than to suspect that a lot of the symbolic underpinnings of our modern culture have origins far in to antiquity…at least that would be really cool.

The reason I used this image in my thesis is because I like to picture myself as the frogs: comfortable in many different worlds, but really belonging to the union of them all.  I think that my undergraduate career speaks well of this ideal with degrees in electrical engineering, physics and philosophy.  I was attracted to the Macromolecular Science and Engineering program at the University of Michigan because of its interdisciplinary nature.  And I hope that my future career will, likewise, allow me to become familiar with a wide range of topics.