Salmagundi (1)

Every few days someone will send me something that has piqued their interest.  It might be an image or an article or a website and I wonder how best to include it in the blog. I was reminded of the word ‘salmagundi’ which is derived from the French salmigondis and means a disparate assembly of things, ideas or people, forming an incoherent whole.

Today ‘salmagundi’ is most often used to describe a dish of seasoned meats stewed with vegetables – the sort of meal we might have made in a slow cooker when we were more time poor and less housebound. The word seems to have appeared in English, for the first time in the 17^th century, to describe such a composite dish.

Etymologically, the word comes from Rabelais’ ‘Third Book of Pantagruel’ published in 1546 in which it is written as ‘salmigondin’.  François Rabelais (?1494-1553) was a fascinating individual.  Among other things, this Renaissance Frenchman was a writer, physician, monk, humanist and Greek scholar. When he was not treating plague victims, he was writing satire and he is regarded as one of the great writers of bawdy jokes, songs and the grotesque. Rabelais also coined a number of words including paradox, and sayings like: ‘tell the truth and shame the devil’ or ‘nature abhors a vacuum’ or ‘ignorance is the mother of all evils’.

To be Rabelaisian means to be outrageous, raunchy, crude, absolutely stubborn in matters of truth, and relentlessly against hypocrisy. His best-known work is ‘Gargantua and Pantagruel’ a series of four books written in the 16^th century that describe the adventures of two giants – Gargantua and his son Pantagruel. Widely regarded as a comic masterpiece it is often compared with Gulliver’s Travels, Tristram Shandy and Finnegan’s Wake – all of which it predated and clearly influenced. To get a sense of the work, there is a great review by Lucy Ellmann of a recent translation in the Guardian (24 December, 2006): https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/dec/23/featuresreviews.guardianreview1. Here you will read about characters like Sieur de Slurp-ffart, Seigneur de Grudge-crumb, le Duc de Free-meals and Captain Squit.

Not surprisingly, Rabelais’ work has excited artists and the 19^th French engraver, Gustave Dore, was inspired by his novels.  Unfortunately, none of Dore’s Rabelais’ works are in the NGV collection.  However, the NGV does have an engraving by Felix Bracquemond (a contemporary of Dore) which has a quote by Rabelais: Ils s’en allaient, dodelinant de la tête et barytonnant du cul (off they went, nodding their heads and breaking baritone wind). This is a reminder of Rabelais’ fascination with the ‘behaviour of bottoms’. In Pantagruel, one of the characters is said to have books in his library with the titles: ‘On the Art of Discreetly Farting in Public’ and ‘Martingale Breeches with Back-flaps for Turd-droppers’.

With respect to Bracquemond, of note is the decorative arts dinner service he was involved with.  As the designer of the Bracquemond-Rousseau dinner service, based on the art of Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai, this exquisite tableware was made in 1866 and exhibited to great acclaim in the 1867 World’s Fair in Paris. It was said to have been the first expression of japonisme in France and the NGV has five pieces from this service generously donated in 2018 by Merv Keehn and Sue Harlow.

The Bracquemond etching features the back view of five figures, from different walks of life, with their arms linked striding off on an adventure together. This is a rather unusual perspective although, as a compositional device, one of the first artists to use it was Giotto in the 14^th century to establish depth of field. However, it was Caspar David Friedrich and his fellow German Romanticists from the early 19^th century who popularised this aesthetic mode, naming it Rückenfigur, or ‘figure from the back’. This perspective creates a paradox – it simultaneously invites the viewer into the landscape as the faceless subject, but also reminds them of the border between themselves and the scene.

Since the German Romantics embraced this view, it has appeared across art movements and in disparate media. In contemporary photography it is used to create mystery, drama, suspense, yearning, and voyeurism. Several works in the NGV collection depict these elements.

In the ‘spirit of salmagundi’, Nita Jawary has sent me two items of interest. First, she directed me to an essay by Connor Thomas O’Brien which is on the Wheeler Centre website.  O’Brien was the Wheeler Centre’s Digital Content Producer and also inaugural director of the Digital Writers’ Festival and Digital Programs director at the Emerging Writers’ Festival. His essay is very timely as we consider downloading the COVIDSafe app to track our possible contacts with coronavirus.

The essay ‘City of Faces’ is about surveillance and how our comfort and anxiety about information regarding us has changed over time. In particular, he reminds us that in the past, there was generally available data in telephone books and other documents that provided information (eg. home address), that today we would be loath to share quickly with others. However, we also live in a world of social media postings and global monitored CCTV activity which seems less perturbing to us. His point that we are ‘more visible than ever’ is made using John Brack’s ‘Collins Street, 5pm’. Our ‘front view’ is easily recorded, documented and stored with concerning consequences.  This illuminating and challenging essay can be read at: https://www.wheelercentre.com/notes/city-of-faces?utm_source=wordfly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=WheelerWeekly,20April2020.&utm_content=version_A&promo=3447.

Nita’s second recommendation provides a different take on ‘front views’. The National Portrait Gallery in Canberra is offering a 14-day deep dive into portraiture commencing on 28 April. Called ‘The Amazing Face’, the gallery is offering a free online class to learn the language of portraiture. Every day, for two weeks, iconic portraits from the NPG Collection will be highlighted, and curatorial contexts and artistic insights shared along with other interactive elements. At the end of the program, participants will be invited to use this knowledge to create their own portrait which they are encouraged to share with their loved ones. Details can be found at: https://www.portrait.gov.au/content/the-amazing-face.

Thank you to everyone who sends me ideas – I look forward to sharing them.