WARNING: Reading this Introduction may change your understanding of the book to follow. It is the apple of my artistic intent.
On the surface, Pictorial Webster’s is a miniature unabridged image dictionary—a visual reference book with a historical bent. It is also a study of visual design and a resource for those interested in wood engravings and their printing. The conceptual underpinning is that this book can act as a springboard for individual creativity. It was printed with a belief that the human compulsion to find meaning would lead readers to create stories that explain whole pages and perhaps even inspire some to derive unifying threads that might, in a Joycean fashion, enable a narration of the entire book.
The surface function of the book as a visual reference needs little explanation. The book contains many great examples of how to solve problems of illustration. It may also be used as a resource by the artist or printer to study the technique and artistry of the draftsmen and engravers of the nineteenth century.
By virtue of the magnitude of engravings, their varying density and size, the book also becomes a study in design. The book’s alphabetical arrangement was adhered to loosely enough so that each page (and page spread) would be pleasing to the eye. (Note that Form on page 145 does come before Function on page 149.) Each page was carefully laid out with the intent of creating the most pleasing arrangement of imagery. Some pages (79, 175) have bilateral symmetry; some make a grid (139, 382–383); some revolve around a central image (119, 367); while others make use of strong diagonals (103); or consciously use the shapes of engravings to move the reader’s eye around the page (112–113). To make key images pop out more on a page, an extra underlay of .002 inches was added during printing. Important images are often repeated, as are certain similar shapes that recur in various objects to further the design of a page.
The design of the book also fuels the deeper content by forcing the images on the small pages to engage in dialogue. Like humans, when a group of inanimate objects are put in a small space, they must engage each other, and conflict often arises. So many animals seem to argue and even threaten to fight (e.g., Crawfish on page 86 and Crocodiles on 87) that one might believe Cyme and Cyclamen are headed for conflict on page 92. When there is more space on a page, or an animal is the sole creature, it seems to relax, such as the Aardvark on page 1. One might notice the graceful turn on page 221 where the Lyre Bird compares itself to its namesake. Noticing the way this process of juxtaposition animates the objects will also alert the reader to ironies such as the Pool Table placed next to the shark (Porbeagle) on page 281. (Yes, there is trouble in River City.)
Arranging the beetles as an insect collection also brings attention to the scientific nature of the images and the idea of “collection.” The beetle pages (37–39) were inspired by the awesome diversity of this species on the planet and the terrible task of nomenclature they have posed to Adam and his descendants. The Pictorial Webster’s is in effect a Wonder Cabinet of the Nineteenth Century. It is filled with both the Factual and the Fantastic. As mentioned in the Preface, the importance of fishing in nineteenth-century New England allowed for the incredible wealth of fish engravings. The additional pages includedallow the fish to interact with each other and even to slip in and out of the gutter of the page. The reader may wonder, “What do these fish do behind the folds of the book?”
Of course, all of the interactions in this book must be inferred by the reader. Because except for a few images like Leap frog (207) and titles for images such as Retort (301) that can be read as verbs, or movement via The Mechanical Powers (230), the images illustrate only nouns and static concepts. This book is only half a story, then, as nouns alone won’t get one very far. The book requires the active involvement of the reader to supply the verbs and make the story flow. How is one to get immersed and “read” the book, then? Perhaps it would be good to first define the “text” of this book.
The “text” in Pictorial Webster’s is made up of the illustrations—each illustration can be a word, a sentence, a paragraph, or in some cases, an entire chapter. The titles are supplied to give names and subtext to the images. The numbers create a numerical tag, a tether to an order we no longer understand. In order to read a page of this book, the reader needs to quiet the mind and spend time meditating on the engravings on a page and wait to see what connections come up.
Books succeed when they use descriptions of events and emotions that resonate with something we recognize within ourselves and then push situations a step farther to stretch our own perceptions of the world. When the reader opens a page of this book to an image for which he or she has a particular association, that engraving may start as the focus of the page. Then, by associating unknown images into the context of the known one, that page will begin to develop a story for the reader. But a true “reading” of this book will probably defy a literary description. As in the first days of school where the bewilderment of a new pattern only began to make sense after a few days, this book will become meaningful according to the amount of time spent immersed in the pages.
There are numerous page spreads that illustrate some of the artistic influences at work in the book. Headings such as “Is It Science?” and “Is It Art?” make commentary on its dualistic nature. But the most important page spread for understanding the artistic theory behind this book is Pipe and Pith (274–275). It is the Rosetta Stone of the Pictorial Webster’s.
A clue that this is a key to the book should be seen by the Pith heading, but also by the first image, the Obelisk. Like hieroglyphics, the images on these pages can be deciphered to tell the readers how they might understand the book. Marcel Duchamp’s artwork may go the farthest in describing what is happening in Pictorial Webster’s, just as one day he placed the front fork of a bicycle with the wheel on it in the hole of a stool. Et voilà! In 1913, Bicycle Wheel was born. Duchamp put two very different things together to create a thing of beauty. In his other “Readymades” Duchamp challenged the world to see how any object taken out of its everyday context might be seen as something beautiful.
Duchamp redefined functional objects as formal by renaming them to further remove the associations traditionally attached to them. The engravings of the reference book variety were generally not regarded as art, despite the fact Andrew is called a “skillful artist” in the introduction to the 1859 Webster’s. But placed in the context of this book, today’s reader will readily appreciate the care and pride of these drawings and see their execution as artwork in its own right. The successful artist well knows the power a name can convey to a piece of art. (If you overlay Duchamp’s Fountain on the Form page 145 you get an entirely different appreciation for Flytrap and Foraminifera. Ouch!)
Connected to this issue of name, Pipe 14157-M (page 274) bears a striking resemblance to the pipe in Magritte’s painting containing the text “Ceci n’est pas une pipe.” Magritte used text in his artwork to make the viewer rethink the connection between words and images, and it is hoped that the chosen text accompanying images in Pictorial Webster’s will do the same for you.
Joan Miró painted Harlequin’s Carnival (see “Presque Miro”), which depicts a room teeming with odd things including a surreal Salvador Dalí smoking a pipe. Like many of the surrealists, Miró collected fabulous objects: fetishes, oddities, and specimens of nature from around the world. The surrealists felt these collections would help them tap into the universal flow of subconscious ideas.
Tickling the subconscious through juxtapositions of fabulous objects is not only one of the main artistic underpinnings of this book, but it is my own cultural experiment to enhance the creativity of society. My explanation of how these collections of objects and how Pictorial Webster’s can be used as a springboard to creativity is found in an appendix, but the nutshell explanation is as follows: Humans instinctively look for connections between proximal objects. When you study a page, your brain immediately starts finding commonalities to find some way to link the various objects. The thread that connects them is often something new that you have never before considered. The further removed two things are, the wilder the thread that connects them, but often the more powerful the idea. Because, truly, everything in the universe is connected somehow: It’s just a question of figuring out the connection.
Another image on this signature spread is that of Portrait of the Artist. The title refers to Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, master of literary stream of consciousness. Pictorial Webster’s can easily be seen as a late nineteenth-century visual stream of consciousness.
The last three images I will mention on this spread are those of Content, Faith, and Folly. Those are the three main components of the book, and I will see what comes of their company for the remainder of this introduction, in which the Artist sits down at his Easel and creates.
Content is the cat who looks at the area just below your face from the page. Who is she looking for? I know this cat, as she looks a little like Oedipus, one of the cats we owned long ago. Could Adam have had dominion over Content? There wouldn’t have been house cats in the Garden, as humans domesticated (though never tamed) cats long after that time.
I use the scientific name Felis catus so that people around the world can all use the same name for the one called Content. But, as Adam’s names for things have been lost or changed, Latin names have changed over time, too. So what should we call the Dodo Bird? “Inept” (ineptus) or “Ralf” (Raphus)? What does Raphus mean? But Catus contentus isn’t interested in chasing after that bird, no matter how dumb or arrogant it may have been. Content alone is all that matters to Content.
Faith stands at attention looking to see what will come next. She is all anticipation, but never doubts the book will find some meaningful order. She is a dog, and it doesn’t really matter to her; she trusts her master to know what it all means. But when I come to feed her she looks at me in a way that makes me doubt myself. Rather than alphabetically, should I have organized the book using QWERTY as a guide? Quintain, the well of the Magyars, would be the first entry. Or would ETAOIN SHRDLU (the arrangement of keys on a linotype) better organize the text? Etheostomoid would come first, followed by Ear. . . .
I need to meditate. It is not complicated. They are pretty pictures. I will just pick out one page and enjoy it. I can do this while sitting in a waiting room, in a bathroom, or on the beach. Anyone can pick this book up for a moment and ponder one of man’s—or God’s—strange creations. Yes, I’ll look at some little picture of a flower and appreciate the fact that it is there. For all of our great advances, there is still a place for a daisy.
But my brain won’t quit jumping around. In spite of the fact that an image of a hat on top of the Eiffel Tower can also be found on the flap of a Pop Tarts box, it all looks too much like the jumble of the world outside. I wish Anders, the book critic in Tobias Wolff’s story, hadn’t gotten that bullet to the brain in the bank lobby. Maybe in heaven he is in touch with the artist Adamson-Eric; if he could give a “critical reading” of the text, then we could apply that unifying principal to some other arena of thought. There must be an algorithm to help, but most of us lack the ability to visualize those trajectories in this day and age because the computers know how to get us right to the marks we seek.
Faith laps up the water in her metal bowl. I should do the same, but it’s as if my mind is a colander and the juice just keeps dripping out. I just keep thinking of Yeats and his single use, in all of his poetry, of the word “sieve.” One goddamned pipedream, but not of the iceman, it was the lowman. Could they be the same man from long ago, covered in hair, lost in the snow?
Who willed this order of images? Did I? Is it not like the text of our planet, and if you decode the order, will you not have tapped into the language of our Creation? Am I the egocentric artist (I am God or I am confused), or merely a pawn controlled by Faith?
“NO!” I bark. Even if the numbers under Sphinx (The) on page 336 someday have a coincidental overlap with other numbers in my life, I will never know or care. I can search the numbers on every parking ticket, every ISBN, every cereal box UPC, and one day I might find the matching number. I can play those numbers every day in the Massachusetts Lottery. And if I match the number on my Cheerios box and win the Mass Millions on the same day, I will not blink. Nothing can shake my faith. Though Faith does need a bath.
The Pleurotoma on the next page came out of its shell in the safe dark of long ago. We are talking about the time of Babylon. But when the day came to print the book, where did he go?
Folly, the fish, is looking elsewhere. Down through the fold she swims to see the Pleurotoma whom she has come to love. Though the Pleurotoma can’t talk in a language that Folly can understand, Folly still believes that Pleurotoma can understand her. Folly talks to him like a young toddler who says hi to animals and statues alike, as if they understand and are happy to be addressed. Pleur means “cry” in French. It is confusing and embarrassing to cry as an adult. I must confess I don’t know why they cried in Babylon. The charade is over. Is that why they are Pleuro-tom-as? A tome is a book, come on, man. No one is going to go that route. It’s a delusion to think they’d put on a diving suit and stand on the bottom of the ocean and say, “Yup, toma could, indeed be tome. Yo! Home!” But, what about bananas: Were there bananas in Babylon? Maybe in the oasis? Yes, Musa paradisica, the bananas of paradise! We can go back.
Stop, I should stop—because this is your book to discover. I was showing you what the pages were doing in my brain, but who was it that said “dreams are ever only of interest to the dreamer”? Be your own T. S. Eliot; it is for you to allow yourself the time to saunter through the book and see what new poetry may populate your dreams.