CFAL blog

During the month of February, the Crouch Fine Arts Library is highlighting two heart-shaped books from its collections. If you’d like to see these materials, please check with one of the CFAL staff members.

Chansonnier de Jean de Montchenu
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. Rothschild, 2973

This reproduction of a delightful, heart-shaped music manuscript consists of French and Italian songs written by Dufay, Ockeghem, Busnois and their contemporaries.It gets it’s name (The Songbook of Jean de Montchenu) from the 15th-century nobleman who commissioned the work. When opened, the shape changes to that of a butterfly, composed of the hearts of the two lovers who send love messages to one another in each one of the songs. When the word “heart” appears in the texts, it is represented by a pictogram. Two full-page illustrations appear in the codex. In the first, Cupid throws arrows at a young girl while at his side Fortune spins his wheel. In the other, two lovers approach one another lovingly. Throughout the manuscript the pentagrams, music and love poems are surrounded by borders made up of animals, birds, dogs, cats and all kinds of flowers and plants highlighted in abundant and delicate gold.

This  limited-edition facsimile (only 1380 copies published) carefully reproduces the original, located in French National Library from it’s red velvet binding, to the texture of the page, filled with gold leaf and colorful illuminations.

To hear selections from the Chansonnier de Jean de Montchenu, check out CD ENCH 1.

Your Favorite Love Songs
Miriam Schaer

In this work, multimedia book artist Miriam Schaer has created a unique (one-of-a-kind) heart-shaped book – a compilation of multi-generational love songs. The shaped book has historic president, and heart-shaped books date back to the middle ages, where they were often prayer books. In modern times, love has many additional meanings, and romantic love is a more modern conceit. About this work, Miriam says:

“This book is one of the first shaped books I ever made. I loved the form, and only later learned about the historic significance of the structure. In many ways it opened my eyes to the possibilities of books. When I learned about an historic structure called the girdle book-it changed the course of my artistic practice. Girdle books were codex books, with an extra length of fabric or chain at the head of the book, so the book could be wrapped or tucked into the waistband or girdle of the monks (usually, or nobility) so one’s prayers could always be at hand. I realized that we still have needs and carry around prayers, but sometimes of a different source and my books could be meditations on prayers, seeking answers to questions that often have none.”

For much of her artists books, Miriam uses garments — girdles, bustiers, brassieres, aprons, children’s’ clothes — as means of containment. Inside these stiffened, shaped, embellished enclosures, she places books and other objects that document her explorations of feminine, social, and spiritual issues.

Ms. Schaer  is a recipient of an Artists Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts. Her work has been exhibited in the Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series at Mabel Smith Douglass Library, Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ, the oldest and longest-running exhibition series dedicated to showcasing women artists in the United States, as well as at the Feminist Art Base in the Brooklyn Museum’s Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. Ms. Schaer’s work has been shown in the Cheongju International Craft Biennale, South Korea, and in Imagining the Book Biennale  at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Alexandria, Egypt.

Miriam Schaer lectures and teaches books structures and printmaking at universities and art centers in the U.S. and abroad. She also runs teacher training and artist workshops, and taught in artist-in-the-school programs throughout the New York region.  Venues in which she has taught and lectured include Sarah Lawrence College, Colorado College, and Rutger’s Center for Innovative Paper and Print, Memphis College of Art and Design; Facultad de Bellas Artes de Universidad de Castilla la Mancha in Cuenca, Spain; the Graphic Artists Union in Tallinn, Estonia; Cinema Rex in Belgrade, Yugoslavia; and the Center for Book Arts and the Lower East Side Printshop in New York City. She currently teaches Art of the Book at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and is  visiting lecturer in the Interdisiplinary MFA in Book and Paper at Columbia College in Chicago.

To see more of her work, visit: http://miriamschaer.com/