Emblems as “Metaphysical Essays”: An Illustrated Edition of the Russian Poet G. Derzhavin

Abstract

Among various approaches to intellectual processes in history we can find some space for new aspects of the history of visuality, including emblem studies.The visual part of the emblem depends on the conceptual description, and its artistic value or the quality of its image is not as important as its textual part. We can compare this with the calligraphic status of handwriting, or the particular configuration and style of a typeface. They are not important for the content of the text, although we can include them in our consideration. Paradoxically, the textual part of the emblem usually contains visual descriptions as explanations and can completely replace the image. The sustained connection between an image and a description of an emblem allows us to give it the status of a concept. In this paper, I use examples from the Russian emblematic discourse of the Enlightenment to contextualise an illustrated edition of the poetry of Gavriil Derzhavin.