Speech scroll
Encyclopedia
Developed independently on two continents, the device was in use by European painters during the Medieval and Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
periods as well as by artists within Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...
n cultures from as early as 650 BC until after the 16th century Spanish conquest
Spanish conquest of Mexico
The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire was one of the most important campaigns in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The invasion began in February 1519 and was acclaimed victorious on August 13, 1521, by a coalition army of Spanish conquistadors and Tlaxcalan warriors led by Hernán Cortés...
.
While European speech scrolls were drawn as if they were an actual unfurled scroll, Mesoamerican speech scrolls are merely scroll-shaped, looking much like a question mark
Question mark
The question mark , is a punctuation mark that replaces the full stop at the end of an interrogative sentence in English and many other languages. The question mark is not used for indirect questions...
.
Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica
Olmec
The Olmec were the first major Pre-Columbian civilization in Mexico. They lived in the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico, in the modern-day states of Veracruz and Tabasco....
ceramic
Ceramic
A ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetallic solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, or may be amorphous...
cylinder seal
Cylinder seal
A cylinder seal is a cylinder engraved with a 'picture story', used in ancient times to roll an impression onto a two-dimensional surface, generally wet clay. Cylinder seals were invented around 3500 BC in the Near East, at the contemporary site of Susa in south-western Iran and at the early site...
dated to approximately 650 BC. Here two lines issue from a bird's mouth followed by glyphs proposed to be "3 Ajaw," a ruler's name.
The murals of the Classic era
Mesoamerican chronology
Mesoamerican chronology divides the history of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica into several periods: the Paleo-Indian , the Archaic , the Preclassic , the Classic , and the Postclassic...
site of Teotihuacan
Teotihuacan
Teotihuacan – also written Teotihuacán, with a Spanish orthographic accent on the last syllable – is an enormous archaeological site in the Basin of Mexico, just 30 miles northeast of Mexico City, containing some of the largest pyramidal structures built in the pre-Columbian Americas...
are filled with speech scrolls, in particular the lively (and unexplained) tableaus found within the Tepantitla compound -- this mural, for example, shows no fewer than 20 speech scrolls.
In Mesoamerica, the speech-scroll is usually oriented with the longest outer edge upward, so that the central element (or "tongue") curves downward as it spirals. Some Mesoamerican speech scrolls are divided lengthwise with each side a different shade.
Glyphs or similar markings rarely appear on the Mesoamerican speech scroll, although "tabs" -- small, triangular or square blocks -- are sometimes seen along the outer edge. If the speech scroll represents a tongue, then the tabs may represent teeth, but their meaning or message, if any, is not known.
- In an engraving at the MayaMaya civilizationThe Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...
site of Chichen ItzaChichen ItzaChichen Itza is a large pre-Columbian archaeological site built by the Maya civilization located in the northern center of the Yucatán Peninsula, in the Municipality of Tinúm, Yucatán state, present-day Mexico....
, a ruler's speech scroll takes the form of a serpent. - A Spaniard's speech scroll in a 16th century Aztec codex is decorated with feathers to denote "soft, smooth words".
- In another 16th century codexCodexA codex is a book in the format used for modern books, with multiple quires or gatherings typically bound together and given a cover.Developed by the Romans from wooden writing tablets, its gradual replacement...
, the Selden Codex, two MixtecMixtecThe Mixtec are indigenous Mesoamerican peoples inhabiting the Mexican states of Oaxaca, Guerrero and Puebla in a region known as La Mixteca. The Mixtecan languages form an important branch of the Otomanguean language family....
rulers are shown insulting two ambassadors through the use of "flint knife" icons attached to the speech scrolls.
As with many native traditions, use of the speech scroll died out in the decades following the Spanish Conquest.
European banderoles
Byzantine art
Byzantine art is the term commonly used to describe the artistic products of the Byzantine Empire from about the 5th century until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453....
, spoken words, if they appeared at all, were usually painted alongside a figure; these are called tituli
Titulus (inscription)
Titulus is a term used for the labels or captions naming figures or subjects in art, which were commonly added in classical and medieval art, and remain conventional in Eastern Orthodox icons...
. However, earlier works using banderoles are the Aachen Gospels
Aachen Gospels
The Aachen Gospels may refer to either of two illuminated manuscript Gospel Books, more precisely known as the Aachen Coronation Gospels , a 9th century illuminated Gospel Book, or the Aachen Gospels of Otto III, made about 973 at Reichenau. The plain term "Aachen Gospels" is more liely to refer to...
of Otto III (c. 975) and the 12th century English Romanesque
Romanesque art
Romanesque art refers to the art of Western Europe from approximately 1000 AD to the rise of the Gothic style in the 13th century, or later, depending on region. The preceding period is increasingly known as the Pre-Romanesque...
Cloisters Cross
Cloisters Cross
The Cloisters Cross, also referred to as the Bury St. Edmunds Cross, is an unusually complex 12th century ivory Romanesque altar cross in The Cloisters, part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The cross is carved from walrus ivory and measures 22 5/8 x 14 1/4 in...
. The latter work demonstrates the use of banderoles as attributes for Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
prophet
Prophet
In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...
s, to distinguish them from the book-carrying Four Evangelists
Four Evangelists
In Christian tradition the Four Evangelists are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the authors attributed with the creation of the four Gospel accounts in the New Testament that bear the following titles:*Gospel according to Matthew*Gospel according to Mark...
of the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
and other Christian saints, a convention appearing in Italy in the 13th century. It may be seen in the Santa Trinita Maestà
Santa Trinita Maestà
The Santa Trinita Maestà is a painting by the Italian medieval artist Cimabue, dating to c. 1280-1290. It is housed in the Uffizi Gallery of Florence, central Italy.-History:...
by Cimabue
Cimabue
Cimabue , also known as Bencivieni di Pepo or in modern Italian, Benvenuto di Giuseppe, was an Italian painter and creator of mosaics from Florence....
, (Uffizi
Uffizi
The Uffizi Gallery , is a museum in Florence, Italy. It is one of the oldest and most famous art museums of the Western world.-History:...
, 1280-90), Duccio
Duccio
Duccio di Buoninsegna was one of the most influential Italian artists of his time. Born in Siena, Tuscany, he worked mostly with pigment and egg tempera and like most of his contemporaries painted religious subjects...
's Maestà
Maestà (Duccio)
The Maestà, or Maestà of Duccio is an altarpiece composed of many individual paintings commissioned by the city of Siena in 1308 from the artist Duccio di Buoninsegna. The front panels make up a large enthroned Madonna and Child with saints and angels, and a predella of the Childhood of Christ...
(1308-11), and other works. The convention had a historical appropriateness, as the Old Testament was originally written on scroll
Scroll
A scroll is a roll of parchment, papyrus, or paper, which has been drawn or written upon.Scroll may also refer to:*Scroll , the decoratively curved end of the pegbox of string instruments such as violins...
s, whereas nearly all surviving New Testament manuscripts are codices (like modern books). They may also be used for the words of angels, especially Gabriel
Gabriel
In Abrahamic religions, Gabriel is an Archangel who typically serves as a messenger to humans from God.He first appears in the Book of Daniel, delivering explanations of Daniel's visions. In the Gospel of Luke Gabriel foretells the births of both John the Baptist and of Jesus...
's greeting to Mary in Annunciation
Annunciation
The Annunciation, also referred to as the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary or Annunciation of the Lord, is the Christian celebration of the announcement by the angel Gabriel to Virgin Mary, that she would conceive and become the mother of Jesus the Son of God. Gabriel told Mary to name her...
scenes. During the 14th century, quotations in banderoles increasingly allowed artists to include more complex ideas in their works, though for the moment usually in Latin, thus greatly restricting the audience that could follow them.
Unlike Mesoamerican speech scrolls, European speech scrolls usually contain the spoken words, much like a modern day speech balloon
Speech balloon
Speech balloons are a graphic convention used most commonly in comic books, comic strips and cartoons to allow words to be understood as representing the speech or thoughts of a given character in the comic...
. The majority of these are in religious works and contain Biblical quotations from the figure depicted – Old Testament prophets for example, were often shown with an appropriate quotation from their work. Because the words are usually religious in nature, the speech scroll is often written in Latin even when appearing in woodcut
Woodcut
Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...
illustrations for books written in the vernacular
Vernacular
A vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...
. This would also enable the illustration to be used in editions in other languages.
European speech scrolls may at times be seen in secular works as well and may also contain the name of a person to identify them. On carved figures the words would usually be painted on the scroll and have since worn away. In some Late Gothic and Renaissance works, and in architectural decoration, very elaborate empty banderoles seem to be for decorative purposes only.
The European speech scroll fell out of favor largely due to an increasing interest in realism
Realism (visual arts)
Realism in the visual arts is a style that depicts the actuality of what the eyes can see. The term is used in different senses in art history; it may mean the same as illusionism, the representation of subjects with visual mimesis or verisimilitude, or may mean an emphasis on the actuality of...
in painting; the halo
Halo (religious iconography)
A halo is a ring of light that surrounds a person in art. They have been used in the iconography of many religions to indicate holy or sacred figures, and have at various periods also been used in images of rulers or heroes...
had a similar decline.