Pot Casse

Over the course of last week, we went over a lot of works that had to do with printing. From its beginnings in Germany with Gutenburg, the process seemed to evolve more and more as time went on to the Renaissance in some major parts of Europe.

One piece in particular caught my interest while in class. That was the Pot Casse designed by Geoffroy Troy. Now, it's not so much the image in particular, but the meaning behind this design. Troy, having lost his 10 year old daughter, dedicated this piece to her in memory. Upon the image, you can see it bears the words 'non plus' which means "no longer" or "nothing more".  It didn't seem to be too common of a thing for a person in these earlier times to dedicate such a wonderful piece to someone. It's kind of nice to see something that was done to honor the memory of another.

What I find interesting is the use of symbolism in the image. Take for instance, the jar with a crack on it. This resembles the body. Perhaps this is similar to the Sumerian's use of Ideographs to convey a message. It's funny how you never realize until you really look into these sorts of things how much our roots of art are taken from older civilizations. I wonder if the designers and artists of this time ever pondered about this.