May 30th (Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY) — The Cary Collection at the Wallace Library at RIT houses many rare books that are significant works of print media. There are many gems, I was drawn to one entitled Marrakech ou les Seigneurs de l’Atlas (1939) which directly translates to Marrakech or Lords of the Atlas; the Atlas are the snow-capped highland mountains that create the backdrop for the city of Marrakech. When I initially approached the Cary Collection curator, David Pankow, the collection room was closing but he waved me in and we spoke briefly.
I handed him a slip of paper, a page from my Moleskine cahier that I had written the book’s information on. His eyes widened, he knew the book, he called it a favorite among the staff. He mentioned the wood-block color etchings in the book. I told him that was precisely what I wanted to see. He told me to come back. I told him I would. That was nearly a month ago.
I finally had a moment to return. It was an hour before closing. After some interuption and rearranging, we entered the collection room and I handed him the slip of paper again. It was now in tatters–I had kept it in my pocket day after day waiting for the chance to return. The walk from my office to the library on one of the hottest days this season didn’t help the condition of the slip of paper either. I realized all this when Pankow returned with the book and handed back my slip of paper, his face covered with disdain. I received the slip of paper, it was moist to the touch.
What followed was a long, but necessary, lecture about how I should handle the book, including instruction on what angle to hold the book, where to grab the page to turn, and when it was safe to open flat. The binding was tight and I could see a few of the leaves were coming loose due to mishandling, so it was apparent that this lecture was very necessary. I wiped my hands–still a little moist from the hot walk–on my jeans and took the book from him.
The text was entirely in French, but I could make out a few latin roots and gathered information when necessary. The wood-block color etchings were beautiful. I perused each one with the utmost attention to the details. Colors, composition, meanings (hidden and apparent) were etched onto the folds of my brain. At page fifty-seven I got to the print that I knew would be my favorite. It featured a Beber woman lying in a garden with her eyes closed and the slightest hint of a smile on her face. She was near the bottom left half of the image. Directly behind her, centered in the image, was a large flowering tree. The flowers were sparse and there were forty-two yellow birds perched among the nearly bare branches. I counted them twice to make sure that number was right.
To the right of the flowering tree with the birds, were two palm trees. Initially, I noted them and thought about a news piece I read about the diminishing numbers of palm trees in Morocco. But then I started to notice that the leaves of the palm tree and branches of the flowering tree were intermingling in ways that defied logic. I thought, Hmm, the artist has made several mistakes in this image. How unusual since his perspective seemed flawless in the prior images. Could it be intentional? I began to wonder if the woman was dreaming and what we saw: the birds, the palms, the low undulating mounds of Earth, were all components of her dream. Could the Escher-like contradictory intermingling of the palm leaves and flowering tree banches also be a result of that dream?
At the end of the book, there was a list of the plates with their titles. The plate I called my favorite was entitled Réverie (Day Dream), eureka! I found another plate I really liked on page 175, it was entitled Ramparts de Demnat and depicted a scene outside of a castle wall. At the top of the castle wall, large black birds, probably storks, lurked about in silhouette, below them, resting in the shadow of the castle wall, were groups of Moroccans. They sat on small mounds of Earth. There is no doubt that these mounds are shallow graves as mentioned in George Orwell’s essay entitled Marrakech. The conclusion that the birds are storks is due to an earlier depiction of a group of storks I saw in the book, not to mention that the stork is Morocco’s national bird. So much going on in this image: the storks looming, the shadow of the castle wall, the shallow graves and the people resting amongst all this. Powerful.
I asked Pankow if the images were digitally scanned and available, he said no and asked if I thought they should be, I said definitely, but petered out on my reason. I should have said that the plates should be enjoyed and a translation should be sought; making the text and images electronically accessible might help achieve this.
