Ars: časopis Ústavu Dejín Umenia Slovenskej Akadémie Vied (48.2015)

SnierfdjteMtcÇe Sobfób ®af timg.

Patientia autem vobis neceflaria eft , ut voluntatem Det
facientes reportetis promiflionem.
Hebr. cap. 10.


ekMt aber ift tttdj Mtiitóbtcti / aitff baß iftr bi« (Villen
tijut/ ®nï> erlanget Oie Qüer^eijfiing,
Hebr. cap. 10.
JOR-

Fig. 2: Johann Koch, The Death of Démodés, J. W. Valvasor, Theatrum
mortis humanae tripartitum, 1682,p. 175.

emblems: the copperplate engravings are classical
illustrations which act as compléments to verses in
the sense of instructive visual counterparts. At the
same time they try to underline visually the moral
message or enhance the dramatic aspect of the story.
In Valvasor’s book the images, furnished with short
sayings and epigrams, do not hâve an emblematic
character. After all, Valvasor himself, who was per-
fectly familiar with Baroque emblematics and kept
a greater number of emblem books in his library at
Wagensperg Castle, did not consider the Theatrum as
an emblem book. The impression that the engrav-
ings perform the fonction of emblem images arises
mainly from the above-mentioned structure of the

book and the fact that figurai compositions are very
simplified and straightforward (Fig. 1).
In terms of contents, the copperplate engravings
in the second chapter of the Theatrum mortis prove
that Koch, as a rule, read Valvasor’s verses very pre-
cisely and his visual compléments are as tangible as
possible. A major discrepancy between the content of
the epigram and its illustration occurs only rarely, for
example in the depiction of the tragic story about a
maiden of Okučani, in which Koch replaces the cruel
master who tortures his maidservant with a female
figure (Theatrum mortis, 169). The reasons may be only
guessed at, but it seems that by doing so, the artist
wanted to enhance the expressive power and dramatic
charge of the scene, since from the psychological
standpoint, an image of a heartless woman who tor-
tures a helpless girl produces an even more brutal and
inconceivable effect. If in the case of the maiden of
Okučani at least a potentially possible explanation can
be found for the illustrator’s déviation from the text,
no reasonable excuse can be found for the image of
the death of Democles (Theatrum mortis, 175). Valva-
sor tells the familiar story of the beautiful Athenian
youth who finds himself alone in a public bath with
Demetrius, king of Macedonia, who has courted him,
but Democles kept refusing his attentions. Cornered
in the room with no possibility of escape, Democles
chooses to jump in a hot water cauldron rather than
succumb to the king’s lust. For an unknown reason,
Koch sets the cauldron in an open plain, in front of
architectural background, and, instead of a youth, an
adult bearded man jumps into it (Fig. 2).
Minor déviations or awkward solutions in terms
of content also occur in those cases in which Val-
vasor is not sufficiently précisé in his description of
the circumstances of the event, and Koch, who did
not know the story and its historical or literary con-
text (and did not additionally consult the sources),
conjured up his own image of it. He thus présents
the death of Cleopatra (Theatrum mortis, 125) in an
open landscape setting, although she committed
suicide with the asp when she was in détention in her
palace.32 Likewise, the death of Porcia, the daughter

32 It is also unusual that Koch depicts Cleopatra almost com-
pletely nude. Her bosom being bare in the moment of her
death is otherwise a traditional motif, related to the fact that

humanae ri. not directly classified as emblem book in libraries’
catalogues, it has at least the category of emblem among its
subject headings.

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