[ Music ]
>> Stephanie Stillo: Hi, my
name is Stephanie Stillo.
I'm a curator in the rare books
and special collections
division, and I am delighted
to welcome you to another
segment of From the Vaults.
So, today, we want to
talk about arguably one
of the most important works
in the [inaudible] library,
and it is an illustrated
edition of John Donne,
the 17th century English poet
with original lithographs
by the American artist
June Wayne.
So, to talk about this work
and why it's so important,
we are actually joined by
another John Donne fan,
our resident medievalist
Marianna Stell.
So, Marianna, thank you so
much for joining us today.
>> Marianna Stell:
Stephanie, it's my pleasure.
John Donne has been a favorite
of my fan for a long time,
and I'm thrilled that we have
a copy in [inaudible] Library.
>> Stephanie Stillo:
Marianna, who is John Donne?
Tell me a little bit about him.
>> Marianna Stell: So,
John Donne is a singular
character in the 17th century.
He's a Jacobian poet.
He was dean of Saint Paul's
Cathedral, but he was kind
of an unlikely cleric.
He had a bit of an episode
when he was a young man
where he fell madly in love with
and secretly married
his wife, Anne Moore.
And he was thrown in jail
for a brief period of time
until the families reconciled.
And after that he was
employed in various capacities
until he joined the
Church of England.
So, in that time, he was
working on poetry as well
as some prose writing, and I
was so excited to find the copy
of John Donne's work in the
[inaudible] library, and so,
I'm here to ask you a little bit
more about the artist involved.
So, Stephanie, tell me a little
bit more about June Wayne,
and why this particular
work was so instrumental
in her development as an artist?
>> Stephanie Stillo:
June Wayne is a really
fascinating character.
So, similar to how you were
really interested in John Donne,
I'm very interested
in June Wayne.
So, she was sort of
this Renaissance woman.
So, she was engaged in several
different art forms during her
lifetime, and she
started really early.
So, she had her first gallery
showing when she was a teenager,
and she worked as an
artist for the WPA.
She even worked for
the military working
with blueprints during
World War II.
So, she's just this
amazing woman
that has this incredibly
interesting history.
But what she's really
most famous
for is founding the Tamarind
Lithography Workshop.
And why this is so important
was in the 1940s and 50s,
lithography had really
fallen off as an artform,
as a legitimate artform
for artists to engage with.
And the Tamarind workshop
that she founded really
brought lithography
into sort of the modern era.
Into something that was a
respectable and valued artform.
And what's so interesting
about the songs and sonnets
by John Donne, was that
this was really the book
that launched the
Tamarind workshop.
And so, June was looking
for a lithographer to work
with in the United States to
create these illustrations.
And she wasn't really
having much luck.
She was working with a
lithographer in New York,
and it just wasn't coming
together as a project.
And so, she ended up going
to France, and she worked
with a lithography
workshop in France
with a specific master
printer, and in France
at that time workshops
were quite prolific.
So, artists that wanted to
engage in any really print,
original print form could go
to a certain workshop, and so,
she went to a lithography
workshop,
and she created these beautiful
really experimental fascinating
illustrations for the
poetry of John Donne.
And she was very, very
inspired by this project.
And so, when she came
back to the United States,
she should have used
this portfolio of prince
to prove the worth of an artist
and a master printer working
together and the power
of these images and the quality
of these original lithographs
really is what eventually
convinced the Ford Foundation
to give her the funding
to actually found the
Tamarind Lithography Workshop.
So, it's this really
fundamentally important book,
and we are so lucky to have a
copy in the [inaudible] library.
>> Marianna Stell: So, this is
the project that launched her
as a lithographic artist?
>> Stephanie Stillo:
Yes, absolutely.
She had worked a little bit
with lithography previously.
She had sort of dabbled,
but she was never --
her creativity was never really
unleashed in the way that it was
in this particular work when
she was able to really settle
down with a master printer and
really let the creativity sort
of come to her naturally.
>> Marianna Stell: So, the
John Donne suites are what
inspired her?
>> Stephanie Stillo:
Yes, I think so.
Absolutely.
And I think she was incredibly
committed to this project.
So much that she had to go to
another country to complete it.
So, another really interesting
example is the illustration
that she created for
the poem "The Relic."
And you can see here that
she is using oxidation
on distinct plate to be able
to create these really
interesting organic patterns
throughout the illustration,
throughout the original print.
And then she pairs
that oxidation
with this wonderful contrast
between light and dark.
So, really, really
moving imagery here.
So, this is also a
really lovely example
of her creativity
and experimentation.
And this is probably one
of the most well-known
images from the suite.
So, Wayne often used different
forms of soft of stopping
out to create these differences
between light and dark.
So, she would use
things like sand, right?
She was always very
creative with this.
And this was an early
expression of this creativity.
So, she actually used salt on
the plate as a stopping out.
And so, what it did is that
it created this amazing
and fascinating sort of bite
into the zinc, into the plate
that she was working
with, and so,
you get this incredible
texture sort of throughout
and again these differences
light and dark.
And it's really difficult
to think
that Wayne could have
accomplished this particular
image really in any other way,
and a lot of these methods
that she used to create the
images really throughout this
work became sort of
fundamental to the next 50 years
of creative lithographic
printing.
So, an additional example, and
I think that this is one that,
I think, is really telling.
Is that, so Wayne used
lithography for the reason
that a lot of artists
use lithography.
Is because you're able
to capture these incredibly
dark and resonant blacks.
So, you're able to create
these wonderful moments
that are a stark contrast
between sort of light and dark.
And one of the reasons this
was really important I think
for Wayne, especially
for this project,
was because she was increasingly
becoming very interested
in the cosmos.
So, she was very interested
in space exploration.
She was interested in learning
about the heavens
and the cosmos.
She even worked for
NASA for a little bit,
which is very interesting, or
worked with NASA I should say.
But you can really see
this early interest here
where you have this
wonderful dark background,
and you have these figures that
are sort of embedded as clusters
of stars, and they're kind of
untethered and they're kind
of floating within the cosmos.
And it's just this incredibly
beautiful and creative way
to envision these characters.
>> Marianna Stell:
It's so interesting
that she actually worked
with NASA before because one
of the things that I
noticed when I was leafing
through the first time
I encountered this book
when we first got it, was how
the artist is able to pull
out the starry, the cosmological
images from the suite of prints.
And the first one is a poem
that's titled song and the image
that she pulls out is just from
a single line of Donne's poetry,
and it starts, "Go
catch a falling star."
And the poem is, it's
actually a challenge.
It's kind of a [inaudible]
troupe
where the poet has been
spurned by his lover, and so,
he's giving all these challenges
that are impossible
but also delightful.
And so, he's, "Go
catch a falling star.
Get with child of
mandrake root."
So, all these things that
are impossible to do,
and I think June Wayne is taking
up his challenge where it seems
like it's something
that's impossible
but here she's done a
whole suite of prints
that involves catching
a falling star.
>> Stephanie Stillo: So,
it's interesting to think
about the idea that June Wayne
is engaging in a sort of call
and response with John Donne
from the 17th century poet.
So, that John Donne
sort of put out a call,
and June Wayne is sort
of engaging very directly
with the response.
>> Marianna Stell: I think she's
absolutely engaging directly
with a response.
Her lithographs are
visual translations of much
of what you find in the poem.
She's very engaged visually
with very difficult
images from the poetry.
John Donne is known
as a metaphysical poet
and what this means is that
he uses what we call conceit.
So, very difficult, complicated
metaphors, incongruence imagery
to convey experiences that are
kind of common to humanity,
and June Wayne seems to be
taking some of those images
and playing with them a
little bit in her own way.
And for me, as a
long-time reader of Donne,
it helps me to better
understand Donne.
>> Stephanie Stillo: Interesting
which is arguably some
of the point of illustrations
is to create an interpretation.
>> Marianna Stell: Absolutely.
So, I want to take us back to
an image that you shared before
and talk a little bit
about the poetry behind it.
>> Stephanie Stillo: Great.
>> Marianna Stillo: So, this
poem is called "A Valediction
for Bidding Mourning," and
it's mourning as in sorrow
because the poet is speaking
to his lover, and they have
to part for some reason.
You're not told why, but
they have to physically part,
and it's a poem where he's
offering a kind of comfort.
But the images that he's
using are incongruence
with what we think
of love poetry.
They're very difficult.
They're difficult for the
reader let alone a visual
interpretation which
we'll come to.
So, the first line
of the poem reads,
"As virtuous men pass
mildly away and whisper
to their souls to go."
So, you're opening with an
image of death or almost
where you have a person aware of
both their soul and their body.
And the poet is playing with the
idea that you have both a soul
and a body, and he is
communicating to his lover
that it's the souls in this case
that are connected
rather than the body.
And so, if you're physically
apart it doesn't matter so much
because your souls
are connected.
And he moves from this image
of a kind of death at parting
to saying our love is so
refined, it's like gold leaf.
And so, instead of having a
block of gold, it's spread out,
and so, any kind of
distance is crossed.
And so, it's an expansion,
not a parting.
>> Stephanie Stillo: Beautiful.
>> Marianna Stell: And then he
moves from gold leaf to an image
of a compass, and a compass
is connected at the top.
And that, I'm pretty sure
is what you have here.
So, you have this watery
effect I'm fairly confident is
evocative of this space
between the body and the soul
where Donne spends a lot
of time in his love poetry.
In particular in these poems
in particular in [inaudible].
So, if you notice, the tops
of the heads are
very close together,
and you have these
lines coming out.
And if you think of a compass,
it's connected at the head,
and you have these
two feet coming
out which is exactly
what he says in the poem.
So, if we are two distinct souls
and not one, we are to the way
that a compass has two feet.
And so, this space between
is ultimately you're
still connected.
And the end of the poem,
once you get on this side,
is talking about one the
person who's staying at home
as being the fixed
foot of the compass,
and the person who's
physically leaving
as being the movable foot.
And he's talking about your
steadiness makes my circle just.
And I come back to
where I began.
And the image of the circle for
Donne is enormously important.
It's an image of completion.
It's an image of perfection.
It's sometimes an
image of divine love,
and it's also the image of
the spheres of the cosmos.
>> Stephanie Stillo: Yes, very
much coming back to that idea
of the cosmos yet again.
So, very interesting.
>> Marianna Stell: Throughout
and through both his love poetry
and then later for
his devotional poetry.
The kind of cosmos and the
place of love and connection
between the body and the
soul and the whole connection
between the body and the soul
and the cosmos is something
that he plays with quite a bit.
And it seems like that's one
of the things that June picks
up in her lithography.
>> Stephanie Stillo: Yes,
a really fascinating
visual engagement.
>> Marianna Stell: And very
difficult to communicate.
>> Stephanie Stillo: Yes, right.
>> Marianna Stell:
It's difficult
to communicate in poetry.
You use difficult images and
then you're taking something
that is metaphysical and
using a physical medium
to communicate it and
talk about a challenge.
Go catch a falling star.
So, I was enormously impressed
by what she was able to come
up with with one of
my favorite poems.
>> Stephanie Stillo: Yes,
and perhaps it really
does demonstrate one
of the reasons why she was
so committed to this project.
I mean this is a really
fascinating exercise.
>> Marianna Stell: Absolutely.
>> Stephanie Stillo: So,
one of the first images
that you encounter in this work
is under the title, [inaudible].
So, it's a little bit
different than the other images
that we have seen in
her suite of John Donne,
and I want to talk about
that just a little bit.
It's far less abstract, but
it still does have this sort
of almost ethereal feel to it.
So, do you have any
thoughts on this image
and what's going on here?
>> Marianna Stell: Yes.
Actually, the relationship
between the image
and the poem that's presented
is distinct in this suite.
The poem is not by Donne.
This is a tribute poem that was
printed in the first edition
of his poetry which was
only printed in 1633.
So, two years after
John Donne died.
He was famously averse to the
idea that his poetry be printed,
and so, it circulated
in manuscript form.
And he is remembered as a poet
because other people found
his poetry so amazing
that it was printed
after his death.
And the image is working off
of an actual statute, and so,
the blockiness that you
see here, this stone,
is because it's referencing
an actual monument
that you can go now to Saint
Paul's Cathedral to see.
>> Stephanie Stillo: Oh, wow.
>> Marianna Stell: So, this
monument is one of seven
that was in the old Saint Paul's
where Donne was [inaudible]
and preached, and it
survived the fire of 1666,
one of seven monuments that
did, and so, it was erected
in the new Saint Paul's,
which you can see now.
And Donne was actually
involved in its commission.
So, he sat for it before he
passed away, and the kind
of winding class that
you see him in --
so he had himself be presented
here in his death shroud,
and that sounds morbid.
But Donne was very
interested in the relationship
between the body and the soul,
and he was therefore very
interested in the relationship
between death and the afterlife.
And so, for him and
his divine poetry,
deals a lot with the
overcoming death.
And his publisher plays
with that a little bit.
So, John Marriot's poem
talks about how the sheets
that you see in the statue, the
winding sheets, are referring
to Dunn's death, but the sheets
of the pages of the books
of poetry that you
would buy are eternal.
>> Stephanie Stillo: Beautiful.
>> Marianna Stell: And so,
it's talking about Donne's role
as an artist and the kind of
eternal gift that art brings
as a way of transcending death
which is really kind of perfect
for a perfect encapsulation
of Donne.
He was so influential as a poet.
T.S. Eliot glosses him.
So, many people have
been influenced by him,
and June Wayne has taken him out
of the niche of the cathedral
and put him in the kind of
the cathedral of the cosmos
which is often where
you find yourself
if you're reading his poems.
A little ungrounded.
And so, I love the juxtaposition
between the heaviness
of the stone niche and
then the expanse of the sky
because for me, reading
his poems, you feel both.
>> Stephanie Stillo:
That's beautiful.
And there is this sort of
feeling or sense of eternity
in this image which
is very interesting.
>> Marianna Stell: Within a
conversation between a poem
and Nicholas Stone was
the artist who carved it.
He actually carved a monument
for John Donne's wife as well.
And it's a conversation between
artists who carved a stone,
a publisher who published
the work of an artists,
and then another artist who's
taken an image of this stone
and made her own
lithograph from it.
And so, the layers of art upon
art upon art in the expanse
of the sky seems to be
commenting a bit on a place
of creating within the
umbrella of the universe.
>> Stephanie Stillo:
That's lovely.
Thank you.
Well, Marianna, thank you so
much for talking with me today
about this amazing book and this
amazing poet and amazing artist.
This was great fun.
So, I hope you will join
us for another segment
of From the Vaults where
we explore more treasures
from the rare books and special
collections division as well
as the [inaudible] Library.
[ Music ]