The Gallery of the College of Staten Island/CUNY is pleased to announce the opening of “The Proverbial Realism of Jacob Cats’s Baroque Emblemata,” the final exhibition of the 2010 fall semester. The exhibition, anonymously lent to the Gallery, displays a sampling of emblems from a 1726 edition of the collected works of this famous Dutch poet, philosopher, and moralist who was nicknamed “Father Cats.” The leaves are composed in the traditional emblem format in three parts: inscriptio, pictura, and subscription, which is, motto, image, and explication. The images, engraved after the designs of Adriaen van de Venne, and the texts focus on the issues and values of early modern urban life. The playful texts are frequently given in various languages including Latin, French, English, German, and Dutch and are drawn from canonical authors as well as from popular proverbs.
The exhibition runs from Wednesday, Nov. 17 to Saturday, Dec. 18. Please join us for the opening reception on Wednesday, Nov. 17 from 5:00pm to 7:00pm. For further information call 718.982.2553 or visit our Website.
