note

The illustration history of the fable that Perry entitles "The Fox before the Tragic Actor's Mask" demonstrates how the meaning of a verse of slim dimension and terse metaphor, in the hands of artists can become a silent elaboration on the role and meaning of art. Perry (1965) translates Phaedrus' Latin verse (I-7) as follows: "A fox, after looking by chance at a tragic actor's mask, remarked: "O what a majestic face is here, but it has no brains!" And the Latin author ends with the following moral: "This is a twit for those to whom Lady Luck has granted rank and renown, but denied them common sense."

With such slim literary detail with which to work, artists were forced to invent scenographies that provided credible ambiance for the event described. It is the medieval Latin tradition the story -- not about a fox, but a wolf (Gibbs, # 550) -- that seems to be the source of Caxton's translation of the Steinhöwel's Latin. Presumably depending upon the non-classical source (It can't be found in Perry's index.), the wolf comes upon a dead man's head and notes that it was once fair and pleasant, but now has neither wit nor beauty. The moral is that man should place no value in beauty of the body, but only in the goodness of the heart. Some people, he continues, receive glory and are worshiped without deserving.

[The scene recalls the Shepherd's discovery of a tomb in Arcady, a memento mori, of sorts. See Panofsky, Et in Arcadia Ego. Also refer to Hamlet's discovery of Yorik's skull.]

The image that accompanies the printed editions in the Steinhowel traditon (Caxton, Macho, etc., and here, in the 1501 Latin edition printed in Basel: by Jacob <Wolff> von Pfortzheim with additions by Sebastian Brant ) shows the corpse discovered or pawed by a wolf, and not the actor's mask inspected by a fox.

The other tradition, which illustrates a fox examining an actor's mask, seems to have been used in contemporary Italian versions, or so it seems based on the Spencer Collection Italian ms. known as the Medici Aesop, which actually copies a 1480 Milan Greek edition (Fahy, introd. p. 8). But that is not the scene depicted in the Paris Wechel 1536 edition of Alciati, repeated in Salomon's 1547 Alciati, and in many others, I presume. In these, obviously still thinking of the medieval version, the mask does not appear; rather, the fox examines a sculpted head" "Une teste faict de marbre," which he discovers while passing by a tree.

Curiously, in some mid 16th Aesop cycles, such as Salomon's presumed source, the Janot 1542 Aesop, for instance, the Wolf continues to appear. Janot's places the scene outside (like the Steinwowel images). But no longer is this a story about finding a dead man, but rather about finding a sculpted head, as suggested by Antoine du Moulin's text, which places the scene "chez un tailleur d'images". The Janot ignors the accompanying text and instead follows the illustrated Alciati example. Salomon's de Tournes Aesop, using the same translation as in the Janot, pays closer attention to the text and also seems to fuse the two traditions. The de Tournes title is "Du Loup & de la teste," and the scene is now the interior of a busy sculptor's studio.

As an artist trained in the Fontainebleau tradition of Primaticcio, one wonders what Salomon must have brought to this image and its meaning. Could the classical repertoire of forms that populate the studio have meant to undermine the wolf's conclusion, or do they reinforce the fable's iconoclastic purpose, undermining the faith in the efficacy of religious imagery. Given the emerging Protestant criticism of Catholic image-making, one might conclude that this image serves reformist aims: To accompany this fable Antoine du Moulin writes, "O belle teste en artifice, le reconguois en toy un vice. Tu as de beauté grand' largesse, Mais tu n'as ne sens ne sagesse." So much is expected, but he continues, noting that the human body is not capable of "science spirituelle."

Subsequent translations and illustrations, while not going back to Phaedrus's Latin, reinstate the fox, but are ambivalent about whether the fox has discovered a mask or a sculpted head. La Fontaine, who manipulates the story so that it includes both mask and "buste," has the fox inspect the sculpture, praise its art and lament it lack of brains. L'Estrange, probably depending more on pictures than text, calls it a "Carv'd head," while most translators are content with one form of a mask or other.

The iconographical history, which I have not investigated thoroughly, seems to continue this ambivalence. Bewick depicts a shop filled with "vizor" masks (actors' masks), while l'Estrange shows a studio or gallery environment filled with sculpture. In his text, the fox -- a connoisseur in these matters -- "finds one extraordinary piece" among many. La Fontaine contrasts the understanding of the Ass with that of the Fox. The Ass, like the "idolatrous public" sometimes raises the mask to prominence, looking only at the outside. The clever fox can penetrate the "inane facade" of images. (Translation of Eunice Clark, in Jean de la Fontaine, Selected Fables, New York, Dover, 1968 republishing edition of 1948 with illustrations by Alexander Calder.)

I suspect in the end an analysis of these traditions might tell us something about how art and figure-making were viewed over the centuries. In either case, what seems promulgated in the Aesopian tale, and in its illustration history is awareness of the failure of the primitive, shamanistic effort to equate metaphorically, representation and substance. But at the same time, perhaps through its silence, it fails to acknowledge the purpose of art as a commentary and continuation of the human condition -- admittedly, a task too remote from the purpose of fable. One never expects Aesopian tales to be told from both sides. Morals are always clear, never complex.