See My Meaning?
- Details
- Published on Monday, 09 January 2012 21:16
- Written by Matthew Robinson
New pictorial “dictionary” lets writer interpret
By Matt Robinson
Most of us look to the Dictionary as an authoritative tome that clearly defines and declares what a word means (at least in the parlance of the time in which it was written). For graphologue and engraver John Carrera, however, the dictionary (particularly Noah Webster’s esteemed edition) served as a jumping-off point for definitions and declarations of his own. In his Pictorial Webster’s (Chronicle), Carrera compiles the intricate and often astonishingly beautiful woodcuts and linotypes that illustrated Webster’s famous folio and presents them both in alphabetical and in a more personal and potentially provocative order. The result is an artistic collection that pays tribute to an older work and opens it up for newer interpretations. While Carrera makes many of these interpretations explicit in his well-researched, annotated reference reimagining (which includes a “pancreas” of notes and remembrances that explains everything from the history of the dictionary to the tools used by both the original artists and Carrera himself used, including the mysterious and somewhat magical “Andrew’s Wiggle”), there is still plenty of room in this chucky volume for the reader to make up their own minds and to take those minds to new places, no longer or at least less encumbered by the strict structure of Webster’s original intent.
