MDDM Ch. 71 Copper-Plate 'Morphosis

[Dave Monroe]

"Mason is able to inspect the long Map, fragrant,
elegantly cartouch'd with Indians and Instruments, at
last.  Ev'ry place they ran it, ev'ry House pass'd by,
Road cross'd, the Ridge'lines and Creeks, Forests and
Glades, Water ev'rywhere, and the Dragon nearly
visible.  'So,-- so.  This is the Line as all shall
see it after its Copper-Plate 'Morphosis,-- and all
History remember?  This is what ye expect me to sign
off on?'

[...]

   "'This is beauteous Work.  Emerson was right,
Jeremiah.  You were flying, all the time.'
   "Dixon, his face darken'd by the Years of Weather,
may be allowing himself to blush in safety.  'Could
have us'd a spot of Orpiment, all the same.  Some
Lapis ...?'" (M&D, Ch. 71, p. 689)

Hm.  No cartouches, Native Americans, instruments,
what have you, much less dragons ("nearly visible" or
otherwise), but, again ...

http://www.mdarchives.state.md.us/msa/speccol/sc2200/sc2221/000017/000013/html/0000.html

http://www.ottosell.de/pynchon/md/mdindex.html

So if anybody knows of any OTHER more likely extant
vintage map, please do let us know ...

"Copper-Plate 'Morphosis"

Main Entry: cop·per·plate 
Pronunciation: 'kä-p&r-"plAt
Function: noun
Date: 1663
1 : an engraved or etched copper printing plate; also
: a print made from such a plate
2 : a neat script handwriting based on engraved models

"a spot of Orpiment"

Main Entry: or·pi·ment 
Pronunciation: 'or-p&-m&nt
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from
Latin auripigmentum, from aurum + pigmentum pigment
Date: 14th century
: native orange to lemon-yellow arsenic trisulfide 

"Some Lapis"

Main Entry: la·pis la·zu·li 
Pronunciation: "lap-&s-'la-z&-lE, -'la-zh&-
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Medieval Latin, from
Latin lapis + Medieval Latin lazuli, genitive of
lazulum lapis lazuli, from Arabic lAzaward -- more at
AZURE
Date: 15th century
: a semiprecious stone that is usually rich azure blue
and is essentially a complex silicate often with
spangles of iron pyrites -- called also lapis

http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary

>From Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in
Fifteenth-Century Italy: A Primer in the Social
History of Pictorial Style (New York: Oxford UP,
1972), Ch. 1, Sec. I, "Conditions of Trade" ... 

"The quality and chemical makeup of blue pigment was
carefully stipulated in 14th and 15th century
contracts between patrons and painters in Italy. 
After gold and silver, ultramarine was the most
expensive and difficult colour the painter used. 
There were cheap and dear grades and there were even
cheaper substitutes generally referred to as German
blue.  (Ultramarine was made from powdered lapis
lazuli expensively imported from the Levant; the
powder was soaked several times to draw off the best
and most expensive....)  To avoid being let down about
blues, clients specified ultramarine.... The painters
and their public were alert to all this and the exotic
and dangerous character of ultramarine was a means of
accent that we, for whom dark blue is probably no more
striking than scarlet or vermilion, are liable to
miss....  Even beyond this the contracts point to a
sophistication about blues, a capacity to discriminate
between one and another, with which our own culture
does not equip us." (p. 11)

http://www.philipresheph.com/a424/study/bax.doc

http://www.canuck.com/Esalon/Footnotes.html#Footnote%2019

And see as well ...

Ball, Philip.  Bright Earth: Art and the Invention
   of Color.  NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2002.

Gage, John.  Color and Meaning: Art, Science, and
   Symbolism.  Berkeley: U of California P, 2000.

And, here, esp. ...

Pastoureau, Michel.  Blue: The History of a Color.
   Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2001.

And maybe even ...

Kristeva, Julia.  "Stabat Mater."  The Kristeva
   Reader.  Ed. Toril Moi.  NY: Columbia UP, 1986.
   160-86.

Recalling that blue (lapis) + gold (orpiment) = The
Virgin (America?) ...

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