Paper short abstract:

This paper aims to investigate how works of art were (re)contextualised by the means of additional narrative texts on the margins of the image in sixteenth-century single sheet prints.

Paper long abstract:

A considerable number of sixteenth-century reproductive prints differed from modern artistic reproductions at least in one respect; namely they contained not only a depiction of an image but also a narrative text concerning the topic of the depiction. Images printed in hundreds of single sheets were published to a much broader audience than the circle of privileged viewers of a painting or a fresco. Loosing their original context, both in space and regarding the audience, these images needed (new) interpretation. Printmakers and publishers applied explanatory or supplementary texts to give new meaning or reassure the original message of the reproduced image. By the means of mixing image and text, these prints were intended to spread visual information about a certain piece of art, but they were also meant to transmit textual knowledge about antique mythology and history, or they served to enhance religious thoughts and meditation on a certain topic. Image and text were read simultaneously in these single sheets, thus literary references were used parallel to pictorial allusions. By decoding both visual and textual messages of the prints, this paper aims to get a more detailed picture on the early history of reproductions. Most importantly, it is intended to show that the notion of artistic value did not completely overshadow the "functional value" of these prints. Although prints slowly changed their status and became collectors´ objects valued for the mediation of style and famous images, in certain cases they were still similar to devotional prints of the fifteenth century.