2020 Essays

Imitating Raw Nature

Lores-Chavez, Isabella

Several recipes in Ms. Fr. 640 refer to artistic practices of imitating nature. The author-practitioner appears to distinguish between imiter and contrefaire: to “counterfeit” means to create imitations of raw materials that can adequately stand in for the original. This material mimesis is based on firsthand knowledge of the raw substance and presents an opportunity for inquiry about nature’s own processes of creation. The endeavor to create a manmade equivalent impels the artisan to examine closely the peculiarities of the raw material and to seek practicable techniques that can match (without supplanting) nature’s creative forces. This essay examines and reconstructs the recipe for Jaspe contrefaict (Counterfeit Jasper) on fol. 10r as a case study and point from which to begin to contextualize the author-practitioner’s interest in imitation. This essay proposes connections between his modes of inquiry into the physical properties of raw nature and important sixteenth-century epistemological projects, including the Kunstkammer and the work of naturalists theorizing about the geological origins of stones.