Men of fl owers Peter Lyssiotis and Humphrey McQueen

As part of its 50th anniversary Peter Lyssiotis: Men of fl owers is tweaks and variations that can be celebrations in 2009, the Baillieu an artist’s book. OK, but what is an played on the codex. As a form it Library commissioned a special copy artist’s book? Well, I’m glad that reminds me of those folk songs which of Peter Lyssiotis’s and Humphrey no one has come up with a fully- begin in the mists of time and come McQueen’s artist’s book, Men of working defi nition because that down to us through the digital fog fl owers. Of the ten copies and three would immediately fence in a form of the 21st century, changed, but still artist’s proofs that make up the that is omnivorous and depends on identifi able, acknowledging their limited edition of this book, the ranging widely and using so many of beginnings. Another characteristic University of ’s copy the possibilities on offer in the arts that books and folk songs share is (no. 1) has a fi ne leather cover with (and life). Of course, the French have their demand for a story—a narrative a raised image of Darwin’s hawk had a go at knocking up a defi nition in which something happens or an moth (Xanthopan morgani), while and it was Marcel Duchamp who idea is thought through or played on the Erasmus leather bookplate came closest when he told us: ‘it’s an as a variation or refi nement of a story. has an etching of the orchid upon artist’s book if the artist says it is …’, The narrative in Men of fl owers which this remarkable moth feeds but that’s too easy; too French. revolves around Charles Darwin. (Angraecum sesquipedale). The book If we look at what an artist’s As a way of introducing the narrative is accompanied by a set of printer’s book isn’t—what it doesn’t do—we I have to ask a couple of questions: proofs, working notes and drafts, and will get a clearer perspective of what how many of us have written journals a specimen of the hawk moth. it is—an indication, a suggestion, and made drawings in them? Well, The year 2009 marked not only though not a clear defi nition. A book so did Darwin. We know of 18 the 50th anniversary of the opening of by an artist doesn’t need a brief, it certifi ed journals that he kept. How the Baillieu Library, but also the 200th is not made with a target group in many of us have been on trips that anniversary of the birth of Charles mind nor does it have a key message. we really didn’t want to embark on? Darwin and the 150th anniversary Once it is made, it doesn’t fall into Well Darwin, being shy and reclusive, of the publication of On the origin step with a marketing strategy; nor was by nature a stay-at-home-man, of species by means of natural selection. does it follow corporate guidelines. and yet he left on a fi ve-year voyage Men of fl owers, exploring as it does It doesn’t carry house colours, nor a on the Beagle. How many of us have the work of three great 19th-century brand name, and you won’t identify collected stuff? Well, Darwin was a scientists—Darwin, Joseph Hooker it by its distinctive logo. collector too. The story is told that and Gregor Mendel—combined with But they are books and Men of as a kid he saw three beetles; he typesetting, illustration and binding fl owers wholeheartedly adopts the picked one up with his left hand, of the highest quality, brings all codex as part of its theatre. How and the other with his right, but he these threads together in one superb long have we been living with the also wanted the third beetle; so he volume that adds to the Baillieu’s codex? Some 2,000 years—and yet popped one of the beetles he was already considerable collection of as a form it hasn’t been exhausted holding into his mouth and grabbed artists’ books. and that’s because there are so many the third one before it escaped.

8 University of Melbourne Collections, Issue 8, June 2011 Men of fl owers, text by Humphrey McQueen, illustrations by Peter Lyssiotis, [Melbourne]: Masterthief, 2010. Purchased by the Baillieu Library to celebrate its 50th anniversary, 2009. Baillieu Library Special Collections, University of Melbourne. Example of illustration.

How many of us have hidden not. Just look at some of the things They also show the ageing they letters, diaries, drawings and other that in the last couple of years have suffered from being secreted ‘treasures’—stuff you didn’t want have had the dust blown off them: away—hidden away for nearly 200 anyone else to see? Well, given Christ’s burial papers were found on years. So those enemies of librarians Darwin’s personality and his the Shroud of Turin in the Vatican; and bibliophiles: the damp, the experience of life after On the origin Elvis’s hair has been resurrected from silverfi sh, the chemicals in paper, of species, I’m sure that he too would a 1958 haircut by a barber now living insects and neglect have all fulfi lled have secreted stuff away. Men of in Chicago; Fritz Lang’s complete their divine mission. When we look fl owers is based on the 99 per cent three-and-a-half hour version of at these images of plants and fl owers likelihood that there was a 19th Metropolis has been uncovered in we end up asking ourselves how journal, somewhere, which Darwin Argentina, and a coded fragment much completion or fi nal resolution had hidden and never revealed of writing by Leonardo da Vinci do we really need in order to because he didn’t want to court any has been discovered in a library in understand what we’re looking at; more controversy. Men of fl owers France. So even to a sceptic, the 19th and how much should we allow speculates that this ‘missing’ journal journal shouldn’t seem so improbable! colour to carry some of the burden was kept out of psychological In this journal, whose drawings of recognition, of identifi cation? necessity: to relieve the tensions are being reproduced for the fi rst Why Humphrey McQueen’s of being away from home, of time in Men of fl owers, we can see essay at the start of Men of fl owers? relationships on the Beagle and as a how Darwin had occupied himself Again, book tradition dictates that relief from the scientifi c rigour with with drawing in coloured pencils. Yet fl orilegia be prefaced by a learned which he kept the other 18 journals. why are the resulting drawings not essay. (And besides, Madame In the ‘missing’ journal we see Darwin the ones we are accustomed to seeing Inspiration told me it was going to focusing on the beauty to be found in fl orilegia? Well, they were made be good for Humphrey to wade into in the sexual properties of fl owers. according to Darwin’s mood at the an unfamiliar pool!) ‘Let us imagine’, as Darwin himself time; so the traditional, surgically- Why the 30 point typeface? directed, that he kept such a journal, white background has given way to Because it suits the formal demands then secreted it in his local library colour. And the drawings themselves of the book and the Bodoni smells in Kent—he’d already been through aren’t stiffened by detail, rather they of the 19th century. Why is Men the turmoil of publishing On the are as they might appear in a corner of fl owers a big book? Because origin of species—and would naturally of a painting by W.M. Turner, but illustrated books of botanical have wanted to avoid any further enlarged. So it’s the emotion behind specimens have traditionally been controversy. Darwin’s pencil work, rather than his ‘elephant folios’—and if you choose And what if I found the 19th scientifi c observation, which comes to work in the fi eld of books journal while researching steam into play here. They were made, then there should always be an locomotion in the Kent public after all, to ward off depression, acknowledgment of their origins, library? Impossible? Well, probably homesickness and loneliness. their history.

Peter Lyssiotis and Humphrey McQueen, ‘Men of fl owers’ 9 Men of fl owers, detail of leather binding.

I continue to believe in books of specialisation which hamstring but rather welcome his friendship even though I live and breathe our times: here we are with a because of the qualities in his work, under a digital sky. I happen to agree faculty of this, a school of that, or a qualities which speak to character. with Stephane Mallarmé who said department of some other. A book When he refl ected on his something to the effect that all life by artists lets in anything it can and inspirations for the magazine of exists in order to end up in a book. then synthesises it into its thinking. the Socialist Alliance, Seeing Red, I also believe that books are, as As Neil Young told me once, ‘… it’s he tied his practice to the German André Malraux taught us, museums all one song’. anti-fascist photomonteur, John without walls and as such give work Heartfi eld: a longer and less frenetic life than Author’s acknowledgements: A couple of the standard four-week exhibition. acknowledgements are necessary because without Photomontage has the sort of It was John Donne who in a sermon the vision of a group of people Men of fl owers enemies that ordinary people do. reminded us that no man is an island, wouldn’t have happened in the way it has: Angela Bridgland, Jock Murphy, Pam Pryde, the Bindery entire of itself, and I respect the long of Wayne Stock—especially Imogen Yang and Political photomontage allows you queue of book history—where no Monica Oppen—and of course, Humphrey to read between the lies. single book is ‘IT’. I believe books McQueen. exist best in companionship with When you act in the interests other books; isn’t that why we stack Peter Lyssiotis is a Cypriot-born Australian of your class, it’s an absolute writer, photographer and photomonteur. His them so tightly next to each other? photographs and limited edition artist’s books necessity. It’s not an act of bravery. And is it not possible that while we have been purchased by private collectors, are not listening they pass on their libraries and galleries throughout , That manifesto illustrates that Peter the US, Switzerland, France, the Netherlands secrets to each other, in one huge and Cyprus. is more than capable of providing Chinese whisper? And how they his own texts, for he is a prose poet, ‘grow’ as they welcome and absorb whimsical and sage. each whisper, once they’ve left Humphrey McQueen: Friendship Throughout our encounters, Peter our hands! and vanity account for my writing kept saying that he wanted to match Let us imagine what James Joyce’s the introductory essay to Peter a piece of my writing with his image- Ulysses would have to say to the Lyssiotis’s latest book, Men of making. Our collaboration on Men Koran; or Sam Beckett’s Godot would fl owers.1 The vanity is in my desire of fl owers began by his asking whether whisper to Das Kapital, or De Sade to be associated with the creativity I could suggest someone to provide to the Bible, Jack Kerouac to Marcel of one of our country’s premier an essay to accompany a fl orilegium. Proust … ah, to be able to listen in. visual artists. Before we met, I Only later did it occur that this Perhaps the aspect of Men of admired Peter’s marriage of technical plea for advice might have been fl owers that continues to appeal to excellence with political perspicuity. bait to get me to fulfi l my promise me the most is how it refuses to I do not praise his achievements to collaborate—one day. Unable fall into step with those notions because we have become friends, to suggest an appropriate author,

10 University of Melbourne Collections, Issue 8, June 2011 I did offer to help out by writing crafted and open-minded Darwin’s What do Darwin’s divergent a parallel text, not a botanical century, which led me to Eiseley’s reactions reveal about his method? commentary on the species he was brief paper ‘How fl owers changed the His hypothetical-deductions did reworking. ‘Something on Darwin’ world’ (1957), which no one should not protect him from making two was as precise as I came, spurred leave school without enjoying. These gross errors. To what degree were by the commemorations that year two volumes introduced the puzzles they the outcome of what Marx starting with the exhibition from around which I developed the essay called ‘the crude English method of New York’s American Museum of for Men of fl owers. development’ inbibed from Sir John Natural History at the National Eiseley’s account of Darwin’s Herschel, who anyway dismissed Museum of Australia in . responses to the two toughest natural selection as ‘the law of 2009 was also the sesquicentenary challenges to natural selection higgledy-piggledy’? for two of my other favourites: is itself a challenge to Gishelin’s ‘Something on Darwin’ was Marx’s A contribution to the critique claim that Darwin triumphed by a chance to draw on two of my of political economy and Wagner’s hypothetico-deductive reasoning. long-standing and interlocked Tristan and Isolde. Jacques Barzun Nothing that the likes of Bishop concerns: the fi rst is the place of had brought that trio together in Wilberforce fl ung at On the origin colour in Australian life; the second 1941 with an assertion of Gallic of species came within coo-ee of is historical materialism where superiority and philosophical the damage wrought by William teleology is the Great Satan. Stephen idealism. Pondering Barzun’s Thompson (later Lord Kelvin) Jay Gould and Niles Eldridge had disparagement of Darwin, Marx and the engineer-mathematician exposed the god-structured thinking and Wagner for being mechanical Fleeming Jenkin. among the perfect adaptationists. materialists is a way to grapple Thompson came up with an Atheists now have to hunt down with them as exemplars of issues estimate of the earth’s age at less than remnants of teleology in writings by that dominated the long 20th 100 million years, which allowed too Marxists and neo-Darwinists. To be century. Darwin was the odd man few generations for single cells to historical materialists, Marxists must out, certainly a materialist but no evolve into homo sapiens. To make up be a-telic. Contrary to conventional dialectician. the lost time, Darwin back-pedalled wisdom, Marx was a proto-Popperian My promise gained substance from natural and sexual selection into and Popper a closet Marxist. after fi nding Michael Gishelin’s acquired characteristics. Meanwhile, The triumph of Darwinian method Jenkin pointed out that every Colour (1969) in the second-hand bookshop initial variation would be swamped Colour intersects with the teleology at Swifts Creek and Loren Eiseley’s through blending, the prevailing of the perfect adaptationists. Darwin’s century (1958) on my notion of inheritance. Here, Darwin Darwin’s account of sexual selection own shelves—unread. If I had did attempt a re-conceptualisation pictured fl owers as a device to attract to recommend only one book on by advancing pangenesis, long insects and birds for the pollinations Darwin it would be the superbly acknowledged as his biggest mistake. that result in stronger progeny.

Peter Lyssiotis and Humphrey McQueen, ‘Men of fl owers’ 11 Example of typesetting, Men of fl owers.

This botanical process crossed my explication of scientifi c advances By late June 2009, I had to accept research into the place of colour in by great minds encountering each that I had run out of time to work out Australian life—human pigments, other across a vacuum: ‘If only whether a want of dialectical reasoning vegetation, Wunderlich roofs and Darwin had read Mendel, 60 years in Darwin’s method was why he had Don Dunstan’s shorts. Although of delay and bickering in reaching retreated from his great insight. The my concerns are socio-cultural, the neo-Darwinian synthesis could essay stopped short at a survey of how I had to bone up on the physics have been avoided.’ Nonsense. No fl owers changed Darwin’s world, aided and physiology of perception to one in the 19th century had the by his closest friend Joseph Hooker, understand why ‘redness’ is not a mental tools with which to rescue while the defeat of ‘blending’ came primary quality of a Jonathan apple. natural selection from blending or to be identifi ed with a third man of Hence, what an insect registers is pangenesis. The way forward awaited fl owers, Gregor Mendel. not necessarily what the human more than the mathematising of the eye-brain perceives. In addition, life sciences prevalent in 1870. Limited editions the Stephen Pinkers have to be Peter’s admirers puzzle over why he reminded that, until 80 years ago, Teleology confi nes so much of his fi nest work pink was for boys. After Marx’s fi rst reading of On to limited editions. Artists’ books the origin of species, he rejoiced that embody a confl ict between reaching Historical materialism Darwin had both vanquished and the masses and becoming a creature Ever since reading Gould’s Ever since grounded teleology—an Hegelian of mass marketing. Post-war artists Darwin (1977), I have been alert to Aufhebung: ‘not only is the death- around New York either went in for the biological dimension of human blow dealt here for the fi rst time to abstraction—Pollock and Rothko— activities for, as Marx stressed, we are ‘teleology’ in the natural sciences but to avoid the capitalist realism that part of nature. Gould’s oeuvre served its rational meaning is empirically is advertising, or they mocked its as a model of what it means to be a explained …’ totalitarian reach through mimicry, materialist and to reason dialectically. This view was shared by Charles as with Warhol and Oldenburg. Although historians must and Francis Darwin and Thomas The extreme was the conceptualists’ never judge the rightness of any Huxley for whom natural selection refusal to produce objects. Peter’s explanation about the natural world, has no goal beyond survival. The meticulous practice is far from that we are experienced at interrogating colour in plants was for propagation, reaction yet richer in thoughtfulness what people say, a knack applicable not to convey the creator’s benign than most who sought refuge from to how scientists describe the world. aesthetic. Nonetheless, any recasting commodifi cation by eschewing the In particular, we can dissect their of purpose leaves the door ajar for maker’s hand. Artists’ books are a logic and weigh their choice of perfect adaptationists to slip back collective labour between the image- words. into god-structured thinking, often maker, printer and binder. Typically, A materialist historian refutes turning natural selection into Peter encouraged an apprentice to any philosophically idealist an actor. bind one set of his montages with her

12 University of Melbourne Collections, Issue 8, June 2011 Peter Lyssiotis, example of illustration, Men of fl owers.

idea of the Madagascan moth that fertilises Darwin’s orchid (a detail of the binding is illustrated on page 11). That unique volume is in the Baillieu Library’s rare book collection. By 2111, will all printed books be rare? It is becoming harder to fi nd commercial publishers for books about teleology. Websites offer access to such writings, as the eBook might do. But can we know Capital, On the origin of species or the score of Tristan without scribbling in their margins? Colour is sidelined in projects for digitising. Looking back to the elephant pages of David Roberts and John Gould, the models for two of Peter’s projects, will it be possible to encounter their glories on an iPhone?

Humphrey McQueen is a Canberra-based freelance historian.

1 Humphrey McQueen’s text for Men of fl owers can be found at http://home.alphalink.com. au/~loge27/Science/science_men_fl owers.htm

Peter Lyssiotis and Humphrey McQueen, ‘Men of fl owers’ 13