#speech scrolls

the sick lion king

illustrations for the fable geschundener wolf, from a manuscript containing various astronomical and medical treatises, prayers, fables, and other texts. produced in bavaria, c. 1477-96

noah's ark / the burning bush / allegorical image of the virgin mary as the enclosed garden and paradise of all delights

full-page miniatures from a manuscript originally created in east anglia, c. 1190-1200, containing a picture cycle of the life of christ. the book was transformed in northern england, c. 1480-90, when a second cycle of images and texts (rosary prayers and others) was integrated into the earlier cycle. the miniatures above make part of these late medieval additions.

I spent some time looking through the internet for creative use of speech bubbles in modern comics, but I couldn’t find any that were quite as interesting or had quite the same meta quality as Renaissance era speech scrolls. 

Many images show the scrolls coming out of peoples’ mouths, indicating that definitely represent literal speech. But in other cases, like the figure on the far left, they appear to exist as physical objects being carried. Do the scrolls exist within the world of the image, or are they merely their for the viewer/reader to see? There’s a level of abstraction to these scrolls that suggest the beginnings of modern or abstract art. Instead of simply ascribing objects and people to the concepts they’re commonly associated with like art did up until this time, the artist or illustrator adds a hint of surrealism to the picture. 

At the same time, it could obviously be argued that speech scrolls lead to speech bubbles and the modern art of cartooning. Interesting that these Renaissance images could be the birth of both a kind of “high art” (modernism, surrealism, etc.) and “low art.” (cartoons, comics, graphic novels) With that said, this is the most creative use of speech bubble I could find from the 21st century, though I’m sure there are more out there.