The Absent Image: Lacunae in Medieval Books by Elina Gertsman

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Absent Image: Lacunae in Medieval Books by Elina Gertsman Dominic Marner Elina Gertsman, The Absent Image: Lacunae in Medieval Books. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2021. 256 pp., 58 color & 62 b/w ills. $124.95. ISBN: 9780271087849. Elina Gertsman asserts in The Absent Image that “it is the Kaisheim void, which haunts the whole book” (159). Although she is here referring [End Page 406] to a series of parchment holes penetrating the fabric of late-medieval manuscripts, the Kasheim void does indeed haunt her own book, a motif that both penetrates and binds the analytical framework and the development of each chapter, much like the parchment holes she is considering. The Kasheim void, a blank, empty, or unfinished circle, in the Genesis initial of the Kasheim Bible is contemplated in the introduction of this remarkable, erudite, and fascinating book. Suggestively titled “Nothing Is the Matter,” Gertsman deftly observes in the introduction that the empty space in the Kasheim initial is not empty, but instead enables the words, or perhaps more accurately, the Word, on the next folio to be seen through the emptiness by the reader or viewer. As she eloquently states, “The fecundity of emptiness constitutes the subject of this book, which treats absence, in its many forms, as a generative presence” (3). The idea of emptiness, whether it be unfinished decoration or erasures through devotional touching or the incorporation of what we might consider defective parchment in the manuscript, is carefully explored throughout the remaining chapters, and the interaction of the viewer’s or reader’s role in negotiating these seemingly problematic spaces leads Gertsman to convincingly suggest that there is a “generative quality of empty spaces” (9). The remaining chapters: “Imaginary Realms,” “Phantoms of Emptiness,” “Traces of Touch,” and “Penetrating the Parchment,” tease out the fascinating and sometimes startling ways in which lacunae generate meaning in these late-medieval books. The first chapter, “Imaginary Realms,” is a very useful introduction to the scientific, philosophical, and theological writings about emptiness, absence, nothingness, and blankness. Naturally, the notion of nothingness begins with a discussion of Creation, the ultimate void, and incorporates both early medieval thinkers such as Origen and Augustine as well as the more contemporary Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, and Henry of Ghent, to name a few. A particularly fascinating intervention in the exegesis of nothingness is Gertsman’s analysis of the numeral zero and its implications when considering empty space, whether that be mathematical or physical: a form, as Gertsman claims, that both captures and confines the void, and, as a sign for nothing, is the linguistic equivalent of nihil. The motif of the “empty” Kasheim void is then evoked provocatively by the author as the reader is reminded of both the circularity of zero and the concept of nihil. In chapter 2, Gertsman argues that the “Phantoms of Emptiness” are an invitation to the reader to meditate on the framed empty spaces. The Kasheim [End Page 407] void evokes “a stark placeholder for the emptiness of the universe” (39). An aspect of the invitation for the reader to participate with the image appears in the form of empty speech scrolls or banderoles that denote oral communication between the figures represented and the reader themselves. Although many do contain text, they are often blank, sometimes indicating “temporary silence or emergent speech” (44). Such is the case with an image of Zachariah, after he is struck dumb in the Temple. Although the form of the empty scroll seems quite distinct and possibly quite different from the previous examples of empty framed spaces, like the Kasheim void, it does provide Gertsman an opportunity to explore the boundaries of the absent image, albeit perhaps an absent text, or voice, as the case may be. The meditation of the page may lead to the touching of the parchment, the focus of chapter 3, “Traces of Touch.” In a sensitive equivocation, Gertsman begins: “The semiotic vulnerability of an empty frame is matched only by the vulnerability of the emptied frame: of an image erased, effaced, or rubbed off” (83). Gertsman carefully leads the reader through a series of examples of erasure and the extent to...