Mise en abyme

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Las Meninas by Velázquez, used by Gide to demonstrate the technique of mise en abyme
Infinite abyss of similar star polygons

In

Western art history, mise en abyme (French pronunciation: [miz ɑ̃n‿abim]; also mise en abîme) is a formal[further explanation needed] technique of placing a copy of an image within itself, often in a way that suggests an infinitely recurring sequence. In film theory and literary theory, it refers to the technique of inserting a story within a story. The term is derived from heraldry and means "placed into abyss". It was first appropriated for modern criticism by the French author André Gide
.

A common sense of the phrase is the visual experience of standing between two mirrors, seeing as a result an infinite reproduction of one's image.[1] Another is the Droste effect, in which a picture appears within itself, in a place where a similar picture would realistically be expected to appear.[2] That is named after the 1904 Droste cocoa package, which depicts a woman holding a tray bearing a Droste cocoa package, which bears a smaller version of her image.[3]

Heraldry

Coat of arms of the United Kingdom, 1816–1837

In the terminology of heraldry, the abyme or abisme is the center of a coat of arms. The term mise en abyme (also called inescutcheon) then meant “put/placed in the center”. It described a coat of arms that appears as a smaller shield in the center of a larger one (see Droste effect).

A complex example of mise en abyme is seen in the

for the period 1801–1837, as used by Kings George III, George IV and William IV. The crown of Charlemagne is placed en abyme within the escutcheon of Hanover
, which in turn is en abyme within the arms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.

Medieval examples

Southwestern entrance mosaic of Hagia Sophia, Constantinople, depicting both Hagia Sophia itself and Constantinople, both offered to Jesus and the Virgin Mary
Further information: Mathematics and art

While

Constantine I offers the city of Constantinople
(now known as Istanbul), which itself contains the Hagia Sophia.

More medieval examples can be found in the collection of articles Medieval mise-en-abyme: the object depicted within itself,

Vatican Museum, which features Cardinal Giacomo Gaetani Stefaneschi as the giver of the altarpiece.[5]

Critical theory and art history

In

Western art history, mise en abyme is a formal technique in which an image contains a smaller copy of itself, in a sequence appearing to recur infinitely; "recursion" is another term for this. The modern meaning of the phrase originates with the author André Gide who used it to describe self-reflexive embeddings in various art forms and to describe what he sought in his work.[4] As examples, Gide cites both paintings such as Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez and literary forms such as William Shakespeare's use of the "play within a play" device in Hamlet, where a theatrical company presents a performance for the characters that illuminate a thematic aspect of the play itself. This use of the phrase mise en abyme was picked up by scholars and popularized in the 1977 book Le récit spéculaire. Essai sur la mise en abyme by Lucien Dällenbach.[6]

In mass media

Recursive computer screenshots

Mise en abyme occurs in a text when there is a reduplication of images or concepts referring to the textual whole. Mise en abyme is a play of signifiers within a text, of sub-texts mirroring each other.

La Nuit américaine (1973) by François Truffaut
.

In

Band of Outsiders
(1964).

In literary criticism, mise en abyme is a type of frame story, in which the core narrative may be used to illuminate some aspect of the framing story. The term is used in deconstruction and deconstructive literary criticism as a paradigm of the intertextual nature of language, that is, of the way, language never quite reaches the foundation of reality because it refers in a frame-within-a-frame way, to another language, which refers to another language, and so forth.[10][page needed]

In

video games, the first chapter of the game There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension
(2020) is titled "Mise en abyme".

In

The Inside Outtakes (2022) by Bo Burnham contains a chapter titled "Mise en abyme". It shows footage being projected into a monitor that is captured by the camera, slightly delayed at each step. This effect highlights the disconnection between Burnham and the project during the artistic process.[citation needed
]

See also

Look up mise en abyme in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mise en abyme.

References

  1. ISBN 978-0-9808689-1-3
    .
  2. ISBN 90-272-2574-5
  3. ISBN 0-521-47866-9
  4. ^ a b Medieval mise-en-abyme: the object depicted within itself (collection of papers) Archived 2013-11-02 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ Giotto di Bondone and assistants: Stefaneschi triptych
  6. ^ Lucien Dällenbach, Le récit spéculaire. Essai sur la mise en abyme, Paris, Seuil, 1977
  7. ^ Hayward, Susan. "Mise-en-abime" in Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts (Third Edition). Routledge, 2006. pp. 252–253
  8. ^ Susan. Cinema Studies Key Concepts. New York: Routledge, 2006. Accessed 2009-05-27
  9. ISSN 1634-5495
    .
  10. ^ Ross Chambers (1984). Story and Situation: Narrative Seduction and the Power of Fiction.
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