1. This article was presented at Dijon on 1 December 1990 as part of an international colloquium, "The Renaissance or the Invention of an Era" organized by the Centre de recherche sur l'image, le symbole et le mythe at the University of Burgundy. The original title is: "Anciens modèles et mutation des formes: de la Dive Bouteille de Rabelais à la renaissance du calligramme dans l'électronique."

2. Rabelais, CEuvres complètes, Jacques Boulenger and Lucien Scheler, eds., Paris, Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1955; Gargantua and Pantagruel, J. M. Cohen, trans., London, Penguin, 1955. Cf. the Tiers Livre (Book Three), Chapter 47, in which Panurge decides to consult the oracle of the Bottle to learn if he should marry. See also the first chapter of the Quart Livre (Book Four), in which he embarks with his compan ions to find the island of the Bottle.

3. Rabelais, op. cit., 862, n. 1.

4. The description of the Temple and the fountain was inspired by the Songe de Poliphile by Francesco Colonna, of which the original edition (1459) is considered one of the masterpieces of Italian Renaissance typography, reissued in 1499 by Aldo Manuci, the celebrated Venetian humanist and typographer. In addition to chapter endings in the form of funnel-shaped bottle-ends, there is a remarkable calligramme in the shape of a vase.

5. It was not until the 1565 edition that the custom developed of setting these lines in the shape of a bottle, Rabelais, op. cit., 881, n. 2. However, the initial "O" in the form of the bottleneck and the length of the lines would seem to indicate this was the author's original intention.

6. See on this topic the very fine work published under the editorship of Michel Perrin: Raban Maur, De laudibus sanctae crucis (Praises of the Holy Cross), Paris, Berg International, 1988.

7. Guillaume Apollinaire had the privilege of seeing the famous "Bordel philosophique" in Picasso's studio at the actual time it was being paint ed in 1907. This picture was renamed more prosaically "The Demoiselles of Avignon" for its first public exhibition in 1916. As an art critic, Apollinaire wrote another article on Picasso in 1905 and one on Matisse in 1907, while from 1910 to 1912 he contributed his ideas to the Berlin review Der Sturm.

8. Der Blaue Reiter, Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, eds., Munich, Piper, 1912, new edition by Klaus Lankheit, Munich/Zurich, Piper, 1965, 1984; (The Blaue Reiter Almanac, Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc, eds., New York, Da Capo Press, 1989); Wassily Kandinsky, Über das Geistige in der Kunst (first edition: 1911), Beme, Benteli, 1952, French translation by Philippe Sers, ed., Du spirituel dans l'art et dans la peinture en particuli er, Paris, Denoël, 1989; Wilhelm Worringer, Abstraktion und Einfühlung: Ein Beitrag zur Stilpsychologie (first edition: 1908), Munich/Zurich, Piper, 1987. It can be said that Worringer's book is directly concerned with the appearance of abstract art; Kandinsky certainly knew about it through the mediation of the editor whom they shared, since he carried out graphic works for Reinhard Piper from the founding of his business in 1904. Further, five medieval engravings from the Blue Rider almanac came from reproductions of another work by Worringer, Die altdeutsche Buchillustration, which was published by Piper in 1912, the same year as the Blaue Reiter (cf. Klaus Lankheit, ed., 21, 209, 211, 212, 215; and notes, 339, 357). Cf. Kandinsky und München: Begegnungen und Wandlungen, 1896-1914, Munich, Prestel, 1982, 45.

9. Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, Briefwechsel, Klaus Lankheit, ed., Munich/Zurich, Piper, 1983, 172.

10. This does not enter into value judgements on widely varying produc tions, on the numerous creative artists and various movements of one "ism" or another during the first four-fifths of this dying twentieth cen tury, from the beginnings of futurism (Khlebnikov, Marinetti), not for getting subsequent constructivisms and suprematisms (El Lissitzky), pre-manifesto surrealism (André Breton and René Char, the influence of Apollinaire), to concrete poetry (Max Bense, Eugen Gomringer); the Dadaists (Hugo Ball, Tristan Tzara and Kurt Schwitters), the lettrists (Isidore Isou), the spatialists (Pierre Gamier), the "typographical deliri ums" and the experimental poetry of the circle of Raymond Queneau and Georges Perec (OULIPO); or again the "unfolding graphisms" and the "calligraphic labyrinths" of Pierre Louys and Robert de Montesquiou, which beguiled Colette (L'Etoile Vesper); Maurice Roche (Circus), Michel Butor (Illustrations), Jacques Roubaud (Trente et un au cube), Jacques Derrida (Glas), Jean d'Ormesson (Histoire du Juif errant); or yet again the "animated calligraphy" of Michel Bret and Roger Laufer (Deux Mots). All these are routes to explore, the first siftings from a relatively large-meshed net.

11. It seems that this awareness of the graphic possibilities of the type writer date from a relatively recent period, for in discussing cal ligrammes in the 1950s and 1960s the Laffont-Bompiani dictionary still referred to a "fantasy" of Apollinaire which "had no future and created no following"; this is inaccurate, as we know. Bordas (1984) quotes Pierre Albert-Birot and Louise de Vilmorin as imitators of Apollinaire. They were, however, generally "sidetracked towards a delicate misrep resentation, …, more or less elegant, of the subject of the poem," the phrase dying out "in pursuing form at the expense in most cases of leg ibility," while with Apollinaire the image would be "consubstantial" with the poem.

12. El Lissitzky. From J. Adler and U. Ernst, Text als Figur: Visuelle Poesie von der Antike bis zur Moderne, Weinheim, 1987, 261. This catalogue of an exhibition from 1 September 1987 to 17 April 1988 in the famous Herzog-August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel (where Leibniz and Lessing worked, notably), has an excellent bibliography. Among the latest pub lications in English: Dick Higgins, Pattern Poetry: Guide to an Unknown Literature, Ithaca/New York, 1987.

13. Vernissage = varnishing, i.e., adding a gloss - a word with double meaning in both English and French; in the art world it is the name given to the Private View of an exhibition. [translator's note]

14. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, "Manifeste technique de la littérature futuriste" of 11 May 1912, in J. Adler and U. Ems,t op. cit., 255; E. T. A. Hoffmann, The Sandman; S. Freud, L'inquiétante étrangeté (Das Unheimliche) et autres essais, Paris, Gallimard, Coll. Folio, 1988. First published in 1919, English: "The ‘Uncanny'," Standard Edition, vol. 17.

15. This expression cannot be used without recalling the exhibition of the same name organized on the initiative of François Lyotard. Cf. Les Immatériaux: manifestation du Centre national d'art et de culture Georges Pompidou, du 28 mars au 15 juillet 1985. Master work: Centre de création industrielle, Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, 1985 (exhibition catalog: 1 vol., 1 illustrated portfolio). Cf. also: Les Immatériaux au Centre Georges Pompidou en 1985: étude de l'événement et de son public, Christian Carrier, ed., Paris, Expo-Média, 1986.

16. Benoît B. Mandelbrot, Les Objets fractals, forme, hasard et dimension, Paris, Flammarion, 1975; The Fractal Geometry of Nature, New York, 1977; P. O. Peitgen, P. H. Richter, The Beauty of Fractals, Berlin/New York, Springer, 1986; and The Science of Fractal Images, Berlin/New York, Springer, 1988; S. Sarduy and K. Ottman, "Un baroque fractal," Art Press dossier 144, February 1990. On the problems relating to data processing, cf. in particular the works of René Berger, L'effet des change ments technologiques, Lausanne, Favre, 1983; Jusqu'où ira votre ordinateur?, Lausanne, Favre, 1987; and Téléovision: Le nouveau Golem, Lausanne, Iderive, 1991 (cf. also Diogenes, nos. 147 and 152, Paris, Gallimard, 1989 and 1990); Abraham Moles, Art et Ordinateur, Paris, Casterman, 1971; H. W. Franke, Leonardo 2000, Kunst im Zeitalter des Computers, Frankfurt-am-Main, Suhrkamp, 1987; Jürgen Claus, Das elek tronische Bauhaus, Zurich, Inferfrom, 1987; Philippe Quéau, Eloge de la simulation, Seyssel (France), Champ Vallon, 1986; Metaxu: théorie de l'art intermédiaire, 1989; Françoise Holtz-Bonneau, Lettre, image, ordinateur, Hermès/I.N.A., 1987; "Spécial Imagerie Scientifique," Le Courrier du C.N.R.S., 66-67-68, Paris, January-June 1987; Edmond Couchot, Images, de l'optique au numérique, Paris/London/Lausanne, Hermès, 1988. This is without including the numerous and often highly technical publica tions produced on the fringe of various colloquia, festivals, and exhibi tions of computer-generated images and films: Siggraph in the U.S.A., Ars Electronica in Linz, Imagina in Monte-Carlo, Computer Animation in Geneva,Video Art Festival in Locarno, Multi Mediale at ZKM in Carlsruhe, Kunsthochschule für Medien in Cologne, Centre européen de technoculture (CETECH) of the Paris-Dauphine University, Forum des Arts et des Nouvelles Technologies (FAUST) in Toulouse, etc.

17. Cf. "Calligrammes et abstraction," literary review Ecriture no. 31, Lausanne, autumn 1988. The Iris de Gilgamesh first appeared, without fractogram, in Cavaliers Seuls, no. 7, a literary review published with the support of the Activités culturelles of the University of Geneva in 1987 (German version: Gilgameschs Irisblick in Lila Engel: Sphärenpoesie, Mumau, Amethyst Verlag, 1991). The first fractograms were created in May 1988 at the DLR (Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Luft- und Raumfahrt) at Oberpfaffenhofen in Bavaria, in collaboration with Herbert W. Franke and Horst Helbig (DIBIAS system).

18. Cf.L'imaginaire numérique, Report of the interdisciplinary colloquium, organized by the Ecole d'architecture and the Ecole supérieure des mines at the University of Saint-Etienne, 1986.

19. Ezekiel 3: 3: "And he said unto me, Son of man, cause thy belly to eat, and fill thy bowels with this roll that I give thee. Then I did eat it; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness."

20. "Sense" refers to the often and duly quoted substantifique moelle, the thick creamy texture of the meaning, as well as to the intuitive powers of the body. So what is this marrow of meaning or sense? The remain der of the text gives us some indications on this point. The Trismegistus Bottle, from which Bacbuc makes Panurge drink, should not in fact be interpreted as an incitement to drink without moderation. Was not Panurge to listen to the oracle of the Bottle with one ear only? Such lis tening implies measured and critical distancing. Similarly, it was said in chapter 34 that "the priests and all personages who give and dedi cate themselves to the contemplation of holy matters should maintain their spirits in tranquility, beyond all perturbation of the sense, more manifest in drunkenness than in any other passion of any nature." (Op. cit. 856-57; hence also the "vine shoot" in the slippers and the strange interpretation concerning the apocalyptic virgin: "A woman with the moon beneath her feet; it was, as Bigot explained to me, to signify that she was not of the race or nature of others, who all conversely had the moon on their heads and consequently their minds always lunatic.") Beyond the announcement of his imminent marriage, the "poetic fury" of chapter 46, the madness or enchantment that then took hold of the "skilful and artful" Panurge and his companions (including Pantagruel, who sang an altar-shaped "doggerel"), consisted of nothing less than a symbolic incitement to become intoxicated with science, passing in chapter 47 from the Trismegistus Bottle to Hermes Trismegistus, and thus in sequence from Trismegistus to Trismegistus, and on to the mys terious philosophy of Zoroaster, the "true psychogonia of Plato," the ancient Orphic and Egyptian mysteries, not forgetting Pythagorean mathematics.