Dear colleagues,
This article has been published in magazine of the Society of Heraldic Arts «The Heraldic Craftsman» (N 55 2006). I would like to bring it to your attention.
The “Heraldry Alive†of Alex Kurov
Alex Kurov, a heraldist from St Petersburg now living in Germany came up with an idea during one of his creative experiments. This interesting idea could be called a new direction of heraldic thought and it seems, allows the broadening of the horizons of heraldry as we know it.
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The fish and the butterfly which you can see here together with the coat of arms and the bookplate were created by Alex Kurov for Lidia Kouznetsova, a young Romanist from Trier University. They have been named after her.
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Alex Kurov says: "Only a proper entomologist, if he is lucky, can discover a new butterfly and name it after another person. It is even more difficult to make a similar discovery in ichthyology. I never had this opportunity, but always wanted to do it. So one day I invented and drew for my special quasi-entomological collection several phantasmagorical butterflies. Their colouring was not related to heraldry, but as a heraldist I could not fail to notice some affinity between a coat of arms and a picturesque, contrasting, sometimes chaotic, sometimes mathematically precise colouring of exotic butterflies and fish, which in reality performs the same identifying function as does heraldry.
It was natural to go one step further and create the butterfly Lidia Aurodomna (The Golden Dame) and the fish Lidia Renidea (Rein’s Goddess) - both were coloured in the same way as a personal coat of arms.
Out of all the representatives of the animal world only tropical fish and some types of insects could look natural with this treatment, because their naturally bright colouring could be adapted for this purpose. Plants and birds, unfortunately, cannot be used because of the small surface they provide for the images, and the rest of the animals, coloured in such a way, would look too unnatural and exaggerated. The upper pair of a butterfly’s wings and the body of a fish provide enough space for the image of the coat of arms, while the lower pair of wings and the top fin of the fish may accommodate the design of the armorial crest. (Depending on the complexity of the crest and the shape of the fish, one may use both the fin and the tail.) The butterfly is vertically symmetrical so each of its upper wings should contain the full design of the arms, thus creating a mirror effect.
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Lidia Kouznetsova’s coat of arms is most probably an easy one to transform in such an unusual way. However, Alex Kurov is sure that he would be able to transfer any coat of arms onto a fish or a butterfly, except, of course, arms consisting of many parts, which would be too complex.
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He says that one has simply to generalise prototype arms until they are fully abstract. At the same time the artist must achieve maximum approximation to natural ornamentation and preserve the characteristic and recognisable features of the original arms.
It is not easy to get it right, but Alex Kurov is going to continue researching this new field of application of his heraldic thinking. Why is he doing that? Just because he loves it!
I moved this article over from the old forums because it shows how heraldry can evolve and adapt. I think it’s important for us to keep in perspective the different ways that we can use our heraldic devices and show them off to the world.
I think it’s remarkable. And I think T.R. is correct, this shows how heraldry can be a "modern" thing…
