Portret van Pierre de La Ramée 1597 - 1599

This is Robert Boissard's portrait of Pierre de la Ramée, captured with an engraver's tool. Ramus, a mathematician, is depicted holding a book, a potent symbol of knowledge and wisdom since antiquity. Consider the book not merely as an object, but as a vessel. This vessel has carried ideas across epochs, much like Hermes Trismegistus carried his message, traveling through time, morphing yet staying the same. The gesture of holding the book relates to the tradition of presenting learned figures with books as a symbol of their erudition, a convention that extends back to ancient Roman portraiture. The same symbolic weight can be observed in the funerary art of ancient cultures. In our collective unconscious, the book connects us to something profound. It is a powerful force engaging viewers on a deep, subconscious level. This symbol resurfaces and evolves, and takes on new meanings in different historical contexts, revealing the non-linear progression of cultural memory.