Mise en abyme

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 ɑ ɑn‿abim] ; also mise en
abîme) is a formal 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 literally 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 coat of arms of the United Kingdom 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 art historians working on the early-modern period adopted this phrase and interpreted it as
showing artistic "self awareness", medievalists tended not to use it. Many examples, however, can
be found in the pre-modern era, as in a mosaic from the Hagia Sophia dated to the year 944. To
the left, Justinian I offers the Virgin Mary the Hagia Sophia, which contains the mosaic itself. To the
right, 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,[4] in which Jersey Ellis conjectures that the self-references sometimes
are used to strengthen the symbolism of gift-giving by documenting the act of giving on the object
itself. An example of this self-referential gift-giving appears in the Stefaneschi Triptych in the
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 own 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 illuminates 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]

Literature and film

Screenshots in a software that fit together forming a recursion.

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.
[7] This mirroring can attain a level where meaning may become unstable and, in this respect, may
 be seen as part of the process of deconstruction. The film-within-a-film, where a film contains a plot
about the making of a movie, is an example of mise en abyme. The film being made within the film
refers, through its mise en scène, to the real film being made. The spectator sees film equipment,
stars getting ready for the take, crew sorting out the various directorial needs. The narrative of the
film within the film may directly reflect the one in the real film.[8] An example is La Nuit américaine
(1973) by François Truffaut.

In film, the meaning of mise en abyme is similar to the artistic definition, but also includes the idea
of a "dream within a dream". For example, a character awakens from a dream and later discovers
that they are still dreaming. Activities similar to dreaming, such as unconsciousness and virtual
reality, also are described as mise en abyme. This is seen in the film eXistenZ where the two
protagonists never truly know whether or not they are out of the game. It also becomes a
prominent element of Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York (2008). More recent instances
can be found in the films Inland Empire (2007) and Inception (2010). Classic filmic examples
include the snow globe in Citizen Kane (1941) which provides a clue to the film's core mystery, and
the discussion of Edgar Allan Poe's written works (particularly "The Purloined Letter") in the Jean-
Luc Godard film 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 other language, which refers to other language, and so forth.[9]

In comedy, Mise en abyme can be seen with The Harold, an improvisation cycle with reoccurring
themes, popularized by Del Close in his book Truth in Comedy.

See also

• Examples of mise en abyme in other media – literary technique

• Droste effect – Recursive visual effect
• Fractal – Infinitely detailed mathematical structure
• Matryoshka doll – Russian nested wooden toy
• Gödel, Escher, Bach (1979 book) – 1979 book by Douglas Hofstadter
• Macbeth (1971 film) – 1971 film by Roman Polanski
• Meta-reference – Type of self reference
• Print Gallery (M. C. Escher) – Lithograph printed in 1956 by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher
• Quine (computing) – Self-replicating program
• Recursion – Process of repeating items in a self-similar way
• Self-similarity – Whole of an object being mathematically similar to part of itself
• Story within a story – Literary device
• Tamanna (2014 film) – 2014 film directed by Steven Moore
 References

1. ^ Rheinhardt, Dagmar (2012). Youtopia. a Passion for the Dark: Architecture at the Intersection Between Digital
Processes and Theatrical Performance. Freerange Press. p. 42. ISBN 978-0-9808689-1-3.

2. ^ Nänny. Max and Fischer, Olga, The Motivated Sign: Iconicity in Language and Literature p. 37, John Benjamins and
jersey ellis's Publishing Company (2001) ISBN 90-272-2574-5

3. ^ Törnqvist, Egil. Ibsen: A Doll's House, p. 105, Cambridge University Press (1995) ISBN 0-521-47866-9

4. ^ Jump up to: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. p. 252-253

8. ^ Susan. Cinema Studies Key Concepts. New York: Routledge, 2006. Accessed 2009-05-27

9. ^ Ross Chambers (1984). Story and Situation: Narrative Seduction and the Power of Fiction.