Latin Makes Me Free: Silverpoint at The Museum of National Art

Many say that Latin is useful for many things, but this summer on a trip to the Museum of National Art in D.C. Latin was more than useful for me. Latin is for leisure and joy. Latin is for finding joy in higher things and it is also for freedom: the freedom to self-educate.

Recently the art museum in D.C. has a glorious exhibit of drawings in metalpoint from Leonardo to Jasper Johns. The drawings by Albrecht Durer showed a great knowledge of human and animal bone structure and muscle. One room had a few portraits sketched in silverpoint by Flemish artists. One portrait of a young boy interested me because of the symbol in the top right hand corner. At first I thought it was a capital Greek letter lambda next to a number 8, but that did not make much sense at all. I was also kicking myself for not bringing my sketchbook, but I stared at the symbol for some time in order to etch it into my brain to sketch later.

Sketch of Year 8

As I moved on in the gallery, I observed another Flemish portrait of an older man in silverpoint. It had lettering in the top right corner which I immediately recognized as Latin! This time the artist wrote out the Latin word for age or year and the number 40. Of course! The boy was 8 years old and the artist used the symbol for th
e Latin dipthong: ae.

Being versed in another language (especially Latin) gives one the freedom of discovery and joy! I was so excited about my discovery that I had to tell my husband all about it. I suppose that if I had studied art in college that I would've known what the symbol meant but through my knowledge of Latin, I taught myself.