In the satirical medieval chantefable, Aucassin et Nicolette, the hero famously says he'd rather to go to hell where the handsome clerics, brave warriors, and lovely ladies go, than to heaven with dreary, ill-dressed, and pious. To my eye, the angels who manage to stay in heaven here look anxious, while the fallen are having a blast. Was there a touch of Aucassin in the artist, or do time and cultural distance make it hard to read expressions right?
Via Manuscript Art
A while back, Jackie Morris's otters on luggage tags gave me an idea for a story about a group of women artists working in a small city after a second pandemic. A time-travel story knocked it aside. Now, here comes Grace Ponder's deck of Yarn Tarot for Crocheters, Knitters, Spinners, and Weavers with the just the clue to jumpstart the neglected luggage-tag story again.
I was so taken with Chris Wormell's illustrations for Northern Lights by Philip Pullman, that I pre-ordered their new collaboration on Lyra's Oxford even though I treasure a first edition of the 2003 book with John Lawrence's woodcuts. The new one will be out soon. You can get a taste of it at Take a Look at Lyra's Oxford. Incidentally, The Artworks website looks like a source of inspiration for story ideas or details. More soon.
I'm having fun. One by one, at intervals to stretch it out, I'm reading stories in Jonathan Strahan's anthology, The Book of Dragons, illustrated by Rovina Cai. Recently, I read "Pox" by Ellen Klages, an author new to me. I loved it, and what a great pleasure to find that one of the delightful characters, Franny Travers, also appears in Klages' novella, Passing Strange.
Blog post alert: Japanese woodcuts had a great influence on artists in Paris in the last quarter of the 19th C; but they could never have seen the original drawings, which were destroyed by the Japanese woodcut process. You can. Read Hokusai's Original Drawings at GurneyJourney, and be sure to watch the embedded YouTube video introduction to the British Museum's new exhibition of 103 Unpublished Hokusai Drawings.
One more image from Diana Sperling's Mrs. Hurst Dancing, just because I love it and it shows wallpaper (see tags!).
Website alert: Having borrowed Mrs. Hurst Dancing from the library, I was poking around the web for JPEGs of my favorite images and landed on Costumes in Emma. It will give you an explanation of the red cloaks, photographs of accurate period costumes, and insights into costumes for movies. And, oh, yes—the book is sheer delight.
Website alert: This morning, my husband sent me a link to Old Book Illustrations, searchable by subject, artist, or book title. He has a special interest in William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites. I have a special interest in female illustrators. Put them together in a quick search and voilà: One of Florence Harrison's illustrations for Early Poems of William Morris. Have fun!
I had labeled this image, saved from a medieval moraized Ovid, as "Teeth in open mouth" because depictions of teeth are rare. What interests me now, however, is the expressions on the faces. At first glance, the wings seem to say "angels." But the lady is clearly up to no good, and the young man seems uneasy despite his crown.
Another image I have run across as I review my files is this one from Farm Crops in Britain. I love models and diagrams and illustrations that can help me visualize settings within a story. This page, for instance, is packed with information about walls and buildings and activities for a farm in stony country. I tucked it away for reference; but in addition, Stanley Roy Badmin was a pleasant illustrator and landscape artist. I'm glad I discovered him—and have now rediscovered him!
