Different interpretations are put forth about the anomalous imagery of the artist in his paintings, especially the Garden of Earthly Delights. Usually the basic message is this: humanity is naive and wreckless and taking the shortcut to hellish destruction. Boom, there it is. One historian even saw the famous triptych (Garden) as a manifesto of the heretical Adamite group. The proto-hippies...in a nut-shell, people who practiced "amoral" sexual bonding without guilt (and by abolishing marriage) in order to experience life as Adam and Eve knew it. They were also advocates of "holy nudism"...sign me up. I'm calling a revival, taking the medieval Dutch name "Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit."
Fountain of Youth
Different interpretations are put forth about the anomalous imagery of the artist in his paintings, especially the Garden of Earthly Delights. Usually the basic message is this: humanity is naive and wreckless and taking the shortcut to hellish destruction. Boom, there it is. One historian even saw the famous triptych (Garden) as a manifesto of the heretical Adamite group. The proto-hippies...in a nut-shell, people who practiced "amoral" sexual bonding without guilt (and by abolishing marriage) in order to experience life as Adam and Eve knew it. They were also advocates of "holy nudism"...sign me up. I'm calling a revival, taking the medieval Dutch name "Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit."
self-sacrifice
The Art of Dying
Science Is My Religion, I Think
Children of Luna
During the 15th c. when this piece was created, the geocentric model of the universe was the established, accepted model, with the earth snug in the center of cosmos and surrounded by the seven spheres of the known planets, the fixed stars of the zodiac, and the empyrean heaven of God. Within this ancient order, human beings were intrinsically linked with the cosmos, and like the stars and planets, the body was thought to contain the four elements. Each element possessed essential qualities, which in turn were associated with bodily temperaments, humors, and dispositions. The element of water was cold and wet and linked with phlegm and the phlegmatic type.
Ichiban Eggplant and Thank You Card
Japanese Woodblock
New Greeting Card/Postcard
*added 6/23/09: Another submission for Illustration Friday's topic "Drifting"
danse macabre
So I frequently find myself buying books on the subject, and I've accumulated a veritable library. My most recent addition is The Dance of Death by Hans Holbein the Younger. I read the reviews given by people on amazon, which were mixed, but without hesitation, purchased it. Why? No matter what mildly disparaging things people say about "size" and "reproduction quality" blah blah blah, woodcuts nearly always reproduce awesomely. And when I got the book, I was not disappointed, and I think the small plates actually add to the book's appeal (approx. 2" x 3").
The Dance of Death, danse macabre, Totentanz. Scenes of figures from every station of life and accompanying cadavers or skeletons. Holbein's is considered one of the most intellectually interesting and aesthetically distinguished examples. His also illustrates the concept of memento mori...."remember that you will die"...no matter who you are.
The Emperor...one of my favorites.
Bestow thou goods; for thou must die,
And soon within the realms of Death
The chariots of thy state shall lie.
(English translation from Les simulachres & historiees faces de la mort)
St. Anthony Part II
Another of St Anthony. This woodcut depicts the saint with a t-shaped tau cross with bells, flames, and a pet pig, which befriended him during his exile. He is associated with fire because of his encounters with the demons of hell.
In this piece, the pestering demons are replaced by victims of the holy fire or "St Anthony's Fire," and detached limbs dangle above the saint and his entourage. The explanation? Sufferers of St Anthony's fire were racked with gangrene of the extremities, which resulted in the withering and eventual detachment of affected limbs. This image reflects the practice of hanging amputated limbs of victims above entrance portals of Antonite monasteries, called to act as hospitals and authorized to heal in the name of the saint.
Unfortunately, body rotting and the subsequent dismemberment were not the only hellish indices rendered by the infectious bete noire. Hallucination, muscle contortions, convulsions, and an agonizing, burning chronic pain. Ouch. And all caused by a stupid mould. Known today as ergotism, holy fire was caused by the contamination of grain, most often rye, by the ergot mould. When heated in the oven, the mould transforms into a type of LSD. Notwithstanding, that trip does not sound like a fun one.
St. Anthony Part I
Also known as St Anthony of Egypt, he is considered the father of monasticism and probably lived from the mid-3rd to the mid-4th centuries of the common era. The torments of St Anthony would have been well known to Renaissance audiences via the accounts in the bestselling Golden Legend and Lives of the Church Fathers, both of which borrow from the biography of Anthony by the 4th c. bishop Athanasius. Apparently the devil wracked the man's brain with naughty images of women, demoralized him with laziness, and drove him crazy with boredom. Huh, hard to imagine such things happening out there. In the desert. Alone. He retreated to the tomb where he lived, sealing himself inside. Or so he thought--the devil went into a jealous rage when confronted by this intense devotion to God and voluntary, stalwart asceticism and beat him severely.
This engraving is a disturbing, yet utterly mezmerizing, depiction of St Anthony and his demons. The man looks completely calm, albeit slightly uncomfortable, as the malignant beasts pinch and pull and prod and grope.
The cult of St Anthony increased in popularity during the 15th and 16th c. in Europe partly because of a rekindling of the dreaded St Anthony's Fire, also called holy fire (ignis sacer).
(Martin Schongauer, Temptation of St Anthony, c. 1470-5. Engraving)