Historical novelists love to find detailed images of daily life. Dancing naked around a tree might not count as typical, but I love the way you get back, front, and side views of related hairstyles here. Although I confess I have not worked out the text, the three ladies must be the three Graces—Aglaia, Thalia, and Euphrosyne—who were attendants of the God Apollo. (For the full illustration, in which Apollo is the dominant figure, click on the image.) Read More
Picturing a World
Break the rules
April 27, 2017
Blog alert: I was once puzzled by a “rule” against beginning a story with dialogue. (So much for Where the Light Falls!) Creative writing advice is full of such silliness. James Gurney offers a lovely, succinct corollary from the visual arts in his recent post Art Rules. Save that bird to remind yourself to soar on your own terms. Read More
Mary Newcomb at Issuu
April 12, 2017
Website tip: Mary Newcomb’s sheep and star led me to the on-line publication of Mary Newcomb’s Odd Universe, the catalogue for a 2008 memorial exhibition at the Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery and the Crane Kalman Gallery in London. How wonderful Read More
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Background
March 25, 2017
Background landscapes in manuscript illuminations (and paintings of any era) fascinate me. More than the depiction of dramatic events, they make the past seem real. I found this one a couple of days ago in an elaborate three-part illustration of a Read More
Calm waters
March 17, 2017
Surfing on the net (not the sea!) landed me yesterday at a sale at Christie’s, where this painting was up for auction. It’s just the sort of thing I had in mind for Charlie Post’s obsessively pursued subject of sea, horizon, and shore. Read More
Celestial measures
March 14, 2017
Website alert: I’m working on a story set in an imaginary late-medieval or early-modern university, where my central character is introduced to scientific ways of looking at the sky. This image delighted me, and the entire Manuscript Art website has absorbed all my Read More
Ellen Clacy
March 9, 2017
Serendipity landed me on an unattributed posting of this image. I have a friend who has a specialist’s knowledge of blue-and-white china, so pictures of it always catch my eye. This painting, moreover, made me think of Jeanette at the Musée Cluny. Read More
The more things change—
March 6, 2017
The more things change, the more they stay the same! Long before presidential tweets, there was pulp fiction. This morning, while looking into a question about the early 20th C publishing industry for ANONYMITY, I came across this title and couldn’t resist posting it.
It was published in Cleveland by The Arthur Westbrook Co. I suppose I could have had my Ohio heroine, Mattie, work closer to her native Circleville; but it would have been harder for her to keep her secrets there. She headed for the big time.
Incidentally, New York University’s Fales Library and Special Collections Guide to the Levy Dime Novel Collection is rich source of titles to borrow, alter, or parody. Read More
It was published in Cleveland by The Arthur Westbrook Co. I suppose I could have had my Ohio heroine, Mattie, work closer to her native Circleville; but it would have been harder for her to keep her secrets there. She headed for the big time.
Incidentally, New York University’s Fales Library and Special Collections Guide to the Levy Dime Novel Collection is rich source of titles to borrow, alter, or parody. Read More
Rembrandt en plein air
March 1, 2017
This etching on paper is the earliest image of an artist at work outdoors that I’ve ever run across. Jeanette and her friends in Where the Light Falls would have loved it!
Even though etching is a painstaking technique, Rembrandt has retained the informality and liveliness of a sketch for this Read More
Even though etching is a painstaking technique, Rembrandt has retained the informality and liveliness of a sketch for this Read More
Marie Egner
February 27, 2017
Marie Egner, Self-Portrait (1878)
A post on Marie Egner at Lines and Colors has just introduced me to this artist. She was an older (and longer-lived) contemporary of the real Jeanette. Born in Radkersburg, Austria, on the Slovenian border, Egner studied in Dusseldorf and exhibited in her native Austria, Germany, and Read More