illuminatedcomics-blog

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You can dance, you can jive...having the time of your life...

Recently got some new watercolors, and are trying them out on some Bosch copies (that's a link to a Bosch virtual tour, complete with eerie music!). I really liked it when Bosch came up in medieval and renaissance art courses, just because the papers we had to read on his work always seemed to come from art historians who were just as baffled as we were. What does the man carrying a fish mean? Why is the bird man pooping bubble humans?  The Hell portion of the triptych is fascinating and appears on lots of psychology textbooks, but my favorite is The Garden of Earthly Delights. Is this meant to be Eden? Earth? Millennial Earth? Who knows! The fact that a single artist managed to have and execute such a wildly imaginative, original vision makes me very happy. 

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Happy Tuesday! Have some Google Translate Latin.

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The tonsures are what really make it. Right?

Shoot, I forgot St. Francis’s halo.

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So medical science, even medieval medical science, is all about trial and error and finding replicable solutions, but...what circumstances led to unicorn liver ointment?

St. Hildegard of Bingen is still my favorite, though.

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Ah, my favorite page! That took way too long to research!

Again, "The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf" is a bit unique for its meta-fairy-tale narrative. Part of Inger's torment in the underworld is hearing what everybody is saying about her and her loaf-trodding ways. After all, what is a worse punishment for someone who regarded everything and everyone with contempt than...being regarded with contempt?

To use very contemporary terms, Inger loses control of her image. To show this, I wanted to show Inger's story being told (and illustrated) in different ways throughout the history of illustration. Arthur Rackham,Yann Legendre, Edward Burne-Jones, Virginia Frances Sterrett, Walter Crane, and Kay Nielsen.

Have a nice weekend!

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King Gilgamesh and Enkidu! Taking a break from the Christian tradition and having some fun in the ancient-ancient world. Where the gods are confusing and the friendships are forever! Well, until you die. Everybody dies, except snakes.

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Saw a stained glass window today at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist...who’s that woman with the book? Is that St. Mary and St. Martha? Why it is! One is the patron saint of, well, the whole of the hospitality industry (waitresses, cooks, as well as homemakers) and one is the patron saint of all studious ladies who like to read and listen instead of cleaning the kitchen. Do both responsibly!

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Arthur broke my heart this season.

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St. Elizabeth of Hungary, the patron saint of bakers, lacemakers, and the homeless, was the daughter of the King of Hungary and renowned for her care of the poor. She was caught sneaking some loaves of bread to the poor, which miraculously turned to roses when they were revealed.

I have a soft spot for "bread alone" narratives, and the imagery of good, practical bread turning into good, beautiful (but not practical) roses warms my artist heart. Maybe that's the explanation for her connection to lacemakers?

But the roses+bread+princess+religious imagery thing came to mind during this season's finale of Game of Thrones, making me think of a certain princess associated with roses, saints, and the poor...

Happy Monday!

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Welcome to the technicolor UNDERWORRRRLD

hey guess who just watched Pan’s Labyrinth.

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Happy Monday, everybody! Be nice to your friends today.

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Glam. Name that Bible story.

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I went to the local print shop today for more Etsy store prints, and no matter what happens in my life, print shops will always be terrifying. I always feel like something is going to go horribly wrong with the files or color profiles or a dozen other things I don’t quite understand, and that the printer knows. Every printer I have ever known has been kind and helpful, but they know I am a fool who desperately needs their help to coax a miracle of multiplication out of the inks and card stock.

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the most glam Devil

i dunno if my hands are up for this.

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The three “Hell” pages! I made a little blog post about the references for each of these characters: http://www.hannahcharltonarts.com/new-blog-avenue/

Here is the text from the original fairy tale, published in 1907:

“What a never-ending corridor that was to be sure; it made one giddy to look either backward or forward. Here stood an ignominious crew waiting for the door of mercy to be opened, but long might they wait. Great, fat, sprawling spiders spun webs of a thousand years round and round their feet; and these webs were like footscrews and held them as in a vise, or as though bound with a copper chain. Besides, there was such everlasting unrest in every frozen soul; the unrest of torment.  The miser had forgotten the key of his money chest, he knew he had left it sticking in the lock. But it would take far too long to enumerate all the various tortures here. Inger experienced the torture of standing like a statue with a loaf tied to her feet.”

Fairy Tales from Hans Christian Andersen, 1907

The language is just so creepy, so cold, so evocative! Don’t worry, we’ll be out of the Hell pages soon. Redemption draws near for little Inger!

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Envy in Hell! It’s time to start explaining the story here. In the original “The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf,” every soul in Hell is frozen in a moment of unrest related to their sin: the miser (avarice) has left the key to his money-box in the lock. The adulterous man (lying) has left out the love letters to his mistress. The envious woman here had just received some lovely flowers, right before her friend received even lovelier flowers. Each soul is unable to let go, even as the real world above them goes on. 

Having grown up terrified of Hell (our modern, evangelical, sola scriptura Hell being bare-bones but still terrible fiery sulfur) I love stories about Hell with a bit of creativity.

Don’t worry, it’s technically a Purgatory; everybody in this story gets out eventually. Here’s to universalism!

And here are the most difficult things to draw: Art Nouveau decorative ironwork, high heels.

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Envy, from The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf.