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Hylas and the Nymphs (detail). 1896. John William Waterhouse 

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Before Cousteau, way before @Octonauts, explorer Eugen von Ransonnet-Villez was bringing images of the undersea world to the surface, from his artist’s sketch pad inside a glass and steel diving bell: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/underwater-landscapes-of-eugen-von-ransonnet-villez

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'Ghost Cat' by Sam Wolfe

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L’Indifferent, from Pierre Louys’ Les Chansons de Bilitis by Georges Barbier (1922)

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Ancient Greek statue of Aphrodite / Venus , 2500 years ago

Paestum Archaeological Museum, Campania, Cilento NP, Italy

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L’Oracle de Delphes by John William Godward (1899)

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Wood Engraving Wednesday

JOHN O’CONNOR

English wood engraver John O’Connor (1913-2004) wrote and illustrated an evocative autobiographical essay entitled Twins published in 1991 by the Whittington Press in Andoversford, Gloucestershire, in an edition of 350 copies. The text with seven of the original ten three-color wood engravings were also inserted between pages 144 and 145 of Matrix 11, Winter 1991, which is where the images shown here are from.

The essay describes a childhood meeting between O'Connor and his twin brother Tom, and the twin sisters who come to stay in the village of Knipton, Leicestershire, where the O’Connor twins are staying with relatives on a small farm in the valley overlooked by Belvoir Castle. The farm life of the 1920s, horse-drawn carts, the kitchen range, oil lamps, and the surrounding countryside all made an indelible mark on the mind of the 12-year-old O’Connor, and unconsciously became references for many of his subsequent paintings and wood engravings.

The memoir describes the growing friendship of the pair of twins in the mid 1920s, collecting eggs, hunting for fossils and mushrooms, inventing plays, and going to high tea: “They … eyed us with pleasure and amusement which we returned. Identical twin had met identical twin!” But all sweet things must come to an end:

Keep reading

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Polonia, 1914, Jacek Malczewski

https://www.wikiart.org/en/jacek-malczewski/polonia-1914

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THE ODD COUPLE (1968) dir. Gene Saks

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Anton Pieck - book illustrations for Heroes of Mankind.

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INLOVE