Unto the scribal and interested populous does Mistress Robin of Thornwood, Guild Chronicler, send Greetings and Salutations!
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Challenges
Challenges
Greetings Fellow Scriveners, Limners, and Scribally-Interested!
Are any doughty artistic practitioners in the realm issuing invitations or challenges to your compatriots or yourselves to initiate some intriguing piece of work, occasion, or something similar? If so, please alert me and I will add this publication to your list of ‘call-outs’. Send your invitations or challenges here: Mistress Robin of Thornwood, OL
If you are not currently taking such an action, please consider this to be an invitation/challenge/courteous appeal to devise one and issue it, whether as the announcement of a personal goal or a petition to the populace.
To set an example, I am challenging myself to plunge forward with a project I devised some (far too many) years ago, and have temporarily engaged in and procrastinated with ever since: A Bestiary of imagined animals with pictures and descriptions. I do not expect to completely finish it this year, but I cast my gauntlet before myself to make a significant beginning. The creatures are conceived and descriptions are written. The main work is to pen the text and render the illustrations. I pledge to take meaningful strides in this project this year of Anno Societatus LVI or fall upon my brush in ignominious chagrin.
Pray, Good Colleagues, join me with your own endeavors and announce your personal or popular proposals. You need not be a calligrapher or painter to issue such an appeal, each and everyone is enjoined. Put forth your idea to one and all. Excelsior!
Congratulations and Thank You
Congratulations and Thank You
Please join us in congratulating our CSL Celebratory Shield Giveaway recipient,
Viscount Sir Daniel of Aquitaine
from the Shire of Champclair of Cynagua!
Many Thanks to Their Majesties for the opportunity to announce the winner during 12th Night Court, and additional thanks for Their charity recommendation, Boxers and Buddies, which received a $260 donation from CSL.
Thank you to all the CSL Giveaway entrants who gave us the opportunity to get to know you better and for letting us share a bit about ourselves.
Thank you to the populace for your curiosity and passion concerning all the myriad intriguing aspects of the West Kingdom.
Thank you to the officers of the CSL for your hard work and dedication to making the giveaway work, Her Excellency Mistress Oonagh Bhán, Magnifica Christel Leake, Mistress Robin of Thornwood, Viscountess Meisha Kulikova, Lord Carrek MacBrian, THL Apollonia Faust, Atabeg Tusya Tatiana Sudosseva.
Last, but so far from least, a heartfelt Thank You to Her Excellency, Viscountess Gwyneth Rhiannon of the Sea, for her gracious and generous sponsorship of the CSL Celebratory Shield Giveaway.
Reviews
Reviews
Colleagues! Please send in a pertinent book, video, film, and exhibit reviews that will be of interest to artists and calligraphers. It is always informative to hear of something new, or something older that we have missed. Your old favorite may be brand new to some of us. Send your suggestions here: Mistress Robin of Thornwood, OL
Understanding Illuminated Manuscripts, A Guide to Technical Terms
Understanding Illuminated Manuscripts, A Guide to Technical Terms
Michelle P. Brown
This slim, 6x9 well-illustrated volume is a valuable reference to the many, sometimes confusing or unfamiliar terms relating to period manuscript art and calligraphy and their venues. The alphabetically arranged definitions are concise yet complete, with relevant etymological explanations. Words appearing in an entry that have their own citation are rendered in capitals for helpful cross-reference. The illustrations are sometimes somewhat diminutive, but the high print quality and generous use of color renders them perfectly readable.
Michelle Brown is Professor Emerita of Medieval Manuscript Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London, and was curator of Illuminated Manuscripts at the British Library from 1986 to 2004. She is the highly respected author of numerous books and monographs on medieval manuscript art, paleography, and socio-historical significance.
Hieronymus Bosch
Hieronymus Bosch
b. Hieronymus van Aken
Hieronymus Bosch was born in or around 1453 and lived until 1516 (making him the almost exact contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci, 1452-1519). His birthplace was the town of ’s Hertogenbosch (the Duke’s Woods), at the time under the control of the Dukes of Burgundy, between what is now Belgium and the Netherlands which was then known as North Brabant. The area was not in any way a particular center of the arts, though Bosch’s family all worked as painters and he must have learned his technical skills at an early age.
As with many, if not most, period artists, little is known of his life. He was undoubtedly successful, tax records show he paid high sums, and, in1481, married well. Seemingly, the couple remained for the rest of their lives on an estate that was part of his wife’s (her name is not recorded) dowery. All personal details are speculation and we, as yet. know little of his doings except through his works and nothing at all of his mental or emotional processes.
Bosch is one of the most fascinating and thought providing artists of all time. From what strange internal or external sources did his elegantly grotesque imagery stem? Were they the warnings of a deeply pious, respectable, and troubled soul with an unusual flair for the dramatic, steeped in the fearful pessimism of this time and local? We know he belonged to a conservative fraternity, the Brotherhood of Our Lady. Or was he the complete opposite? There is also speculation that he was a member of a secret and heretical sect known as the Adamites who eschewed orthodox Catholic dogma and often clothing and practiced strange erotic rites. Did he suffer hallucinations brought on by ergot poisoning? Was he didactic or subversive, preaching law and order or holding up to ridicule all that was ostensibly being revered?
Regardless of genesis, Bosch’s imagery is amazing and compelling, inviting any number of contradictory interpretations with its phantasmagorical frenzy. The painter is a visionary master of form and technique, combining brilliant naturalism with deft facility and expressionistic verve, bringing Gothic marginalia to center stage. There are illusions to contemporary proverbs and visual fables such as the inverted funnel symbolizing foolishness, the oyster or muscle denoting sexuality and doubtless, many of the other coded creatures had a meaning that is now lost to us.
Whatever the origin of Bosch’s figures, they are enthralling, magnificent, and endlessly inspiring. His art has incited what amounted to a cottage industry of imitation even in his lifetime and has continued to this day. The world would be far poorer without his rich strangeness.
Hieronymus Bosch’s Lost Masterpiece
Hieronymus Bosch’s Lost Masterpiece
James Thomas
The New Yorker Daily Shouts, Sept. 10, 2016
Hello! My name is T. P. Finnerty. The "T" stands for Thornton and the "P" stands for Placido and I am the person who found that painting by Hieronymus Bosch that you may have heard about in the news. I'm not an expert on paintings, but it is a pretty wild one—about sixty feet wide and two feet high, sort of like a comic strip, but just one panel. I have no clue what it's about. Maybe someone who collects this kind of thing will buy it. Or at least tell me what's going on in it, because I don't see how it makes any sense.
Oh, I found it in my basement. My dad left me this house in his will. It's huge! He was a Wall Street business guy. He died when his Jet Ski fell out of his helicopter onto his oil rig.
The painting is of hundreds of characters and they're all in a mountain or maybe on the moon or something like that. Everything is on fire and there are some parts where the fire is on fire; if that's a thing. The art is really amazing, I will say that much. Hieronymus Bosch was a heck of a painter. He must have taken years to do this painting. If you're interested, I'll tell you about some of the crazy things in it:
Guy with a Bowl for a Head
He's pretty funny. Most things in this painting are not funny; they are horrible. But it's funny to see someone sitting down, with a bowl for a head.
Woman in Barrel Falling Off a Tongue onto Enormous Spikes
I don't know what it means. But she is definitely going to be dead.
Octopus with a Hundred Legs
There is an octopus running down a hillside with a hundred legs. It is on fire but I don't think it cares.
Guy with His Thing Caught in a Keyhole and His Finger Stuck in a Wolf's Mouth
This guy, I don't know what his deal is. I can't tell what is the deal with him at all.
Cave Going to the Toilet on a Cat
The cave has human parts, I'll put it that way.
Spoon Demon
In the middle of the painting, there is a giant demon that's crushing people with a spoon. There's even lava spewing out of the top of its head!
People with Wings on Their Faces and Roots Growing out of Their Mouths
That's the best description I can give.
A Big Eye with a Haircut
Its gaze follows me around the room, but I keep looking at the haircut, not the eye. This is a haircut that nobody would ever have nowadays. It's by far the weirdest haircut I have ever seen!
Head of the Guy with a Bowl for a Head
I forgot about this. His original head is about twenty feet away, being kicked around by a frog that has flamingo legs.
Three Fishermen Boiling in Blood in a Skeleton's Goblet
This bit is not nice. Two of them have no face anymore. The skeleton is stirring the blood with a fishing rod, or maybe trying to fish the fishermen out? But if so there's not much point, because I think they're dead.
Four Brothers with Matching Scissors Through Their Middles
This one is really bad. There's a rabbit making them dance, with a whip. I keep thinking about them dancing and the scissors jiggling around in their guts. That is why I sleep with the light on, since last month.
Cheese Wheel Pouring a Load of Coins Into a Grandmother's Mouth
My dad used to have a pile of coins like this. Gold, I think. He glued them together and used them as a javelin one time. The javelin hit a dog. Dad told the owner to keep the javelin, and I think that was the end of that.
Guy Being Swallowed by Trousers Monster
I think it's a guy. You can only see the legs.
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