Curiosa: Hello, mudder ...

[nebroadwe]

Cataloged an incunable today, a minor work by Savonarola, which features two woodcuts of the crucifixion and a third that depicts Christ meeting his mother on the Via Dolorosa, except that it's not all that dolorous. On the left we have a grumpy BVM, swathed from head to foot in a burqa, gesticulating at the Christ, her admonitory fingers inches from his robe. (An equally grumpy man, his nose in danger of being squashed flat by her halo, is shoving his way into frame behind her: "Move it, lady! I can't see!") The Christ, by contrast, looks positively insouciant, cross balanced jauntily on one shoulder as he glances back at his mother over the other, right eyebrow quirked in what I cannot help but describe as an O RLY? expression. Do we have to go through this "lamb to the slaughter" nonsense every time I leave? he seems to be asking. I'll be back before you know it -- three days, tops!

And this, my friends, is why I'll be doing hard time in Purgatory some day ...

Comments

[lyrangalia]

I want to see a picture of this.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Sadly, it doesn't seem to be online and I have no way to reproduce it. Theoretically we're digitizing this collection someday, but ... Harvard's got a copy, too, and the Rosenwald and the Met -- let them do it; they've got the funding!

[artemisrae.livejournal.com]

...I've spent the last two days debating whether or not to leave a comment asking where you've been and then I went for some reason and saw you posted on Election Day, and now I'm generally just feeling confused, because I feel like I haven't seen you in months...

So how ya been? The Catholic schoolgirl inside of me is in love with that Savonarola.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

*giggles*

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

...I've spent the last two days debating whether or not to leave a comment asking where you've been and then I went for some reason and saw you posted on Election Day, and now I'm generally just feeling confused, because I feel like I haven't seen you in months...

Sorry about that -- it got busy here and I was away a lot (and every time I sit down at my desk I see "In My End Is My Beginning" looking all forlorn and edit me! pleeeeease! and I feel guilty. Not to mention the fact that a bunch of Argentinian FMA fans seem to have discovered part 1 of "The Weight of the Paper" on FF.net, so I really ought to get part 2 edited and posted, too. I swear, I'm getting up Saturday morning, grabbing the drafts and the thesaurus, and wading back in. It's been too long!).

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

*giggles back* This is even better than the woodcut on the title page of the pamphlet about the Tumult of Thorn in which a beheaded Protestant, cradling his own skull, faces a swoony Ignatius Loyola underneath a lowering sky from which two arms, one holding a straight sword and the other a scimitar, protrude, dueling, while Death plays bass fiddle in the background. Talk about overdetermined ...

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

And you wonder, just what were these people smokin'?

Then I look at Heironymous Bosch....

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Eep, yes, Bosch. Whose stuff makes much more sense when you realize it's the high culture version of all these random wood-cuts, just distilled down and mainlined. :-)

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

And colored. Don't forget colored.

...but I still wanna know what they were smoking. :)