Major Project | Bestiary Experiments [1]

Part of Monday/Tuesday was spent taking the visual techniques and 'look' of my research, and trying to recreate it on a digital platform. I experimented with a range of brushes ('SplatterEdge', 'textureground' and 'Flat Bristle'- also used as an eraser- with 50-60% opacity and flow, and slight 'smoothing' to get the look of a brush/ink), colours, smudge tools ('Kyle's Impressionist Blender 1' to get the look of mottled paper), and methodologies in creating these creatures in the 'style' of European bestiaries, the Voynich Manuscript, and other texts dating back to medieval times. It was tricky trying to reduce the 'digital' look of these designs, but it allowed for me to experiment with fading, overlays (paper and pigment), and the amount of detail I want visible using digital painting, rather than the more minimalist design of the Canterbury Bestiary, as seen middle above.

I have a few more things I want to try out later in the week- i.e. gold leaf textures, and colours prevalent in 'sublime' imagery- as I want to capture the idea that these creatures are considered 'god-like' by the people of the book. In humanities weakness, 'Mord' for instance is seen as a worshiped force, that one cannot deny (like death). 'God' across varying cultures are responded to at times with 'gold leaf'. During my trip to Thailand, I learnt locals visiting sacred places apply 'gold leaf' to the Buddha statues. Usually wherever it's most relevant to their wish/query- i.e. getting good grades, you might put the gold leaf on the head, or healing a leg wound, you may also apply it to Buddha's leg.
Christian practices see gilding present in European arts, with initials, borders of manuscripts and in paintings. Halos, that represent sacred figures in ancient texts, also had gold leaf applied. The presence of gold was often considered a symbol of heaven- and so would indicate the subject's "proximity to God". Additionally, during  the 1300's, 'gold-ground' was also a widespread technique in Italy and the Byzantine Empire.
Later, artists such as Klimt arguably used gold to suggest an "ideal realm", wherein man is "able to find pure joy, pure happiness and pure love".

There's a common theme in art, when considering the presence of a higher power, wherein the grandiose of said power is captured in the sublimity and majesticness of the environment, in comparison to 'man'. Colours and scale are paramount at showing this. While the Bestiaries I've looked at seem to ignore a sense of distance/scale which I need for 3D, I can find this sense of space using other religious/'sublime' paintings of the time.

The sublime and epic quality of the environment, compared to the individual, enforces a sense of:
i- isolation/loneliness
ii- The reviving of the “romanticizing trope of landscape” takes part in “a tradition of sublime representations of a notional nature from which human agency is fundamentally distinguished”.
iii- Like being in a painting. We are in a representation of the world, not the world itself. An absence of humanities intervention.
It’s a paradox of a “human conception of a human-less space [that] reveals the self-destructive form of apocalypse”. And of humanity.

I've also taken note from Wedgewood's pottery designer, Susannah Margaretta "Daisy" Makeig-Jones, whose "Fairyland Lustre" (1915-1929) captures the "idyllic place inhabited by fairies, goblins and elves", between World War 1, and World War 2. It's popularity declined during the start of the 2nd World War, but it's interesting to consider its presence at the end of the harsh blow of World War 1. There's a presence of gold, and an explosion of bright colours that don't seemingly belong to our world. Indeed Nicholas Dawes (antiques dealer) suggests that "many Europeans were looking for something to escape from the horrors of war".

I'm really liking this idea of the 'sublime nature'  and expression of beauty during hardship in the 'look' of my bestiary. Especially since the world of 'Borne' is one ravaged by isolation, despair and the decline of humanity to the 'greater world' around us.

References
http://www.manetti.com/en/2014/07/21/gold-leaf-history/
http://web.ceu.hu/medstud/manual/MMM/gilding.html
http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/glossg.asphttps://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/getty-museum/getty-paintings/a/italian-gold-ground-painting
http://www.klimt.com/en/biography/1899---1910.html
https://www.iiconservation.org/node/6087
http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/TourBestiaryEnglish.asp
https://hydeandrugg.wordpress.com/2013/08/20/hoaxing-the-voynich-manuscript-part-4-the-materials/
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/15/health/voynich-manuscript-mystery/index.html
voynichbirths.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-context-for-voynich-manuscript.html
https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/1/16959454/voynich-manuscript-mystery-ai-decoded-debunked
http://www.worldcollectorsnet.com/articles/wedgwood-fairyland-lustre/
https://www.richardgardnerantiques.co.uk/antique-wedgwood-fairyland-lustre/
https://www.canterbury-cathedral.org/heritage/archives/picture-this/whats-in-a-name/
http://benjaminmcevoy.com/sublime-super-quick-introduction-context-romantic-poetry/
http://mary-shelley.wikia.com/wiki/William_Wordsworth,_Lines_Written_Above_Tintern_Abbey..._(1798)
http://tarpeygallery.com/exhibition/john-cheall-synthesising-the-sublime/
https://eclecticlight.co/2016/01/29/the-story-in-paintings-turners-narratives/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/fts/houston_200503A51.html