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John Martin
juvenile books
Snark after May 2013
The Bard
Henry Holiday
The Hunting of the Snark
Thomas Gray
Lewis Carroll
Allusionsforschung
allusion research
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Bellman & Bard

Bellman & Bard
[main image]: John Martin: The Bard (ca. 1817), by GIMP: contrast enhanced in the rock area & light areas delated.

[inset] Henry Holiday: Illustration (1876) to chapter The Beaver's Lesson in Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark, detail


Bellman & Bard after retinex filtering


In mydailyartdisplay.wordpress.com/the-bard-by-john-martin, "Jonathan" connects the painting to the poem The Bard written by by Thomas Gray in 1755. Inspired by a Welsh tradition that said that Edward I had put to death any bards he found, to extinguish Welsh culture; the poem depicts the escape of a single bard:
· · ...
· · On a rock, whose haughty brow
· · Frowns o'er cold Conway's foaming flood,
· · Robed in the sable garb of woe
· · With haggard eyes the Poet stood;
· · ...
· · A Voice, as of the Cherub-Choir,
· · Gales from blooming Eden bear;
· · And distant warblings lessen on my ear,
· · That lost in long futurity expire.
· · Fond impious Man, think'st thou, yon sanguine cloud,
· · Rais'd by thy breath, has quench'd the Orb of day?
· · To-morrow he repairs the golden flood,
· · And warms the nations with redoubled ray.
· · "Enough for me: With joy I see
· · The different doom our Fates assign.
· · Be thine Despair, and scept'red Care,
· · To triumph, and to die, are mine."
· · He spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height
· · Deep in the roaring tide he plung'd to endless night.
· · ...

Full text:
www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=bapo
spenserians.cath.vt.edu/TextRecord.php?action=GET&tex...
www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Etexts/gray.bard.html
www.google.com/search?q="A+Voice,+as+of+the+Cherub-Choir"


The poem and the painting may have been an inspiration to Lewis Carroll and Henry Holiday in The Hunting of the Snark. This is about The Vanishing of The Baker:
· · 537 · · "There is Thingumbob shouting!" the Bellman said,
· · 538 · · · · "He is shouting like mad, only hark!
· · 539 · · He is waving his hands, he is wagging his head,
· · 540 · · · · He has certainly found a Snark!"

· · 541 · · They gazed in delight, while the Butcher exclaimed
· · 542 · · · · "He was always a desperate wag!"
· · 543 · · They beheld him--their Baker--their hero unnamed--
· · 544 · · · · On the top of a neighbouring crag.

· · 545 · · Erect and sublime, for one moment of time.
· · 546 · · · · In the next, that wild figure they saw
· · 547 · · (As if stung by a spasm) plunge into a chasm,
· · 548 · · · · While they waited and listened in awe.

Album:

John Martin

Smiley Derleth, have particularly liked this photo


Comments
 Götz Kluge
Götz Kluge club
I am still playing around. Is the comparison shown above (with less color manipulation in John Martin's painting) better than this one?:
Bellmen on the Rocks

Bellman & Bard
10 years ago. Edited 10 years ago.
 Götz Kluge
Götz Kluge club
Henry Holiday's illustration to fit five of Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snarkh50
10 years ago. Edited 10 years ago.
 Götz Kluge
Götz Kluge club
"Nothing is really new it seems." Yes, it seems that many new things often just are forgotten old things. Moreover, "all art is infested by other art." (I used this quote from Leo Steinberg's Art about Art quite often in my comments to my Snark comparisons.)

Similar to you, I also like the first version of the comparison. However, the new colored version is closer to the original. Also, everybody can desaturate the colors in that image (I used the GIMP), but properly restoring the colors from an already desaturated version is quite impossible.

The greyscale version helps to focus on shapes. As Henry Holiday's illustrations were black&white, he did not "quote" colors, rather he used shapes to connect his illustrations to the art work of earlier painters and illustrators. I think, he had some fun himself (and together with Carroll/Dodgson?) when he re-interpreted the shapes:
Inspiration by Reinterpretation
10 years ago. Edited 10 years ago.
 Götz Kluge
Götz Kluge club
In the greyscale version, I could not stop myself from giving the Bard his color back.
10 years ago. Edited 10 years ago.
 Götz Kluge
Götz Kluge club
After GIMP Retinex filtering:
Bellman & Bard after Retinex filtering
Not eye pleasing, but good for shape analysis.
10 years ago. Edited 10 years ago.

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