Saturday, September 25, 2010

MOBY-DICK, Page 386

Title: "De balena vero sufficit, si rex habeat caput, et regina caudam."

Bracton, l 3. c. 3.

Latin from the books of the Laws of England, which taken along with the context, means, that of all whales captured by anybody on the coast of that land, the King, as Honorary Grand Harpooneer, must have the head, and the Queen be respectfully presented with the tail. A division which, in the whale, is much like halving an apple; there is no intermediate remainder.


12 inches by 7 inches
acrylic paint, collage and ink on construction paper
September 24, 2010

4 comments:

  1. New favourite alert! Love this one.

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  2. Thank you, I am starting to really enjoy these ink pieces on construction paper. I found this incredibly old stack of construction paper, and whatever color the pages were supposed to originally be is long gone. They have now all faded to this kind of vaguely mottled brownish color. When I draw on this with a brush pen, I find it almost comes to resemble simple engravings or woodcuts. I'm sure I'll come back to this a few more times before I am done.

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  3. Love this image, it's a really good one. They're all wonderfully fearless, but this one is communicative and... pretty.

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  4. Susse, that is a very unexpected but quite wonderful comment, thank you. This passage, with all its allusions to history, made me think of an old engraving. Something like those of Albrecht Durer of even Gustave Dore. I find that using old and faded construction paper and a very fine pen allows me to convey that just a bit. There is always a kind of elegance to those old engravings and I am very pleased that it carried through in my piece.

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