Thursday, January 27, 2011

MOBY-DICK, Page 549 (second, final version)

Title: Retribution, swift vengeance, eternal malice were in his whole aspect, and spite of all that mortal man could do, the solid white buttress of his forehead smote the ship's starboard bow, till men and timbers reeled. Some fell flat upon their faces. Like dislodged trucks, the heads of the harpooneers aloft shook on their bull-like necks. Through the breach, they heard the waters pour, as mountain torrents down a flume.

"The ship! The hearse! - the second hearse!" cried Ahab from the boat; "its wood could only be American!"


15.5 inches by 10.75 inches
acrylic paint and ink on found paper
January 23, 2011

9 comments:

  1. All your work has been astonishingly good Matt. You manage to continuously keep it all fresh and exiting! Sorry if I don't comment more often.

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  2. Ha, Steve, absolutely no apologies about commenting are necessary at all! I appreciate every single one, from everybody, so they always mean a lot. No matter what happens with the art I make, I don't think I will ever get over feeling a bit starstruck by real artists, so to read words like that from someone whose art blows me away like yours does...it's pretty crazy. Good crazy, but crazy. Many many thanks.

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  3. Both versions are incredible. Glad I didn't have to choose, and very glad I got to see each one!

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  4. outrage and destruction! that eye!
    i think of my days at sea, somehow. and not just mine.nothing to say but i've been faithfully there.
    was thinking i will symbolically drink to the last page tomorrow, tho i don't drink, per se. i'll find something. cheers!

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  5. Ha! Thank you Buck, and it's funny that you mentioned that because I was kind of hoping, when I had finished both pieces, that I would like one much more than the other. I ended up liking them both quite a bit so choosing was a bit tough but in the end the right things came through. The good thing about a blog is that, unlike a book, I don't have to choose one at the exclusion of the other and I can share them both.

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  6. Indeed Lizzy, the eye seems to have become more and more an obsession of mine. Perhaps a way of projecting an identity, a soul, upon this White Whale.

    Sadly, my only time at sea has been me standing on a shore or swimming in the shallows, so some day I hope to get to where all I can see is a horizon of water. Although hopefully I won't suffer the same fate as the crew of the Pequod.

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  7. fatewise, i sure hope not! and i hope, if truly you have such a wish, you do some day get out to sea: there is nothing like it.

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  8. Again, thanks for letting us see both and that is a tough choice.
    After some while to-ing and fro-ing, I think the eye has it!
    Two very powerful images, and wonderful colour.

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  9. wow - now this one blows my mind! awesome!
    congratulations on finishing the task you set - now enjoy your fame and your family!

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