Pilgrim Progress Illustration « Search Results

Tuesday, January 30, 2024

For January XXX

Filed under: General — Tags: Venice Beach Barbenheimer — m759 @ 5:55 am

Illustration by Frederick Alfred Rhead of Vanity Fair,
page 96 in the John Bunyan classic Pilgrim's Progress
(New York, The Century Co., 1912)

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Tuesday, September 22, 2020

Autumn Equinox at the Temple of Art

Filed under: General — Tags: Abrams Eight, Vanity Language — m759 @ 9:29 am

Detail of illustration by Frederick Alfred Rhead of Vanity Fair,
page 96 in the John Bunyan classic Pilgrim’s Progress
(New York, The Century Co., 1912)

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Saturday, February 4, 2017

♫ Are You Going to Vanity Fair?

Filed under: General — Tags: Balzac, Impetus — m759 @ 2:00 pm

"In those days, the occult sciences were 
cultivated with ardor well calculated to surprise the 
incredulous minds of our own sovereignly analytical 
age; perhaps they may detect in this historical 
sketch the germ of the positive sciences, widely 
studied in the nineteenth century, but without the 
poetic grandeur which was ascribed to them by the 
audacious investigators of the sixteenth century; 
who, instead of devoting their energy to industry, 
magnified art and made thought fruitful. The 
patronage universally accorded to art by the sov- 
ereigns of that time was justified, too, by the mar- 
vellous creations of inventors who started in quest 
of the philosopher's stone and reached amazing re- 
sults." — Balzac, Catherine de' Medici

Honoré de Balzac, Sur Catherine de Médicis :

— Hé! bien, sire, en ôtant Dieu de ce monde, que reste-t-il?
L’homme! Examinons alors notre domaine?
Le monde matériel est composé d’éléments, ces éléments
ont eux-mêmes des principes. Ces principes se résolvent
en un seul qui est doué de mouvement. Le nombre TROIS est
la formule de la création: la Matière, le Mouvement, le Produit!

— La preuve? Halte-là, s’écria le roi.

Illustration by Frederick Alfred Rhead of Vanity Fair,
page 96 in the John Bunyan classic Pilgrim's Progress
(New York, The Century Co., 1912)

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Saturday, May 14, 2016

The Hourglass Code

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: Hourglass Code — m759 @ 1:28 pm

A version of the I Ching’s Hexagram 19:

I Ching Hexagram 19, 'Approach,' the box-style version

From Katherine Neville's The Eight , a book on the significance
of the date April 4 — the author's birthday —

Axe image from Katherine Neville's 'The Eight'

The Eight by Katherine Neville —

    “What does this have to do with why we’re here?”
    “I saw it in a chess book Mordecai showed me. The most ancient chess service ever discovered was found at the palace of King Minos on Crete– the place where the famous Labyrinth was built, named after this sacred axe. The chess service dates to 2000 B.C. It was made of gold and silver and jewels…. And in the center was carved a labrys.”
… “But I thought chess wasn’t even invented until six or seven hundred A.D.,” I added. “They always say it came from Persia or India. How could this Minoan chess service be so old?”
    “Mordecai’s written a lot himself on the history of chess,” said Lily…. “He thinks that chess set in Crete was designed by the same guy who built the Labyrinth– the sculptor Daedalus….”
    Now things were beginning to click into place….
    “Why was this axe carved on the chessboard?” I asked Lily, knowing the answer in my heart before she spoke. “What did Mordecai say was the connection?”….
    “That’s what it’s all about,” she said quietly. “To kill the King.”

     The sacred axe was used to kill the King. The ritual had been the same since the beginning of time. The game of chess was merely a reenactment. Why hadn’t I recognized it before?

Related material: Posts now tagged Hourglass Code.

See also the hourglass in a search for Pilgrim's Progress Illustration.

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Friday, April 22, 2016

Vanity Fair Continues

Filed under: General — m759 @ 11:02 am

Detail of illustration by Frederick Alfred Rhead of Vanity Fair,
page 96 in the John Bunyan classic Pilgrim's Progress
(New York, The Century Co., 1912)

Yesterday's posts Legend and Purple Requiem suggest a review
of John Bunyan. A search for "Vanity Fair" + "Temple of Art" yields…

The above Vanity Fair article was linked to here previously.

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Saturday, April 9, 2016

Raiders of the Lost Crucible

Filed under: General — Tags: April 8-11 2016 — m759 @ 2:28 pm

(Continued)

Vanity Fair illustrated —

Detail of illustration by Frederick Alfred Rhead of Vanity Fair,
page 96 in the John Bunyan classic Pilgrim's Progress
(New York, The Century Co., 1912)

Thursday, October 3, 2002

Thursday October 3, 2002

Filed under: General — Tags: Shadow Studies — m759 @ 1:06 pm

Literary Landmarks

From Dr. Mac's Cultural Calendar for Oct. 3:

"On this day in 1610, Ben Jonson's funniest comedy The Alchemist was entered into the Stationer's Register. It involves a servant who when the masters are away sets up a necromantic shop, tricking all and everyone."

From Literary Calendar for tomorrow, Oct. 4:

"1892 — Robert Lawson, the only author/illustrator to win both the Caldecott Award and the Newbery Award—both coveted awards in the United States for children's literature, is born."

As a child I was greatly influenced by Robert Lawson's illustrations for the Godolphin abridgement of Pilgrim's Progress. Later I was to grow up partly in Cuernavaca, Mexico, an appropriate setting for The Valley of the Shadow of Death and other Bunyan/Lawson themes. Still later, I encountered Malcolm Lowry's great novel Under the Volcano, set in Cuernavaca. Lowry's novel begins with an epigraph from Bunyan. For the connection with Ben Jonson, see Pete Hamill's article "The Alchemist of Cuernavaca" in Art News magazine, April 2001, pages 134-137. See also my journal note of April 4, 2001, The Black Queen.

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