Interestingly, my inspiration for this piece originated in the border of the design. The border is based off a Pencraft Ornamental Border design that I discovered in the 1925 Barhart Brothers & Spindler Type Specimen Book.

I am planning on vectorizing the border and putting up for download, but for now, the above image will have to serve as a place holder. It is a scan from the Specimen Book (p. 385).

The rest of the image followed the border. The border is Art Nouveau and inspired the style of the bird. The peacock is stylized, stressing flowing, curvilinear lines.

The remaining inspiration, Japonism, is only fitting given its popularity among Impressionists and other artists working during the 1880’s-1905 when Art Nouveau was popular. From April 25-May 22, 1890, the École des Beaux-Arts featured a survey exhibition on the history of Japanese woodblock prints.* Many artists, including Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947), Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), and James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), were profoundly inspired by these prints and began to incorporate elements of East Asian art into their works. This trend proliferated and continues today. The cherry blossom tree in the background of this piece pays homage to the Japonism movement.

Finally, here is the final sketch for the block:

*Source: Elizabeth Hutton Turner, et al., Pierre Bonnard, Early and Late, (Washington D.C.: Philip Wilson Publishers in collaboration with The Philips Collection, 2002), 190.

I had a little mishap with the blue block and had to re-carve it. Silly me, I cut on the outside of the line, not the inside, so of course it was not going to register properly. Yet another reason why it has taken me so long to get this project going.

But hopefully this time it will work. More updates after I print them!

“Long a pillar of Christianity, devotion to the Virgin Mary was transformed by Martin Luther’s challenges to the papacy begun in 1517 and recorded in the profusion of prints churned out by newly established presses across Europe. This exhibition, featuring examples by Albrecht Dürer and Marcantonio Raimondi, explores the changes Marian imagery underwent in the 1500s and the role devotional prints played in worshippers’ lives.”

Essentially, what I did was to create a few groups of 3-4 prints each, which would highlight different aspects of Marian Devotion in the late medieval and early modern periods. Those groups are: (1) The Young Virgin’s role in the Incarnation as shown through Annunciation scenes, (2) Saint Luke Painting the Virgin, (3) The Virgin in Pilgrimage, (4) The Virgin as Mother shown through scenes of the Holy Family and Rest on the Flight Imagery, (5) The Virgin as Compassionate shown through Pièta imagery, (6) The Virgin as an Object of Devotion, and (7) The Virgin as Queen of Heaven.

The show is up from March 21 – July 5. The Blanton Museum of Art is located at The University of Texas at Austin, MLK at Congress, Austin, Texas 78701.

I took some photographs and a short video of the show. I will post the video later, but here are some photos along with a list of prints on display.

Albrecht Dürer
The Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels, 1518 —————>

Marcantonio Raimondi
The Annunciation, circa 1506, after Albrecht Dürer

Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio
The Annunciation, 1536-1537, after Titian

Egidius Horbeck
The Annunciation and the Heavenly Glory, 1581, after Cornelis Cort, after Frederico Zuccaro

Michael Wolgemut
Saint Luke Painting the Virgin and Child, from the Weltchronik, or Liber Chronicarum [The Nuremberg Chronicle], 1493 ————>

Dirk Vellert
Saint Luke Painting the Virgin, 1526

Jacob Matham
Saint Luke Painting the Virgin, 1614, after Hendrick Goltzius

Anonymous
Italian (?), 16th century ———————————————>
A Devotional Virgin

Copy after Marcantonio Raimondi
Holy House of Loreto, circa 1575 ———————————————>

Michael Ostendorfer
The Pilgrimage to the Beautiful Virgin at Regensburg, 1519 ———————————————>

Lucas van Leyden
The Holy Family, circa 1508

Hendrick Goltzius
The Holy Family with the Young Saint John the Baptist, from Meisterstiche, 1593

Camillo Procaccini
Rest on the Flight into Egypt, 1587-1590

Jan Muller
Rest on the Flight, 1593, after Gerrit Pieterz

Giulio Bonasone
Il Silenzio (The Madonna of the Silence), 1561, after Michelangelo

———————————————————–>

Hendrick Goltzius
Pietà, 1596

Jean Mignon
Pietà, circa 1537 – 1540, after Luca Penni

Giulio Bonasone
Pietà for Vittoria Colonna, 1546, after Michelangelo

CENTRAL CASE:

Heinrich Aldegrever
The Virgin and Child at the Foot of a Tree, 1527

Albrecht Dürer
Madonna by the Wall, 1514

Hieronymus Wierix
The Virgin Suckling the Child, before 1619

Anonymous
Coronation of the Virgin, circa 1498

Daniel Hopfer I
Christ Blessing the Virgin, circa 1518-1520 ——————————->

Marcantonio Raimondi
The Virgin and Child on the Clouds, 16th century, after Raphael

I don’t know if anyone is going to be interested in this bird, but when I saw this photograph I fell in love. This is not the bright pink plastic kitsch on your neighbor’s front lawn. These creatures are so much more than that. They have crazy habits like tucking one foot under their bodies when they stand. Their coloring comes from the tiny shrimp that they eat in the wild. While there are no species listed under the Endangered Species Act, flamingos are becoming rarer. This is the bird I am trying to capture in my new print (a drawing is shown below):

I have never done a three color print before, so it is going to be an adventure. I am going to have a black line block, a pink block for the birds, and a blue block for the water. I found this new water-based ink called Akua that I am going to try because I want to get a specific effect with the blue. I want to give a gradient to the blue so that it looks like it is fading from the blue of the water to the blue of the sky. I hope I can get it to work the way I envision it.

Here is what it looked like before we folded it in quarters:


I did not get a chance to carve a block specifically for the card, so we settled on using a preexisting metal block. It was a ship with a large sail saying “Seasons Greetings.”

Doug and I set the type in a mixture of fonts. For the front, we used a 48 point Italic font that we got for free with all the other stuff. For the inside, we used 18 point Caslon. The “and” on the inside is a single block. We printed the card in 2 colors, green and red.

Here are some pictures of what the card looked like when all folded and finished:

Doug was looking around for alternatives and discovered a process called Electrolytic Rust Removal. In the process, one uses electricity to transfer rust from one piece of metal to another. One piece of ferrous metal is placed in a tub of water and baking soda with the positive lead attached. The piece of metal you want rust removed from goes into the tub as well (being careful not to let the 2 pieces touch) and attach the negative lead. Turn on the power source and let it sit.

Here is a video of Doug explaining the process with visuals.

Video:

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This can be done much more smoothly and expertly, but we used what we had. Here is a before and after picture of one of the galley trays after a couple of hours in the bath:

Speaking of shining. We also found a nice big aluminum brayer in the bottom of one of the boxes. We thought at first that we would probably have to get the rubber replaced because it was all bumpy and stuff. But I thought that I might give it a wash in some paint thinner and see what I could do. As it turns out, I guess the last person to use it didn’t clean it and so the oil just stayed on and actually created a sort of protective coating (which probably saved it). So it is a roller in perfect condition. I also scrubbed the body of the brayer and polished up the aluminum. You can see in the picture to the right the side before I polished it (on the right) and the side after I polished it (on the left).

The biggest job, however, was getting the Nolan Proof Press working. This little Nolan is the No. 2 Proof Press shown in this Advertisement from approx. the 1950’s in the American Wood Type Manufacturing Co. Catalog.

(Image courtesy of http://vandercookpress.info/nolan.html)

When we first got the press, the roller did not move at all and it was COVERED in rust and dirt. In order to do anything with it, we had to take it totally apart. This proved more difficult than expected as the nuts holding everything together would not budge. We sprayed WD-40 and penetrating oil on each connection and let it sit for a week – still nothing. So Doug had the great idea of getting this nifty little tool called a nut splitter. Since we didn’t have to worry about saving the nuts (they were all rusty and needed to be replaced anyway) we just cracked the nuts open and they came off! We then SCRUBBED AND SCRUBBED to get the rust off the press bed. There is a nice man who can make us a “galley thickness bed plate” for the bed that will make the height even. Even so, we still had to get the raised rust off the bed so that anything can lay flat and even. Here are some Before and After pictures. You can still see what is left of the rust on the bed, but it is SO much better than it was.

Before:

And  After:

In addition to all the fixing things, we also sorted tons of type and spacers. I do hope I can sell some of the type.

In any case, it was a job well done and I now have a beautiful working proof press on which to print!! I am in the process of designing my next block, so maybe it will get some use soon! And if not from that, at least from Christmas cards!