Three Winter Solstice Drawings

Knight Town (Wayne Ferrebee, 2015, colored pencils and ink)

It is already the winter solstice.  What with the Christmas rush and year-end business at work I have not had time to pick out a suitable theme for the longest night of the year.  But my subconscious has not been so quiescent.  Here are the three most recent drawings in my little book.  I suddenly notice that each of them takes place at night.  Above is a knight in jaunty paisley wandering the streets of a nocturnal city.  Dinosaurs grapple as a glowing lizard glides down toward the warrior.  A little glowing plant man and a strange luminous crystal add interest.

Bar in Alphabet City (Wayne Ferrebee, 2015, colored pencil and ink)

Here is a scene at a bar in alphabet city.  The patrons were jostling and squiggling pretty vigorously (which made them hard to draw), but I think I caught the milieu.

Fallow Hill (Wayne Ferrebee, 2015, colored pencil and ink)

Last is my most recent piece, which somehow looks like it something from a heavy metal album.  I have no idea what is going on here. Demons and ghosts are gathering around a terrible haunted face growing up out of the fallow fields.  A hellish glow pervades the horizon.  No more horror novels before bedtime.  The great thing about the winter solstice is that it will keep getting lighter from this point on. Although admittedly the coldest times of winter lie before us, the darkest times are passing.  And they aren’t even that bad…well, not as bad as this horrible undead scarecrow thing.

Four More Little Sketches

Fertile Patch (Wayne Ferrebee, 2015, colored pencil and ink)

Here are four more little drawings from the little sketchbook I carry around during the day.  The first drawing (above) features some Mesopotamian warriors and creatures wandering through a brilliant green fertile world.

East River (Wayne Ferrebee, 2015, color pencil)

Next is a little drawing of the view across the East River from the spot where I eat lunch on nice days.  New York has been ridiculously pretty for December.  Sometimes it is pretty hard to leave the view of the sparkling river and the traffic flowing through Brooklyn Heights and go back to my beige cubicle.

The Knight and the Casuist (Wayne Ferrebee, 2015, color pencil and ink)

My favorite of this batch of doodles is this brave but dimn knight in the English countryside.  Whatever quest he is on has taken him into conversation with this malicious bishop-ghoul.  It looks like the dark apparition is getting the better of the hero in their discourse.  I think there is a scene like this in “The Fairy Queen.”  Have you read that?  It is longer than the Bible but there are scenes of pellucid beauty and charm.

Pleasure Garden (Wayne Ferrebee, 2015, color pencil and ink)

Finally here is last fantasy scene set in some garden utopia.  Otherworldly beasts stretch and preen on the glowing yards as Chistmassy trees stretch into the clear blue sky.  I hope you enjoy these little drawings. I have to rememeber to put up some of my real art works here for the Holiday season!

Carpaccio’s “Saint George and the Dragon”

Saint George and the Dragon (Vittore Carpaccio, 1507 AD, tempera on panel)

 

Vittore Carpaccio was born around 1465 in either Venice or in Capodistria (a port in Istria which had been taken over by the Republic of Venice in the 14^th century). His father was a glovemaker who was most likely from Albania. Carpaccio is one of the masters of early Venetian art, but he is not as famous as his contemporaries Bellini and Giorgione. This is because of Carpaccio’s style inclined toward the conservative and Gothic rather than towards the humanistic Renaissance style which was coming into vogue, but it is also because he did not have the same caliber of successful students as his two peers (who taught Titian).

Here is Carpaccio’s 1507 work Saint George and the Dragon which is painted in tempera on a panel and is housed in the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni. The Scuolo was a confraternity—a sort of early version of a corporation—which commissioned the work in the first years of the sixteenth century and it has been there ever since.

When I was a child I always wanted to go to the Medieval section of the museum to look at knights–and I was always disappointed by all the self tormenting Saints and Jesuses (which took me a while to properly appreciate). Here, however, is a painting I would have loved! The splendidly armed and armored knight is depicted at the exact moment he drives a beaked lance through the monster’s head! This incendiary action is framed by a meticulously detailed world of dizzying beauty and horror. The dragon is surrounded by the dreadful remains of his many victims. You should blow up the digital photo of the painting to get a good view of all the snakes, skulls, toads, and seashells scattered on the round around the dragon’s lair (not to mention the naked half-eaten maiden whose remains are being scavenged by a lizard). In the near background a Libyan princess in exotic Eastern headwear clasps her hands in horror. Although her vivid attire is meant to represent the exotic East, she seems like a fragment of Carpaccio’s imagination. Likewise, the fantasy city in the background is meant to be Silene of Libya, yet the trade ships of the Middle Ages and all of the Romanesque and Gothic castles, keeps, and villas in the background put one firmly in mind of the Adriatic.

All the major lines of the painting (the dragon’s head, the lance, the ocean, and the horse’s back legs) point straight at the glittering red and black knight who dominates the composition. Resplendent on his destrier, clad in sable armor, with his blond curly hair cascading behind him he is perfectly at home in his world of religion and ultraviolence. The knight is the perfect representation of the troubled world of early sixteenth century Venice (increasingly at odds with the Ottoman Empire). It was a time and place which called for violent men of action.

Gothic Armor

Gothic Armor (available for sale at http://www.armae.com!)

Welcome back to armor week at Ferrebeekeeper! Yesterday I introduced an ancient order of armored mollusks, the chitons, with an allegorical story about a knight of the Holy Roman Empire.  This reminded me of gothic armor, one of the most beautiful and functional styles of plate armor ever devised. Gothic armor was, in fact, used by knights of the Holy Roman Empire (and lands beyond) throughout the 15^th century. The style was characterized by a full plate armor which covered the entire body.  This plate was designed with intricate structural flutings, ridges, and curves influenced by the ornamentation of Gothic art and architecture.  However the ridges and crenellations of gothic armor served a double purpose: such features strengthened the armor and deflected arrows (which had become more prevalent in the warfare of the day). Additionally the major joints and breaks of gothic armor (armpits, crotch, and knees) were protected with chain mail underneath. A warrior in gothic armor was well protected (particularly considering he was most likely an insane German nobleman carrying a great sword).

A Fine German Sallet with associated Bevor, circa 1475

In the 1480s, gothic armor from Germany was considered the finest in Europe. Protective headgear had changed as well: although some knights still wore bascinets from the previous era, the most prevalent helmet of the day was the gothic sallet, a close fitting helmet with a long sharpened tail to protect the neck.  The sallet was complimented by a bevor which protected the knight’s chin.

Ludwig III wearing gothic armor with prominent poleyns, from a fifteenth century manuscript

Illustration of a knight in Gothic armor (from Concilium zu Constanz, 1483, woodcut)

Gothic armor influenced English and Italian suits of armor.  By the sixteenth century, Italian innovations in turn caused the style of German armor making to change.  Gothic armor was left behind as armor suits became even more rounded and covered in grooves (a style known as Maximilian armor after the Holy Roman Emperor). However the great German printers, painters, and illuminators of the 15^th century had already immortalized gothic armor–which is forever associated with knights to anyone familiar with such art.

Knight (Albrecht Durer, 1498))