17 February 2012

Book du jour

The text contained in the second ... what to call it ... room within a book? ... is a comparison of Simone Martini's angel, painted in Italy in 1333, with a Bhodisattva painted in Japan in the eleventh century. The emphasis in the comparison is on the mystic qualities of the figures.

Before opening the book at random to start copying text, I embossed some letters onto the paper, but they completely disappeared under the writing, except in certain lighting. If the letters contributed anything to, or interacted with, the text, they could be left blank (perhaps). Well, another idea tried and rejected! I used a heavier pen for the "inside" and a very fine one for the four columns of text, which are revealed only upon close inspection. Reading from one side to the other* will give you nonsense (but it's not nonsense when I write it!) -
It has shiny white covers and is not terribly interesting on its own -
The one in black covers is "one I prepared earlier".

*with a Bhodisattva with an eleventh  prevalent in his time: Italian,  so largely depends, is not  flamelike movement to the forms
century Japanese artist, there are  French, and the lingering static but moves in sinuous  The suggestion of fluttering
very striking similarities. The  vestiges of the Byzantine  rhythms that at once animate  in the angel's wings an

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