Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder

The lower image is the only Snark illustration by Henry Holiday which shows the Snark . However, in this case the beast appeared in The Barrister's dream . Therefore it is just a Dream Snark . [top]: Detail from the etching (1566-1568) The Image Breakers by Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder. [bottom]: Detail from the illustration (1876) by Henry Holiday to The Hunting of the Snark . Lewis Carroll (C. L. Dodgson) did not want Henry Holiday to depict the Snark in the illustrations to The Hunting of the Snark . But Holiday was allowed to let it appear veiled by its "gown, bands, and wig" in The Barrister's Dream . Also in this case, Holiday pictorially alluded to the etching by Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder. In this comparison several shapes - see notes (1) to (5) - provide the beholder of the illustration with pictorial quotes which point to that etching. This is just the place to repeat a textual quote which I like a lot: "We have neglected the gift of comprehending things through our senses. Concept is divorced from percept, and thought moves among abstractions. Our eyes have been reduced to instruments with which to identify and to measure; hence we suffer a paucity of ideas that can be expressed in images and in an incapacity to discover meaning in what we see. Naturally we feel lost in the presence of objects that make sense only to undeluted vision, and we seek refuge in the more familiar medium of words. ... The inborn capacity to understand through the eyes has been put to sleep and must be reawakened." (Rudolf Arnheim: Art and Visual Perception, 1974, p. 1) Images like this could be used in class by arts teachers to reawaken that inborn capacity. This also is a training to make and discuss decisions based on incomplete information. Am I wrong? Am I right? "Only those questions that are in principle undecidable, we can decide." (Heinz von Foerster: Ethics and Second-Order Cybernetics, 1990-10-04, Système et thérapie familiale, Paris) · 2014-05-19

Illustration by Henry Holiday to The Hunting of the Snark (1876, chapter The Vanishing ) and The Image Breakers (1566-1568) by Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder. How does blurring help to compare the images? The Priest in the Mouth detail is displayed using two high resolution images (middle) which then again have been low pass filtered (bottom). That filtering helps to focus on larger structures. This was the first allusion by Henry Holiday to another work of art which I discovered in December 2008.

Illustrations by Henry Holiday (from The Hunting of the Snark ,1876) and Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder ( Allegory of Iconoclasts around 1567): In the "mouth" of Gheeraert's "head" a praying priest is depicted. The shape of the priest also is visible in the "mouth" of Holiday's vanishing "Baker". This is not plagiarism. This is a puzzle in a picture similar to puzzles in textual artwork (poetry,novels etc.), where readers are challenged to detect references to other writers. Holiday may have used the shape of the priest in his own illustration in order to indicate to the beholder a relation to Gheeraert's illustration. Holiday also used other elements from Gheeraert's etching in his own work.

[left]: mirrored view of details from in Henry Holiday's illustration The Vanishing to Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark (1876) [right]: segments from Allegory of Iconoclasm by Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder (1566-1568)

My first comparison related to The Banker (2009). After more than one year I suddenly understood Holiday's nose job:

[left]: a segment of Henry Holiday's illustration to The Banker's Fate (after his encounter with the Bandersnatch ) in Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark (1876) and [right]: a horizontally compressed segment of The Image Breakers (1566-1568), an etching by Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder. The resemblance of the "noses" is obvious once you mirror the nose in this image about a horizontal axis. Reinterpratation of shapes (examples): The segment of the spectacle frame is less obvious. Blurr the corresponding segment in Gheeraert's etching and you understand how Henry Holiday worked here (blue box). Another segment of the spectacle frame additionally has been black&white inverted (green box). A cross(?) in Gheeraert's etching turns into a rectangular nostril. Holiday kept it rectangular in his illustration (yellow box).

513 · · He was black in the face, and they scarcely could trace 514 · · · · The least likeness to what he had been: 515 · · While so great was his fright that his waistcoat turned white- 516 · · · · A wonderful thing to be seen! This is probably one of the strongest examples for resemblances between graphical elements in Henry Holiday's illustrations (1876, cut by Joseph Swain) and graphical elements in another image. Sometimes Holiday mirrored his pictorial quotes: Here Holiday vertically flipped the "nose" of Gheeraert's "head". I flipped it back. 2011-12-12 2014-02-22 As for the image on the top of this page: [left]: The Banker after his encounter with the Bandersnatch, depicted in Henry Holiday's illustration (woodcut by Joseph Swain for block printing) to the chapter "The Banker's Fate" in Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark" (scanned from an 1876 edition of the book) [right]: a redrawn and horizontally compressed and reproduction of "The Image Breakers" (1566-1568) aka "Allegory of Iconoclasm", an etching by Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder (British Museum, Dept. of Print and Drawings, 1933.1.1..3, see also Edward Hodnett: Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder, Utrecht 1971, pp. 25-29). Also I flipped the "nose" vertically. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 Version, 2000x2000: www.ipernity.com/doc/goetzkluge/36260048

Slowly and silently. [start]: a horizontally compressed copy of The Image Breakers (1566-1568) aka Allegory of Iconoclasm , an etching by Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder (British Museum, Dept. of Print and Drawings, 1933.1.1..3, see also Edward Hodnett: Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder , Utrecht 1971, pp. 25-29). I low-pass-filtered some elements which Holiday used to construct the Banker's spectacles and (segment in left image) mirrored the "nose" about a horizontal axis. [end]: The Banker after his encounter with the Bandersnatch , depicted in a segment of Henry Holiday 's illustration to The Banker's Fate in Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark (scanned from an 1876 edition of the book) (Also available here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=06X98w0YvEU&hd=1 )

In Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark , the intertextuality of the poem is paralleled by the interpictoriality of Henry Holiday's illustrations: Here Henry Holiday reinterprets Marcus Gheeraerts I+II. The image above shows Henry Holiday's illustration to the chapter The Banker's Fate . (A small part of the left side has been removed in order to achieve a 4:3 ratio. The largest size is 5696 x 4352 pixels.) To Holiday's illustration I added images from which, in my opinion, he had borrowed shapes and concepts: (1) Under the Banker's arm: * Horizontally compressed segment of The Image Breakers (1566-1568) aka Allegory of Iconoclasm , an etching by Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder (British Museum, Dept. of Print and Drawings, 1933.1.1..3, see also Edward Hodnett: Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder, Utrecht 1971, pp. 25-29). I mirrored the "nose" about a horizontal axis (yellow frame). (2) Under the Beaver's paw (mirror views): * [top]: Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger: Catherine Killigrew , Lady Jermyn (1614) * [bottom, mirror view]: Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger: Mary Throckmorton , Lady Scudamore (1615)