Götz Kluge's photos with the keyword: Abstreitbarkeit
Mary's and the Baker's Kerchiefs
| 27 Dec 2014 |
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[left]: Redrawn segment from one of Henry Holiday's pencil drafts for the depiction of the Baker's visit to his uncle (1876) in Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark . Below the draft you see a segment of the final – and less daring – illustration.
[right]: John Everett Millais : Redrawn Segment from Christ in the House of His Parents (1850) depicting Mary (and a part of Christ's face in the upper right corner). Below that segment you see a larger segment from Millais' painting.
This example shows how Holiday worked on the construction of his conundrums in his illustrations to Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark . Even though Holiday copied a face from a face, he reinterprated shapes of face elements from the source face in order to represent different face elements with a resembling shape in the target face. The baker's ear is based on a shape in the depiction of Marie's face which is no ear. The same partially applies to the Baker's nose and the baker's eye.
Such kind of pictorial obfuscation should not be a surprise as The Hunting of the Snark is a poem in which readers had been searching textual allusions since 1876. (Too obvuous allusions are too boring.) The focus on textual analysis of the Snark seems to lead us to underestimate Holiday's paralleling Carroll's wordplay with is own means as an graphical artist.
The Billiard Marker & Henry George Liddell
| 04 May 2014 |
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upper inset:
Henry Holiday's depiction of the Billiard marker in Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark (1876).
background:
Henry George Liddell (painted by Sir Hubert von Herkomer in 1891) . Liddell was Carroll's (Dodgson's) superior in Christ Church, Oxford. As for the time line, of course Holiday could not have alluded to this painting.
lower inset:
The comparison shows Henry Holiday's first depiction (draft) of the Billiard marker in Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark . The face on the right side is Henry George Liddell's face at a youger age.
The image (right side; from a portrait by George Cruikshan) shows Liddell at age 28. Such a clear resemblance of Holiday's draft of the Billiard marker to Carroll's boss perhaps was a bit too risky for Carroll. The similarity wasn't sufficiently deniable. In the final illustration the resemblance is much weaker, but the asymmetry of the eyes and eyebrows still is there.
Wood Shavings turned Pope
| 16 Feb 2014 |
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From Pope to Wood Shavings
[left]: Rotated segment from John Everett Millais : Christ in the House of His Parents (1850).
[center]: As above. Blurred.
[right]: Rotated segment from anonymous: Edward VI and the Pope, a Tudor anti-papal allegory of reformation, mirrored view (16th century).
Victor in Your Dreams (2013)
| 28 Jul 2013 |
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Mahendra Singh (Montréal) holds the copyright to the illustration (depicting Victor Hugo ) on the right side. Compare it to the 16th century etching The Image Breakers (1566-1568, mirror view, right side) by Marcus Gheraerts the Elder.
I added that comparison as shown above to my photostream with Mahendra's consent (2010-07-22).
Source of Mahendra Singh's illustration: justtheplaceforasnark (blog, 2009-12-03)
Mahendra knows the art of deniability very well.
Mahendra's "heads":
• justtheplaceforasnark.blogspot.de/2009/12/dream-books-nonsense-and-bourbon.html
• justtheplaceforasnark.blogspot.de/2013/09/the-heart-is-lonely-snark-hunter.html
Wood Shavings turned Pope (1st version)
| 20 Jul 2013 |
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From Pope to Wood Shavings
[left]: Rotated segment from John Everett Millais : Christ in the House of His Parents (1850).
[right]: Rotated segment from anonymous: Edward VI and the Pope, a Tudor anti-papal allegory of reformation, mirrored view (16th century).
Henry George Liddell in "The Hunting of the Snark"
| 07 Jul 2013 |
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This was my first image showing Henry Holiday's depiction of the Billiard marker in Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark (1876). The face in color and in the background is Henry George Liddell 's face (painted by Sir Hubert von Herkomer in 1891). Liddell was Carroll's (Dodgson's) superior in Christ Church, Oxford.
In this image, I had been fooling around a bit: I gave Liddell the Billiard marker's wig. And I gave Liddel's chin back to the Billiard marker. I am not hiding anything: The red dots indicate my manipulations, and in the lower part of the image you can see the unmanipulated elements.
Later I discovered, that the comparison between Liddell at age 28 and a draft by Holiday's of the Billiard marker yielded a much stronger resemblance:
Perhaps Carroll/Dodgson did not accept such an obvious resemblance. So Holiday finally showed an older Billiard marker with a wig (which slipped a bit out of position) . Holiday also chopped off the Billard marker's chin, but left its shadow in his illustration. That is no mistake. Thus, the real Liddell would not really be able to find himself depicted as the Billiard marker playing foul in the Snark .
However, the shadow just could be a bow tie. Who knows?
Snarked: Henry George Liddell
| 07 Jul 2013 |
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The comparison shows (left side) a reproduction of Henry Holiday's draft of the Billiard marker for an illustration to Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark (1876) and a redrawn detail (right side) from a portrait by George Cruikshan of Henry George Liddell's face. Liddell was Carroll's (Dodgson's) superior in Christ Church, Oxford.
The portrait by George Cruikshan shows Liddell at age 28. The resemblance of Holiday's draft of the Billiard marker to Carroll's boss perhaps was a bit too risky for Carroll. The similarity wasn't sufficiently deniable. In the final illustration Holiday was more cautious: He gave an older Liddell a wig (which slipped a bit out of position) and chopped of his chin.
Billiard-Marker & Henry George Liddell
| 25 Jun 2013 |
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[right]: Henry Holiday's depiction of the Billiard marker in Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark . The face in color is Henry George Liddell's face (by Hubert von Herkomer) . Liddell was Carroll's (Dodgson's) superior in Christ Church, Oxford. (In the image I wrote "George Henry Liddell". But I am to lazy to correct that mistake now.)
[left]: The left image shows Holiday's draft for the right picture and an image depicting Liddell at age 28. That clear resemblance in Holiday's draft of the Billiard marker to Carroll's boss perhaps was a bit too much for Carroll. In the right picture the resemblance is weaker, but the asymmetry of the eyes and eyebrows still is there. In that final illustration Holiday was more cautious: He gave an older Liddell a wig (which slipped a bit out of position) and chopped of his chin.
Kerchiefs and other shapes
| 09 Jun 2013 |
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[left]: Redrawn segment from one of Henry Holiday's pencil drafts for the depiction of the Baker's visit to his uncle (1876) in Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark .
[right]: John Everett Millais : Redrawn Segment from Christ in the House of His Parents (1850) depicting Mary (and a part of Christ's face in the upper right corner).
This example shows how Holiday worked on the construction of his conundrums in his illustrations to Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark . Even though Holiday copied a face from a face, he reinterprated shapes of face elements from the source face in order to represent different face elements with a resembling shape in the target face. The baker's ear is based on a shape in the depiction of Marie's face which is no ear. The same partially applies to the Baker's nose and the baker's eye.
Such kind of pictorial obfuscation should not be a surprise as The Hunting of the Snark is a poem in which readers had been searching textual allusions since 1876. (Too obvuous allusions are too boring. The focus on textual analysis of the Snark seems to lead us to underestimate Holiday's paralleling Carroll's wordplay with is own means as an graphical artist.
By the way: In 1882, Alfred Parsons turned the Baker's ear into a part of a chair in Charles Darwin's study at Downe . Holiday quoted and was quoted. Artists like Parsons, Holiday and Millais (see below) do such things and have fun when playing their game. Today Mahendra Singh is maintaining the tradition , in the Snark and beyond the beast.
Extended version, Dec. 2014:
42 Boxes, Sheep, Iconoclasm
| 08 Jun 2013 |
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[left]: Segment from Henry Holiday's depiction of the Baker's visit to his uncle (1876) in Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark . Outside of the window are some of the Baker's 42 boxes.
[center]: Segment from John Everett Millais : Christ in the House of His Parents (1850).
[right]: segment from Edward VI and the Pope , An Allegory of Reformation , mirrored view (Anonymous, 16th century); depiction of iconoclasm. In The King's Bedpost: Reformation and Iconography in a Tudor Group Portrait (1994, p. 72), the late Margaret Aston compared the iconoclastic scene to prints depicting the destruction of the Tower of Babel (Philip Galle after Maarten van Heemskerck, 1567). From Margaret Aston's book I learned that the section showing the iconoclasm scene is an inset, not a window. Actually, I think, it is an inset which was meant to be perceived as a window as well.
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Holiday quoted pictorial elements from both paintings [center, right]. I assume that he must have noticed, that Millais quoted from the 16th century painting.
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