Tuesday 30 November 2010

[In lieblicher Bläue . . .]

Carta Azzurra / Carta Turchina
Hebrew printing on blue paper

Early in the C16 under the influence of the Italian master printer Aldus Manutius, a new 'secondary deluxe' medium [after the preferred vellum] was introduced into Venetian Hebrew printing by the Xtian publisher of Jewish texts, Daniel Bomberg of Antwerp. The new material, blue paper, a product of Renaissance fascination with the indigo dye, became a convention of Hebrew deluxe printing in the C16.
It is possible that the special status of blue in Jewish religious tradition - according to the Talmud, blue is the colour of the divine throne - led to the affinity for this colour in the Hebrew book world.

Cheap blue tinted paper was widely used by indigent printers in towns such as Dubno, Jozefow. Kpys, Korec, Ostrog, Wilno, Zhitomir…

Over the centuries papers of other colours, such as green, rose, grey, yellow, orange, were occasionally used for printing special copies of Hebrew books, and sometimes on large, wide margined sheets. In most cases the paper was dyed in the pulp, but in some cases it was painted after manufacture. In a very few instances a variety of coloured papers was used to print a single book. In a few other instances the text was printed in red ink on coloured paper…

In Eastern Europe in this century, posters and other ephemera, in large part Yiddish, were often printed on coloured paper stock.

Brad Sabin Hill
Hebrew Section
Oriental & India Office Collections, BL 1995

Monday 29 November 2010

PLAINS OF ABRAHAM

WHERE WOLFE DIED



















Monument to Wolfe the British General and Montcalm the French General. Who both fell mortally wounded on Sep 13th 1759 on the Plains of Abraham within a few yards of each other.
The latin inscription on the monument is thus translated “ Valor gave them a common death, history a common fame and posterity a common monument.”

Sunday 28 November 2010

PERAS

My Dear Friend
Where the cross is etsia [seutaria] the photo is being taken from Pera, European side. I am going to Seutaria on Sunday or Saturday, that side is where the Sultan is living. Yours





PERAS


πέρας
extremity, bound, end
  1. of a portion of space
    1. boundary
    2. frontier
    3. the ends of the earth
    4. the remotest lands
  2. of a thing extending through a period of time (termination)

Saturday 27 November 2010

Friday 26 November 2010

Tuesday 23 November 2010

Monday 22 November 2010

Monday

I hope you had a very happy weekend at home. Today we have been to this … beautiful ruin. This photo does not convey anything of the wonderful beauty of the place. I hope you will see it + love it some day in the time to come. On the border of this garden is a wonderful clipped hedge with most wonderful animals clipped in box. A dog. A squirrel. An owl. A fantail pigeon, a whippet, a rabbit, a pheasant, a barn door + owl.

Sunday 21 November 2010

Le Sang d'un Poete




Every poem is a coat of arms which must be deciphered. How much blood and tears in exchange for those axes, those gules, those unicorns, those torches, those towers, those martlets, those scattered stars and those fields azure!

Free to choose the faces, the forms, the gestures, the sounds, the acts and the places which he likes, he composes with them a realistic documentary of unreal events. The musician will emphasize the sounds and the silences.

The author dedicates this film allegory to the memory of Pisanello, Paulo Uccello, Piero della Francesca, Andrea del Castagno, painters of coats of arms and enigmas.






this spider and this moonlight among the trees

Monday 8 November 2010

laws against images

Reproduction in printed media:
A banknote may be reproduced if the following criteria are met:
Condition 1 - Reproductions are one-sided only (nothing should appear on the reverse of the reproduction which might give the impression that the reproduction is a genuine banknote).
Condition 2 - Reproductions are not the same size as the actual banknotes: if they are smaller, they must be at most two-thirds as long and at most two-thirds as wide; if they are larger, they must be at least one and a half times as long and at least one and a half times as wide. Reproductions of parts of banknotes must meet the same conditions.
Condition 3 - Reproductions are not shown in an offensive context, for example in conjunction with imagery or text of a violent or pornographic nature.
Condition 4 - There is no distortion of the Queen’s image (apart from an enlargement, reduction or slant).
Condition 5 - At least one of the following criteria is also met:
the reproduction of the banknote is shown on the slant and not flat to camera – in such cases, the distortion must be such that right angles are reduced to acute angles of 70° or less, or increased to obtuse angles of 110° or more;
the reproduction is printed on a material clearly different and distinguishable from paper or paper-like material;
the colours on the reproduction differ distinctly from the main colours used on any of the current series of Bank of England banknotes;
in the case of partial reproductions, no more than 50% of the total surface area of one side of the original banknote is reproduced;
if the reproduction is flat to camera, it must be overprinted with the word “SPECIMEN” twice in accordance with Condition 6 (see “Reproduction in electronic media”).


Reproduction in electronic media:
A banknote may be reproduced if Conditions 3 and 4 (see “Reproduction in printed media”) and 6 (see below) are met:
Condition 6 - The reproduction includes the word “SPECIMEN” twice in solid black capital letters: once from the bottom left corner to the top centre and once from the bottom centre to the top right corner – the length of the word “SPECIMEN” must not be less than one-third of the length of the reproduction and the height of the characters must not be less than one-eighth of the height of the reproduction. This applies to both complete and partial reproductions.

EURion constellation
























The EURion constellation is a pattern of symbols found on a number of banknote designs worldwide since about 1996. It is added to help software detect the presence of a banknote in a digital image. Such software can then block the user from reproducing banknotes to prevent counterfeiting using colour photocopiers. wikipedia
⑆ transit
⑇ amount
⑈ on-us
⑉ dash

cut scenes


image via

Sunday 7 November 2010

compound plate printing


Elizabeth M. Harris, "Sir William Congreve and his Compound-Plate Printing," which appeared in the United States National Museum Bulletin 252, Contributions from The Museum of History and Technology" as Paper 71. (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office / Smithsonian Institution Press, 1967). "For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office." As U.S. federal government publication, this work is in the public domain.

Battle of the Trilobites


'Battle of the Trilobites.' Two men dueling, dressed in armour comprising trilobite exoskeletons. They are watched by a third man dressed as a medieval herald, but with a shell instead of a helmet. A row of spectators with fossils and shells for hats observes. Inscribed on print by artist Mantell, 'Capt Boscawen Ibbetson with Capt James [illegible]'


… to see this armour as a prosthesis that served to shore up a disrupted body image or to support a ruined ego-construction…
Foster /Armour Fou / in Vision & Textuality / Melville & Readings

Specimens of Eccentric Circular Turning 1817


lineal complication for security



microscopic writing

geometric chuck

security printing

ricky tick