Happy Easter!

Risen Christ by Giovanni Bellini

Christ is risen, Alleluia!

Thomas Tallis - Inspiration

Commissioned pen and ink portrait of Thomas Tallis, great English Renaissance composer of Catholic and Anglican religious music. I wanted to express a moment of inspiration, that moment when you're subcreating something and suddenly the thing that works comes to you like grace. And, the idea of expressing that was what came to me like that as I worked on this piece.

As he did live, so also did he die,
In mild and quiet sort (O happy man!)
To God full oft for mercy did he cry,
Wherefore he lives, let death do what he can.

~effigy of Thomas Tallis

Miyazaki illustrates Chesterton!

The cover of the Japanese edition of The Napoleon of Notting Hill, drawn by none other than Hayao Miyazaki, the animator who made Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, Ponyo, and many other beautiful films.

The book was sent very graciously and generously by Father Peter Milward, after my family and me asked him about it at this year's Chesterton conference. I'd looked for the image on the internet unsuccessfully for years.

Interview with Daniel Mitsui

Daniel will be a great addition to Smallpax. To mark the occasion I have a more recent interview (last week) with him that I have posted here.

Interview with Ben Hatke

Adding to my list of working-Catholic-artists-who-are-willing-to-indulge-me, I have just posted a new interview with Ben. Take a look.

The Function of Art

In 1952 Pope Pius XII addressed a group of Italian artists he received in audience. The entire address is only 15 very short paragraphs but of great value for artists struggling in the darkness of the secular world looking for a light to guide them.

The Function of Art

"The function of all art lies in fact in breaking through the narrow and tortuous enclosure of the finite, in which man is immersed while living here below, and in providing a window on the infinite for his hungry soul." - Pope Pius XII

The Christian Artist and Rejection

"Rejection and failure are facts of our existence. When an artist's work is rejected he is often told 'don't take it personally, they are not rejecting you, just your work.' I don't think that advice has ever helped anyone."

read more

Artists deal with rejection all the time. But as Catholics how should we react? Some of my thoughts on the topic inspired by last weeks readings.

Al Williamson - Requiescat in pace

Although it has not been officially confirmed, word is going around that Al Williamson passed away on Sunday at the age of 79. Perhaps best known for his work on "Flash Gordon" it would be unfortunate if he were dismissed as a "comic book artist." His style, particularly his pen and ink work, evoked the "Golden Age" of illustration and although there is little call for this type of work these days outside of comics, that is surely our loss.
No Catholic connection that I know of, but a great illustrator of the heroic whose work will be missed.

Symbolism vs. Abstract vs. Visionary?

One of the intriguing aspects of religious artists is how they choose to portray the spiritual. There are some who think this can only be done as abstract art. But abstract art fails in that the viewer frequently has no starting point from which they can interpret the image. For two thousand years artists have built up a rich vocabulary of symbolism in order to portray spiritual subjects.
So-called visionary art is an interesting intersection of the two. It isn't normally the type of art one thinks of as useful to religious artists but there is something intriguing about it. While looking at the art in an upcoming Visionary Art Conference I couldn't shake the feeling that reminded me of the work of St. Hildegard von Bingen

What do you think? Was St. Hildegard the first, maybe the only Catholic visionary artist?

Call for Artists

Just a reminder that the New Liturgical Movement is always looking for contemporary artists to showcase on their site.
While you are their check out the articles by David Clayton, the artist in residence at Thomas More College.

Christian Speculative Artists

Todd Mueller

Kirk DouPonce


Frank Hettick

I am always intrigued by the variety of art produced by Christians who identify themselves as Christian artists.
Jeff Gerke's blog Where the Map Ends is a great resource for Christian artists who work more in the SF/Fantasy vein. In particular check out his page promoting the coffee table art book "Fantastic Visions"
And although DeviantArt is something of a mixed bag, there is a group of Christian artists there as well.

Intelligent Design?

Via Lines and Colors,
I'm not saying it's proof of Intelligent Design, I'm just saying......
Nature by Numbers

The Power of Illustration

Jan Matejko was a Polish painter from the second half of the 19th century. One of his specialties was monumental paintings (illustrations) of historical events from Poland's past. At this time Poland did not exist as a political entity and Matejko's paintings are credited with helping the polish people maintain their national identity.
These images are from Jan Matejko, the Complete Works
I particularly like the tshirt that uses a Matejko painting to commemorate the Battle of Grunwald (it's available here)

Holy Russia

A new exhibit at the Louvre titled "Holy Russia" opens tomorrow, featuring some stunning icons. From the linked article:

In an exhibit unlike any ever mounted and tinged with diplomatic ambitions, the Louvre has pulled together artworks that have never left Russia and from around Europe, from carved cathedral doors to gold-woven robes and precious iconostasis panels. "Holy Russia" opens to the public Friday.

The Louvre has created a website (in French) that features icons and artifacts from the exhibit. The flash-based interface allows you to zoom in on these beautiful works of art and prayer.

The exhibit includes icons by Andrei Rublev, among others.

LINKS:
Louvre sheds western light on Russian icons, past - Article from the AP
La Sainte Russie au Louvre - Exhibit site from the Louvre
Andrei Rublev - biography and examples of his work on Wikipedia.

Golden Age Illustration

"Golden Age Comic Book Stories" is another terrific source of vintage illustration. A recent post included the art from "Deep Water Days" illustrated by a half-dozen different greats including N.C. Wyeth and Frank Schoonover and one I had not heard of before Richard Rogers.
These pen and ink illustrations, a nice compliment to our earlier "Rembrandt" post are by Richard Rogers from "Deep Water Days."

Catholic Illustration

The Morgan Library & Museum in New York city is currently exhibiting the "Hours of Catherine of Cleves." Even if you don't live close enough to check it out in person they have a terrific website set up.
A "book of hours" was a handmade, hand-lettered, illustrated book of psalms, prayers and devotions that was popular in the middle ages. Each of them of course is unique and some of them are quite elaborate in their page decoration and illustrations.
All of them are a great source of inspiration.
Demons and Devotion: The Hours of Catherine of Cleves

Inspiration: J.R.R. Tolkien

This website brings together countless sketches and illustrations by Tolkien. Never very confident about his own skill as an artist. Tolkien nevertheless illustrated The Hobbit, as well as providing dust-jacket designs for The Lord of the Rings. As you can see from the collection here, though he wasn't a "polished" illustrator, he had a charming style and a very good sense of color and design.

Interview: Tim Jones

"China, Brass & Peaches"

Tim Jones is an award-winning fine artist who specializes in still-life paintings. His beautiful oil-painting technique calls to mind many of the best in the genre (some of his paintings, to me, recall Jan Davidsz. de Heem, the 17th century Dutch master). Tim also blogs at Old World Swine, a personal blog that covers art, politics, and religion, and also maintains a fascinating Daily Painting Blog. He can also be read occasionally at Jimmy Akin's blog. Tim graciously agreed to an interview with SmallPax.

First off, thanks for doing this interview!

You're welcome. It is a pleasure to be asked!

You have many lovely still-life paintings, including some that have won national awards. What draws you to that subject?

Though I didn't always consciously know it, I have always been intensely interested in depicting light and form... the way light behaves and the way three dimensional forms can be modeled in two dimensions. It's a kind of mystery that the illusion of form and space can be created on a flat surface and can draw the viewer into that illusion. My drawings were always very modeled, too, with great interest in the play of light and shadow - chiaroscuro. I have a very keen interest in the figure, as well, and love the challenge of the human form, of making it convincingly occupy a space. I am anxious to do more figure work, but it's a more complicated process because it involves working with models. I think the human form is the highest, the most challenging and most rewarding subject an artist can take on.

You’ve shown a bit of your work process online, but can you give a run-down of what goes into one of your paintings?

Quite coincidentally, I've just finished a series of posts at my somewhat mis-named Daily Painting Blog where I trace nearly the entire development of a painting from start to finish. Of course, it leaves out a great deal, but it gives the rough outlines of the process.

I like working with a toned ground, rather than a white panel. I find it helps in sorting out the values, and I like to leave the ground showing through in places. It ties things together and also lets the viewer see the process somewhat frozen in time. I might draw out the design lightly with Conté crayon, or often I just do the initial drawing with a brush, getting the darkest darks in place. After that, I lay in areas of local color and do some wet-into-wet modeling, working from dark to light, from thin paint to thicker paint (the old, reliable "Light over dark, fat over lean" process). The final highlight stage is often the most fun, because it can really make the image sing and come together. There are times in the intermediate stage when the painting might not look like it is going that well, but you just have to trust the process and stick to the basic principles.

"GBD Topaz"

What type of color palette do you work with—or is there a particular artist whose palette you have adopted?

I've settled into a palette that works for me, though I am always thinking of modifications. It is basically a split-primary palette, with one warmer and one cooler hue of the three primary colors, along with a few earth tones, and titanium white. I also sometimes add secondary colors or specialty pigments like Alizarin Crimson. I cobbled my palette together over time, and it's always changing. I've been to workshops by very accomplished artists, this one using only five or six pigments and another using (literally) twenty or thirty. Everyone has to find the set up that makes sense for them and their way of working. These pigments are often on my palette, though not often all at once;

Primaries: Cadmium Red Light, Cadmium Red Deep, Phthalo Blue, Cobalt Blue, Cerulean Blue, Cadmium Yellow Light, Cadmium Yellow Deep
Secondaries: Hookers Green, Chromium Oxide Green, Cadmium Orange Hue, Cobalt Violet, Dioxazine Purple
Earth Tones: Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, Naples Yellow, Venetian Red
Titanium White
Alizarin Crimson
Phthalo Green

"Pomegranates"

Speaking of other artists, who do you look to as influences on your work? And are there any other living artists who you admire?

Influences can be so hard to tease out. I'm influenced by almost everything. In art school I was attracted to the work of the surrealists; Magritte and Escher and Dali, I think because they were working in a more or less realistic way, but were still allowed as legitimate influences by my art professors. Now I'm more influenced by the masters of the academy; Bouguereau, Sargent and the pre-Raphaelites, as well as the great historical painters; Vermeer, Rembrandt, Titian, Ingres. Some living artists I admire are Anthony Waichulis and Jeff Legg. The Art Renewal Center has a terrific website that features the work of great artists working in the realist/figurative tradition, alive and otherwise. A real online museum and a very useful resource.

"Trust"

Switching from your still-life paintings to your work involving figures, I’ve seen two very nice Madonnas that you have done recently. Any other religious works in the pipeline, so to speak?

There is a semi-commissioned piece of St. Anthony of Padua that I need to get started on, but I've been mulling it over for months. I want it to be something special. I've been known mainly as a still life painter, since that is how I get back into painting several years ago, so it was very gratifying to have one of my figure pieces take the top prize at a regional show earlier this year. I'm getting mentally prepared to take my figurative work to another level, but the logistics of making that happen on a budget in a small home studio are pretty daunting. I would love to spend the rest of my career doing liturgical art and images of saints, but making that jump can also be tricky. I approached one local parish, offering to do some pretty major pieces simply as a gift, with their only obligation being to provide the materials. I offered to work with any kind of committee, to provide sketches and comps to make sure the art would be in line with the needs of the parish... but they really didn't know what to do with me. Getting a committee together would be a headache, and then there would always be people who might not like the art... in a few minutes the priest was allowing the possibility of perhaps doing some banners. It's a bit disheartening when you can't give the stuff away. I've been blessed, though, to have some very positive response to the religious themed work that I have done.

"Untitled painting of the Virgin Mary"

"Untitled painting of the Virgin Mary - Detail of underpainting"

Is the work process much different when painting figures or portraits?

It's analogously similar to still life painting, but also very different. I've found that a dark ground can be a problem with flesh tones, so a lighter toned ground is preferable. Also, lighting is critical. I often use a pretty bright, directional light for my still lifes, and with the figure or the portrait that can result in transitions and shadows that are too harsh. This is a living human being, after all. A large area of the brain is involved in seeing the human face, much more than might be dedicated to looking at a piece of fruit or a clay pot, for instance, so very small, subtle shifts in the facial features and their relationships can make a huge difference. There is more room for improvisation with an inanimate object than there is with the human form. If something is off there, the viewer will sense it immediately, because our brains are fine-tuned to that sort of thing. To get that precision, and yet make it appear free and natural, is the great challenge of portrait work.

"Immaculate Heart of Mary"

What advice would you give to someone looking to get into oil-painting? Are there good programs or books that can be of help?

There are many, far too many to list! Unfortunately, there are also programs - I'm thinking of some university departments - that can be a waste of time, if not a positive detriment. That's harsh but true. I have two degrees in art, but feel I really began to learn how to paint just about five years ago. I visited area artists who's work I admired, joined area art groups, went to workshops, went to museums to look at art, looked at art online... but mainly I just started painting regularly. That's the only essential and irreplaceable element in the whole process. Start making art on a regular basis and don't stop. No matter the level at which you may be working, you will improve with experience. Your art will also grow as you mature emotionally and spiritually, which is encouraging. Art is the kind of vocation, like writing, wherein you may work very productively and keep getting better right up until you die. Personally, when I die I hope they find me on the floor of my studio, with a brush in my hand... at a ripe old age, of course.

"Passing Rain"

And, lastly, can you tell our readers where they can purchase your work?

Anyone interested in commissioned work can contact me directly through e-mail (timjonesart@yahoo.com) and I will be very happy to work with them on a piece. I also have a few pieces for sale at my onine store;

www.oldworldswine.etsy.com.

Other work (old and new) can be seen at my fine art website;

www.timothyjonesfineart.net

Interview: Daniel Mitsui

Daniel Mitsui is an artist and writer. His invaluable blog, The Lion and the Cardinal, is an opinionated exploration of the world of Catholic art, architecture, symbolism, and iconography. In my opinion, he is one of the most original--yet traditional--Catholic artists working today. He recently agreed to do an interview with The Catholic Illustrator's Guild.

First off, let me say that I really like your art. It seems that often times today among devout Catholic artists, there's a tendency to only do a "retread" of the art from the late 19th century—which isn't necessarily bad, but it isn't really a development of a new style. Your style is something that looks very new to me. How did this style develop?

Thank you.

When you refer to my style, I assume you're referring to things like my tendency to work in black and white, my use of detailed ornamental filler for backgrounds, my decorative vocabulary that includes microorganisms, dinosaur eggs and the like. This style is not something that I deliberately developed for a new style of Catholic art - it's just the way that I've been drawing for years, and something that I've learned to apply in a religious context.

I have always enjoyed looking at detailed artwork - artwork that offers something new to find every time that it is seen. So even in childhood, my drawings were very detailed. At about the age of 14, I saw pictures of the Lindisfarne Gospels for the first time, and the effect was profound. To this day I consider them the greatest works of art ever made on parchment or paper. The intricate, obsessive ornament, ordered and geometric yet zoomorphic and fluid, is something that I have tried to emulate ever since.

That discovery led to some study of illuminated manuscripts and lettering. But by the time I left for College, I had been seduced by modern art, and spent several years creating abstract or semiabstract drawings, prints and paintings. But modernism never really suited me, and I was pretty miserable as an artist at that time. I first became disgusted with the artifice of the contemporary art business, and resolved to apply my talents to illustration rather than gallery art, which is why I started working exclusively in black and white - I wanted my work to be reproducible, so that it could be owned and enjoyed by more than the elite population of gallery-goers and art buyers.

I no longer consider reproducibility to an aesthetic virtue in itself, but the habit stuck, and to this day everyone seems to like my black and white work more. So I keep at it.

I later became disgusted with modern art altogether, and took up cartooning as a sort of purgative, to get the modernism out of my system. I drew comic strips, made some animated short films, and generally learned to have fun drawing again.

In my last year of college, I was baptized and received into the Catholic Church - something I had secretly wanted for a very long time. My conversion gave me a new appreciation for serious art, and I began to make drawings on religious subjects.

For the next year or two, I devoted most of my artistic efforts to religious art, and the results were poor - timid, awkward, and usually tainted by the modernist and cartoonist habits I had yet to shed. But with a lot of practice and study, they improved. And I found ways to apply the decorative vocabulary that I had developed in previous years to sacred art.


What artists do you look to, past and present, as influential?

My primary interest is Gothic art, because it is there that I see the traditions of Christian iconography expressed most perfectly.

By "iconography", I mean sacred art that is in continuity with an artistic tradition reaching back to the apostolic age, and that is ordered according to the exegesis of the Church Fathers; art that upholds what was said in one of the sessions of the Second Nicene Council, that "the composition of religious imagery is not left to the initative of artists, but is formed upon principles laid down by the Catholic Church and by religious tradition... The execution alone belongs to the painter, the selection and arrangement of subject belongs to the Fathers."
The two most ancient types of Christian art, those created by Greeks and by Syrians, developed into a common, theologically ordered system relatively early in the East, which is Byzantine art. In the West, it was a more complicated process - the ancient traditions were carried into the wilderness by missionaries in the form of illuminated manuscripts and ivory miniatures and other small, portable works of art; these formed the basis of the various regional traditions that developed in relative isolation for several centuries. It was not until the High Middle Ages that an international, comprehensive, ordered system came to be.

When I study Gothic art, I have less interest in the particular artists, their names or their biographies, and more interest in the symbolism and compositional conventions that they have in common, for it is in these commonalities that I can understand the larger iconographic tradition in which they worked. (In later eras, I give the artists more scrutiny, as they put a lot more of themselves into their work - not all of it good!)

That being said, I do have some favorites: Suger of St. Denis, Nicholas of Verdun and Godfrey of Huy; the cathedral builders of the 13th century; 15th century tapestry weavers, and the so-called "Flemish primitives".

I tend to like recent artists the more they hold common purposes with the artists of the middle ages; a few who have influenced me are A.W.N. Pugin and the other Gothic revivalists, Rev. Felix Granda, Antoni Gaudi and his school, and certain members of the Arts and Crafts movement.

When creating sacred art, I attempt to be faithful to the same traditions that were expressed in Gothic art in composition and content and arrangement, but I use a newer and more personal decorative vocabulary. I also do secular work, and the rules are much looser there. Most of that is biological illustration inspired directly by nature rather than by other art. I admire many cartoonists and children's book illustrators, although it has been a while since I've drawn anything influenced by them.


You used to draw comics art in college. I've also heard from an iconographer that the skills picked up in cartooning and caricature, such as exaggeration, help when exploring symbolic or iconographic styles. Do you find that to be the case?

Not exactly. As I said before, I consider iconography to be more a matter of keeping the traditional symbolism and arrangement of holy pictures than of using the stylistic conventions of Byzantine art. I am primarily interested in Gothic art, which never much employed these sort of exaggerations. If I were commissioned to draw an icon in the Byzantine style, I would do so, but I would be careful not to bring a cartoonist's sensibilities to the project, as the conventions of that art were developed to make men laugh, not to make men holy.

That being said, I do think that cartooning can teach an artist a lot about sacred art. Visually and compositionally, a comics page from the early 20th century resembles an illuminated manuscript. The figures in mediaeval illustrated manuscripts often look cartoony, simply due to the speed (fast) and scale (small) at which they were drawn. My own figures often look cartoony for similar reasons; I can draw very realistic figures if I have charcoal, a kneaded rubber eraser, and models willing to sit still for six hours, but they're not something I can improvise easily.

There is also a vigorous comic tradition at the edges of mediaeval sacred art - in manuscript drolleries, misericord carvings, gargoyles, and, ultimately, Hieronymus Bosch - that is very interesting in itself, and even more interesting when considered as an essential part of the iconographic system.

Personally, I credit cartooning with teaching me to compose narratives. For example, I recently received a commission to illustrate a spiritual journey in allegory; it involved a woman climbing a mountain with her family, falling away from them, being led back to the path by a priest, and rejoining them to ascend to the summit. I was able to compose the story in a single continuous landscape. It begins in the top left corner, then moves counterclockwise around the border, breaks into the center of the drawing, and zigzags to the top center. It's complicated, but I think that anyone can understand the events, and their chronology, without any panels or numbers or arrows to direct him. I wouldn't have been able to compose that without having read a lot of Popeye and Krazy Kat and Little Nemo.
The backgrounds to most of your drawings are full of little biological creatures, fish, skulls, and symbols. Do these have a special meaning?

Originally, they had no meaning except that I found them visually interesting. Over time, I have tried to apply them more deliberately. Some of them had established meanings - skulls for death, starfish for Mary (Stella Maris), chambered nautili for perfection. Others did not, but seemed to have a latent symbolism that could be developed more fully. Mitochondria are life-giving; fossilized dinosaur eggs might represent mortification - dragons, which for my purposes are the same as dinosaurs, represent sin; here be dragons destroyed before opportunity to hatch. Planarian worms might represent the Holy Eucharist, due to their ability to be divided into parts no less complete than the whole.



What is your process when creating one of your pen-and-ink pieces? And what tools / materials do you use?

I start by outlining the frames and borders with a ruler and a compass and a circle template. I sketch in the difficult parts with pencil, then draw over them with ink, then erase the pencil marks. Most of the background patterns I draw freehand, without pencilling them beforehand. I never make rough drafts, but always start the final drawing right away. This is probably a bad artistic habit, but it's how I work.

I use an art pen in the smallest size available (005) for most of my drawing, and a brush with india ink for filling in larger black spaces. I use colored inks and colored pencils when needed, and calligraphy pens on occasion. I draw on white bristol board. My wife just bought me some goatskin vellum for an anniversary gift, but I have not attempted anything on it yet.

Most of your art that I have seen is pen-and-ink. Do you also paint or sculpt?

I can, but I don't really have the space or equipment for it now. Currently, I am considering taking some classes in jewelry-making, as I think my aesthetic would be well applied to metalwork - better than to painting or sculpture.


What resources (other than your excellent blog) would you recommend to artists seeking to deepen their understanding of the Catholic artistic tradition?

I recommend the French art historian Emile Male's trilogy Religious Art in France of the Middle Ages, which is the most thorough, penetrating and erudite study of Roman Catholic sacred art and its symbolism that I have ever encountered. I refer to these books constantly. There is one volume on 12th century art, one on 13th century art, and one on late mediaeval art; the middle volume was the first written, and is the most comprehensive. It has been published in English several times, sometimes under the title The Gothic Image. This book, at the very least, is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the iconography of the western Church.

The other two volumes are also available in English, although they are much harder to find. You can find used copies of them for a couple hundred dollars apiece. I excerpt passages from them on my web log pretty often, so if the books themselves are too expensive for you, you can receive some of Male's wisdom piecemeal there.

There are other fine studies of mediaeval iconography available in English (e.g. Alphonse-Napoleon Didron's Christian Iconography) but Male's books are much more enjoyable to read, and cover a broader range of subjects.

I also recommend reading what is available in English of the Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, by the 13th century liturgical writer William Durandus of Mende. This an encyclopaedia of sorts on the symbolism of the liturgy, covering vestments, the calendar, the ministers, the church building &c. It doesn't have a lot of direct instruction for artists, but it really shows well the mystical understanding that earlier ages had of worship and sacral objects.

Until recently, only two of its eight books had been translated into English - the first (on the church building) and the third (on the vestments). These translations have long passed into the public domain, and you can find .pdf editions of them in the Internet Archive. I also have the third book transcribed at my web site. There is a professor at Nazareth College - Timothy Thibodeau - who has begun translating the entire work anew. His translation of the prologue and first book came out a couple of years ago, and the second book is due to be published any time now, if it has not already been.

An excellent resource online is the Digital Scriptorium, hosted by Columbia University. This is a searchable database of illuminated manuscripts in major academic libraries in the United States. There are similar European databases, but this is the biggest one in English, and the one I use the most. The easiest way to learn the traditional iconographic arrangement of a scene, or the traditional appearance of a saint, is to look through a lot of illuminated manuscripts from the Middle Ages and note the commonalities between them.

The Golden Legend, the great 13th century encyclopaedia of hagiography, is also indispensible for deciphering mediaeval artwork on the lives of the saints, or creating artwork in the same spirit today. It can be read online in its entirety at the Catholic Community Forum.

Suger of St. Denis, the originator of Gothic art, is to my mind the single greatest genius in the art history of the Catholic Church; luckily, he left written records of his administration and works, which I obviously recommend.

And finally, I recommend reading the defenses of divine images written by the old iconodules - especially St. John of Damascus's Three Treatises on the Divine Images and whatever you can find translated of the Second Nicene Council. These help to remind the sacred artist what is really at stake; in so many ways, our current situation resembles the first and second iconoclastic crises, and wise advice on overcoming the iconoclasm of our own times can be found in them.

As a postscript to this interview: Daniel's art is available in high-quality reproductions. Details about purchasing art can be found in the links below.

LINKS:
The Lion and the Cardinal (Daniel's blog)
Religious Art by Daniel Mitsui
Biological Art by Daniel Mitsui
Bookplates by Daniel Mitsui

RESOURCES MENTIONED BY DANIEL MITSUI:
The Golden Legend
The Digital Scriptorium
Rationale Divinorum Officiorum: Book One, Book Three

More Book Trails

One of my favorite illustrations in the book, from "The Boy's Festival in Japan". I can't make out the signature of the illustrator, so I guess it will remain a mystery.

Oh--and as a bonus (especially for PaperSmyth), here's "The Pirate Don Durk of Dowdee" poem.