This is the opening poem of The Flowers Of Evil by Charles Baudelaire.
Hence the flourishing decoration, made of flowers, and the color choice, black & red.
In case you like this script, there’s an ongoing online course on the subejct, you can check it at : https://www.thegentlepenman.com/frenchgothicbastarda
You may have heard of the Book of Hours of the Duke of Visconti, a beautiful Italian manuscript from the late 14th century.
You may even have studied fragments of it, whether it be the magnificent rotunda gothic of the text or the countless elements of decoration and illumination.
But do you really know it?
What is this snake that seems to be holding a child in its mouth?
What does the word dompne mean in the last line? And does a scribe make a lot of mistakes in copying?
Who is this “woman” with three faces?
Where are the beautiful capital letters (including the Y) in this manuscript?
Who are these fiery characters?
What do all these abbreviations mean?
to answer all these questions and many more, you can register for my zoom conference on February 13 at 6pm (replay available for a week) by clicking here
I haven’t posted anything on this blog for ages, too busy elsewhere.
Summer is here, time to make the workshop more visible for the tourist on the go.
I am open every Saturday morning from 9:30 am to 1 pm and at other times of the week, as soon as I am at work, the workshop is open.
You will have noticed that my taste for shimmering color mixes is becoming more and more pronounced with time.
It was on hearing this serinerant slogan on the radio for the umpteenth time that I decided on my calligraphic occupation of confinement.
Most of my colleagues are involved in “challenges” and my gregarious instinct being what it is (.i.e non-existent), I had to find my own way.
So I compose from advertising slogans, one maxim a day.
Here is my production for the moment.
You’ll tell me that it’s nonsense and I’ll tell you that you’re absolutely right 🙂
Romantic writers are good. Physics is good too!
First item in what I hope will be a long series, with Schrödinger to start with.
I’m quite happy with the variations on the Greek letters as well as the ², not to mention the () and the +.
I’m going to take out my college physics books to calligraphy some more equations, it’s quite fun, especially to add a legend.
This time I did it in English, the next one might be in French, German or Latin, I still hesitate.
The winter sun is sometimes annoying when I work in my workshop, so my wife made me a curtain.
But I can’t leave a fabric of this surface untouched! I have to scribble on it!
And as I didn’t know which text to use, I fell back on pangrams in several languages.
The advantage is that it will give my trainees ideas when they take calligraphy classes in the workshop and don’t know what to write.
I’m only at the beginning, I started with a pangram in English and in NEULAND.
I continued with a German version in Gothic fraktur…
the next one will be a French version, soon…
End of year, end of composition.
I’m done with the fragment of “L’Été” by Camus.
Partly in NEULAND, partly in Gothic, both scripts being inspired by Rudolf Koch.
Watercolou, iron gall ink and gouache on kraft paper.
And I take this opportunity to wish you a very good New Year’s Eve & an excellent year 2020.
A beautiful text by Colette on the act of writing from La Vagabonde.
It’s only a fragment, she talks about it in different ways, but it’s the one that caught my attention the most.
Who knows, maybe I’ll calligraphy the rest another day?
I was very influenced by Rudolf Koch in this composition, first with the title in NEULAND, then with the gothic script, inspired by the one found in his book of signs.
And, to contrast, I have chosen a less “violent” humanistic script for the second part of the text.
