#chilvary

[globalriseofblackpeople]

I’m the same way . This new generation of men smh .

[mask131]

I know Neil Gaiman has come under a pretty bad spotlight recently, but this isn't about him - this reblog is about the talent and fascinating mind of Colleen Doran and the wonderful creations she made and the many references she slid into her delicate work.

The Secret Language of a Page of Chivalry: The Pre-Raphaelite Connection

Adapting Neil Gaiman’s Chivalry is a decades-long dream fulfilled. The story as text can be enjoyed on multiple levels, and so can the art. You look at the pages and see the pretty pictures, but the pictures also have meta-textual meaning. Knowing this secret language adds to the experience.

Some people pick up the references quickly, but I’ll share with you some more of what’s going on under the surface.

In Ye Olden Days of Art Making, most painters made pictures that contained visual narrative cues. Flowers in a picture might be heraldic signs that signaled political affiliations, or could indicate purity, anger, or love. Purple was the color of kings. A dog in a picture might represent faithfulness, and butterflies could represent the soul.

There are Pre-Raphaelite paintings with so many symbols and ideas in them that you need a deep working knowledge of Victorian and Edwardian social mores to understand what’s going on.

For example, Ford Madox Brown’s Work, a painting which took some 13 years to complete, was first exhibited in 1865 with a catalogue explaining all its symbols and elements. There is nothing in that picture that doesn’t mean something.

I brought some of that visual meta-textual sensibility to Chivalry, (and I’ve written about the symbolism and meanings in the work in other essays.)

I also brought into the work direct Pre-Raphaelite art references.

From 1868-1870, Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones created four paintings illuminating the tale of Pygmalion and Galatea, entitled Pygmalion and the Image, and wrote a poem with each line titling one painting:

The heart desires

The hand refrains

The godhead fires

The soul attains.

A perfect little poem for Chivalry, and I think of it often when some people present me with what I think is a very strange question: why didn’t Galaad just take the Holy Grail from Mrs. Whitaker?

It kind of breaks my heart that people would even ask that.

Burne-Jones painted two versions of this series of which this is the second.

In the first panel of this page, Sir Galaad kneeling before the Grail is derived from the figure of Pygmalion kneeling before Galatea: The Soul Attains.

Sir Galaad’s restraint even in the face of his greatest desire makes him worthy of his prize.

There are two Pre-Raphalite references in this page, the most obvious being in panel 2: it’s Sir John Everett Millais’s 1857 work A Dream of the Past: Sir Isumbras at the Ford.

The painting was very poorly received on first exhibition, compelling Millais to redo significant portions of it. It was caricatured and ridiculed, and then ended up becoming influential and popular, and isn’t that the way it goes.

That’s an art career in a nutshell, really.

The Sir Isumbras image also influenced John Tenniel’s illustrations for the Lewis Carroll Alice in Wonderland novels.

Sir Isumbras derives from a 13th century Medieval romance poem about a good knight whose pride causes him to fail in his Christian duty. He is presented with a series of difficult challenges before he can find happiness again, reunite with his family, and be forgiven his sins. The painting by Millais is based less explicitly on the poem than it is on a later parody of the poem. (It’s complicated.)

My using Sir Isumbras as the base for the shot of Galaad with the children is obvious here. In the Millais painting, Sir Isumbras carries a woodcutter’s children across the ford. In Chivalry, Sir Galaad carries the children of Mrs. Whitaker’s neighborhood down the street.

While Sir Isumbras spent many years learning humility and Christian duty, Galaad has a long quest to fulfill before he can achieve his goal. And on the way to that goal, he’s humble and nice to children, too.

That the Millais painting was such a huge influence on many a depiction of knighthood over the years made it a perfect reference point here, and the story behind both the painting and the poem give it further layers of meaning.

The next panel has a far less obvious reference, but the source is Arthur Hughes’s painting The Rescue.

Arthur Hughes is one of the lesser-known Pre-Raphaelites, but his art is widely seen and influential. He’s certainly been a big influence on me, as many of his paintings appear again and again in Arthuriana references, as he was a prolific King Arthur picture tale teller.

The Rescue (1907-1908) was originally part of a diptych which was separated and sold back in the 1920’s. His style was becoming unpopular by the time Hughes painted the work, and little is known about this work except that one panel was in the collection of Andrew Lloyd Webber at some point. Maybe still is. Dunno.

Anyway, the diptych depicts a little child kneeling in prayer menaced by a dragon in one panel, and in the next, safely trotting away with a knight on horseback. I like that this is a diptych, a kind of proto-comic art form common in medieval religious art, so this was perfect to use here.

Another reference to Arthur Hughes is in this double page splash from later in the book as Galaad on his quest encounters the Hesperides.

I didn’t set out to reference this Arthur Hughes piece at first, but it’s one of my favorite paintings. When I realized my sketches for this scene kept echoing the Hughes composition, I went with it. The Hughes painting of Galahad is one of the most famous depictions of the character, so it makes me happy to have this referenced in Chivalry.

Kindly ask for CHIVALRY, published by Dark Horse Comics in the USA and by Headline Books in the UK at your local comic shops or bookstore. Written by Neil Gaiman. Adaptation and art by me.

For further reading on this project, go HERE.

HERE.

And HERE.

Thank you to my Patreon patrons for sponsoring my work and this post.

Colleen Doran Illustrates Neil Gaiman will be a solo exhibit at the Society of Illustrators in New York City this spring. Watch this space for updates.

Have a wonderful holiday season.

[onlyslenderthoughts]

Any beautiful ladies out there who want to discuss the slenderman myth?

[shyunknownavenue]

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

Helping Her Down Off A Ladder vs Helping Her Down From The Monkey Bars

[dailyhogz]

day 106. he’s back on his shit again

[rwac96]

Type: Ask

AU: Crossover AU: Crossover Fusion AU, Childhood Friend AU

Fandom: RWBY, Pokemon

Summary: Hilda. How long do you know Jaune and did you support him in his dream of being a hunter?

Hilda: *adjusts her shorts* "Since the sandbox. We weren't friends, per se...He was my neighbor growing up. Honestly, I thought he was full of hot air...until he ran away to Beacon."

[ratatatastic]

romance in waiting for your partner before you find your seats on the bench after witnessing the wackiest flail your goalie just made

and sandwiching a baby swede in between yall and your uncontested unbreakable marriage bond despite the fact paul tried to test said unbreakable marriage bond by pairing up said baby swede with forsy for comfort reasons

and also whatever conversation boqy and forsy are having while ekky has glove problems is deeply entertaining to me

"❓️" "🙂‍↔️🙂‍↔️" "🤨❓️" all i know is that it left boqy deeply confused

tampa bay lightning @ florida panthers | 9.30.24

[techramonic]

he was crossing his fingers while typing these. one hand on the phone and other was on a rosary.

[agre-sora]

Ashes to ashes piece

"Dedue tended to his liege's deathbed, and then took up a post at his bed for the rest of of his days. When the time came, they were buried beside eachother."

Another project finished. This one was for @fodlanfuneral, bassed in Dimitri&Dedue endcard, where Dedue finds his rest and peace near the person who most cared for. I am extremely week to royalty beyond death.

Also I love the implication that Dedue was so loved by people that they fulfill his last wish, even if that includes open a king's grave and let him rest with his most important person.

I'd wish my pc didn't crash in that time. I'd love to make something more and detail things, but CSP was week against crypto-bros fucking me up. +Dedue zoom because I liked how scars and armor texture ended here <3

[iceyrukia]

I think that a lot of women can’t come to terms with men’s misogyny because of men’s CHILVARY and the illusion it casts over a patriarchal society that contradicts the notion that men hate women.

Like imo chilvary doesn’t have anything to do with loving or respecting women but more about enforcing gender roles. Specifically the part where men aren’t supposed to hit women ( someone physically weaker than them) because in mens’ world violence is an acceptable way of settling things with each other as equals, and fighting women would be EMASCULATING. And also protecting women (from other men) is more about protecting their property ( thus is about protecting their masculinity). They just frame it as protecting women out of good will to seem heroic.

And proof of this all being bullshit is how the same men will find it perfectly acceptable to physically harm women into submission, as punishments for:

a) misbehaving property (hitting women via domestic abuse)

b) other men ( destroying property of other men).

CHILVARY is just an invention to ignore the fact that men are in fact dangerous and in power so instead it’s reframed as benevolence and a way for men to pretend they’re better than other men.

[starwrittenfates-a]

@wanderingwolfwitcher continued from X

"Sounds good. How about we meet near Castel Ravello around...I think nighttime would be best, during all the evenings celebrations? After all, there is a reason Toussaint is famous for it's wines. Everyone will practically be drunk and it will give us more of an advantage to slip away into the night. I also think Nazair would be our best bet in looking for a ship. It's closer to where we need to take off for our destination and if the Empire disturbs us, worry not, I have a card to play for that."

Syanna couldn't help but clutch her hand behind her back at the name of familiar city. Nazair was just as important to her as Beauclair. It was where she had started over anew after being exiled by her own family, being adopted into a new one and becoming something other than she was. It was only fitting for her to return back there once again, following the same footsteps, except trying to do better this time.

"I will also make sure to pack some provisions we may need that could come in handy," she said, grabbing a coin purse as example and shaking it before placing it in a bag with a smug smile. However, her gaze slightly softened looking at him as she realized the risk and position she would be putting him in for this journey alone. If they didn't succeed in this, not only would they have a sorcerer after them, but all of Toussaint as well. And Syanna didn't think her sister could be so lenient with her a second time... "I'll see you soon, Eskel."

And with that, she bid him goodbye and closed the door.

[yimra]

Got that dog in me I guess

[brainwashedblackgirl]

Age of Chivalry with Julian 💘🤺⚔️🗡️

[kenatachan]

at target and just watched a husband immediately take the bag his wife was carrying so she wouldn’t have to. It was so smooth. So practiced. Like he’d been doing this for years.