Prospero Fontana (1512–1597) ... Symbolic Questions... 1574

Prospero Fontana's designs are often obscure in their iconography, their significance as reflections of quattrocento symbols and hieroglyphics have been analysed by Edgar Wind in several sections of Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance. These striking illustrations have been shown to have influenced Blake and Samuel Palmer after two centuries of neglect.

Achille Bocchi's Symbolicarum Quaestionum, the full book of wonders

with more of Fontanas illustrations  here

R Delvaux...etching...1800's

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The Ambivalence of Magic... unknown source

P.Thiele... print ...Die Grossherzige 1990

Steffi Grant.... Spirit Forces...Elementals

Annette Peuker-Krisper... Sebastian 1981

Ex libris... Seiji Kamachi

more here >

My works... drawing ... Dolorosa 2011

Untitled ~ Dolorosa 2011

Alphabet.. french erotica... c1880

try your own here > Erotic Alphabet Image Generator

larger images HERE

Jörg Breu the Elder (c. 1475-1537)... Woodcut

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F. S. Sonnenstern... print

W Blecher... print ...1967

 

 click on image to enlarge

 

The Albatross

Often, to amuse themselves, the men of the crew
Catch those great birds of the seas, the albatrosses,
lazy companions of the voyage, who follow
The ship that slips through bitter gulfs.

Hardly have they put them on the deck,
Than these kings of the skies, awkward and ashamed,
Piteously let their great white wings
Draggle like oars beside them.

This winged traveler, how weak he becomes and slack!
He who of late was so beautiful, how comical and ugly!
Someone teases his beak with a branding iron,
Another mimics, limping, the crippled flyer!

The Poet is like the prince of the clouds,
Haunting the tempest and laughing at the archer;
Exiled on earth amongst the shouting people,
His giant's wings hinder him from walking.

 

Flowers of Evil - Charles Baudelaire 1857