Droeshout -- Shape of Head
Paul Crowley
by adding these lines to his posts:
See for yourself that the Droeshout portrait is not unusual at all!
http://hometown.aol.com/kqknave/shakenbake.html
I've put a new page on to my website where I show
how some of the strangeness of the Folio image
comes its extraordinary shape. This is not
readily apparent, until you compare it with the
heads of normal males. See:
http://www.crosswinds.net/~crowleyp/
Paul.
--
Email: pebj...@ubgznvy.pbz (apply ROT13)
KQKnave
have to do is look at Crowley's page!
See for yourself that the Droeshout portrait is not unusual at all!
http://hometown.aol.com/kqknave/shakenbake.html
Agent Jim
Paul Crowley
> This is so nuts I don't even have to respond! All you
> have to do is look at Crowley's page!
Agent Jim is sooooooooo articulate.
See how the Folio portrait was designed to show
a monster -- a person who never existed and
who could never have existed:
Nicholas Whyte
> KQKnave <kqk...@aol.comspamslam> wrote in message news:20020116180639...@mb-mn.aol.com...
>
> > This is so nuts I don't even have to respond! All you
> > have to do is look at Crowley's page!
>
>
> Agent Jim is sooooooooo articulate.
>
>
> See how the Folio portrait was designed to show
> a monster -- a person who never existed and
> who could never have existed:
>
> http://www.crosswinds.net/~crowleyp/
It's very difficult to tell whether a) Crowley means this seriously or
b) he is once again engaging in ironic self-parody. I mean, we know he
doesn't believe the Enlightenment happened, which explains why he
can't tell the difference between 16th century and 21st century ideas
about history, but surely even Crowley can tell the difference between
a woodcut and a photograph?
Nicholas
KQKnave
nichol...@hotmail.com (Nicholas Whyte) writes:
>It's very difficult to tell whether a) Crowley means this seriously or
>b) he is once again engaging in ironic self-parody. I mean, we know he
>doesn't believe the Enlightenment happened, which explains why he
>can't tell the difference between 16th century and 21st century ideas
>about history, but surely even Crowley can tell the difference between
>a woodcut and a photograph?
>
Well, that's why I said to see for yourself. I don't know if he really
believes this stuff or just compulsively contradicts everybody, but
if you read his posts on the sonnets, you can see that they have
nothing to do with reality.
Paul Crowley
> nichol...@hotmail.com (Nicholas Whyte) writes:
>
> > surely even Crowley can tell the difference between
> > a woodcut and a photograph?
What an idiot you are Whyte!
The Droeshout is far from 'a woodcut'. It is
a superbly executed engraving.
However, on your general point -- have you
ever seen a statement to the effect that we
can explain the 'oddities' of the Droeshout
because 'it was an engraving' ? Or because
such representations were never required
to be realistic?
Serious portraitists of the day (in all media)
sought for accuracy and realism. It is now
commonly thought that most used 'camera
obscura'. The portraits were generally
meant to be as realistic as photographs.
That was, largely, their function -- to record
accurately how people looked. Which is
not to say that flattery was not often desired,
executed and paid for.
I could do the same with contemporary
portraits of males (and maybe I'll get
around to it). I just happened to have
some of US presidents to hand.
If you have any appropriate portraits, post
them to your website or email them. Jim has
already done one with Bacon -- with exactly
the opposite result from what he expected.
KQKnave <kqk...@aol.comspamslam> wrote in message news:20020119161236...@mb-fe.aol.com...
> Well, that's why I said to see for yourself.
But then Jim isn't it always so much easier
when someone else provides the words?
I know. It's just the stammer that's the
problem.
KQKnave
<pebj...@ubgznvy.pbz (apply ROT13)> writes:
>Serious portraitists of the day (in all media)
>sought for accuracy and realism. It is now
>commonly thought that most used 'camera
>obscura'. The portraits were generally
>meant to be as realistic as photographs.
Obviously wrong, if you check the engravings I've
posted on the website below.
Tom Reedy
"KQKnave" <kqk...@aol.comspamslam> wrote in message
> In article <FeF28.28594$8s4.1...@news.indigo.ie>, "Paul Crowley"
> <pebj...@ubgznvy.pbz (apply ROT13)> writes:
>
> >Serious portraitists of the day (in all media)
> >sought for accuracy and realism. It is now
> >commonly thought that most used 'camera
> >obscura'. The portraits were generally
> >meant to be as realistic as photographs.
>
> Obviously wrong, if you check the engravings I've
> posted on the website below.
Yes, I'd like to see Crowley blank out the faces of the ones you have on
your website for some controls.
TR
Nicholas Whyte
> In article <FeF28.28594$8s4.1...@news.indigo.ie>, "Paul Crowley"
> <pebj...@ubgznvy.pbz (apply ROT13)> writes:
>
> >Serious portraitists of the day (in all media)
> >sought for accuracy and realism. It is now
> >commonly thought that most used 'camera
> >obscura'. The portraits were generally
> >meant to be as realistic as photographs.
>
> Obviously wrong, if you check the engravings I've
> posted on the website below.
I misspoke when I described the Droeshout portrait as a woodcut; it's
clearly an engraving.
However there is a big difference between portraits "meant" to be as
realistic as photographs and *actually* being as realistic as
photographs. This is why Crowley's comparing the Droeshout with
photographs of 20th century people is so unconvincing that I thought
it might possibly be his little joke. Apparently not.
A fair basis for comparison would be to check Droeshout's Shakespeare
against his other portraits, listed on several Oxfordian sites as
including George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham; John Howson, Bishop of
Durham; James, Marquis of Hamilton; Sir Thomas Overbury; Helkiah
Crooke, M.D.; Dr. Donne; John Foxe; and Thomas, Lord Coventry. Why has
no Oxfordian gone to the bother of reproducing graphics of these
portraits so that we can see how deliberately Droeshout's talents were
misused in the First Folio? Because they don't believe in doing
original research but prefer to regurgitate nonsense peddled by the
foudners of their loony beliefs.
At least Jim has taken the bother to compare the engraving with other
contemporary portraits, and those shown on his page pretty much prove
his case.
Nicholas
KQKnave
nichol...@hotmail.com (Nicholas Whyte) writes:
I think that what you want to compare are other engravings for books,
not formal portraits. Crowley lumps those all together, but it should
be obvious that formal portraiture of the time was invested with far
more care and realism, and you can see from the engravings posted
at my website that engravings intended for books (the Shakespeare
engraving excepted) were not. Relative to serious portraiture, the
Droeshout engraving is not great, but compared with other engravings
in like media, it is of very high quality.
Roundtable
I went to your website page, and printed out the pics - I'm
still working in the Public Library, since my HD crashed, and
so HLAS becomes rather complicated for me. I have to print
things out and take them home, etc.
I like your page!
Anyway, I don't understand how people can look at the engraving as if it
were a photograph - the artist was trying to show how Shakespeare was
bald right to the very back of the head, for example.
And as for the body, he
didn't pay attention to proportions - but many artists are like
that, look at oil paintings etc. where people have arms that are too
long or too short, etc. etc.
Very few paintings and drawings are perfect photographs, and this
was a copper-plate engraving, rather less easy to work with than a
pencil.
Actually if you paint in a hat or a bit of hair onto WS's bald pate,
plus colour the engraving with flesh tints and so on, it looks
very realistic! Try it, Mr. Crowley!
Roundtable
--
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Paul Crowley
> kqk...@aol.comspamslam (KQKnave) wrote in message news:<20020120181202...@mb-mc.aol.com>...
> > Obviously wrong, if you check the engravings I've
> > posted on the website below.
[...]
> At least Jim has taken the bother to compare the engraving with other
> contemporary portraits, and those shown on his page pretty much prove
> his case.
[..]
What a pair of idiots!
Jim has only _one_ engraving of a portrait
on his site, and that's the Simon Passe one
of Bacon. And that seems entirely realistic
to me. Bacon looks much the same in it as
in his other portraits.
He has another picture (an engraving?) of a
statue -- or a memorial to Bacon. Presumably
it is an attempt to be an accurate portrayal of
the statue -- which does not appear to me to
be very good in itself, nor at all realistic. But
then statutory was generally of a low standard
in Jacobean England; and memorials of this
nature (if that is what it is) did not set out to be
particularly realistic. The artist almost certainly
did not have Bacon to sit for him -- since he
would have been dead.
He has a miniature of Donne. Miniatures
were rarely accurate representations -- by
their nature. The features in them are often
grossly distorted.
He also shows a strange portrait of Donne
of which it is said (on some website of
which I've lost the address -- but you could
find it quickly with a search).
"Shortly before his death in 1631, John obtained
an urn, his own burial shroud, and an artist.
Wrapping himself in the shroud, John posed
standing atop the urn and had the artist draw
him a nice charcoal sketch of himself. This
macabre piece of artwork stayed at John's
bedside throughout his final illness. "
Clearly this 'macabre . . artwork' was not
intended to be realistic. It was some kind of
caricature -- a personal reminder to Donne
of his impending death. In any case it is
certainly not an engraving.
> See for yourself that the Droeshout portrait is not unusual at all!
> http://hometown.aol.com/kqknave/shakenbake.html
What a weak attempt to 'prove' a hopeless case.
But Jim has his admirers
> At least Jim has taken the bother to compare the engraving with other
> contemporary portraits,
Jim has trawled Elizabethan and Jacobean
'portraits' for the most freakish items he can
find. But he has found nothing remotely as
freakish as the Folio portrait.
> and those shown on his page pretty much prove
> his case.
--- Only to a total idiot.
There are also admirers of the Folio portrait
itself ! But who would want admirers of either
sort?
See how the Folio portrait was designed to show
a monster -- a person who never existed and
who could never have existed:
http://www.crosswinds.net/~crowleyp/
Roundtable
> See how the Folio portrait was designed to show
> a monster -- a person who never existed and
> who could never have existed:
>
> http://www.crosswinds.net/~crowleyp/
>
>
> Paul.
> --
> Email: pebj...@ubgznvy.pbz (apply ROT13)
I did. It's a fun page.
You show 9 US presidents and Will.
Ehmm - which one was the monster?
Roundtable
PS: Please do the same with drawing of Bacon etc.
You think Will's portrait looks wierd.
I don't.
We'll agree to differ.
Okay?