James Baker. Pictures from Bohemia. London, Religious Tract Society, 1894.
via: The Internet Archive
The Art of Book Design: Pictures from Bohemia
Affinity
Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
James Baker. Pictures from Bohemia. London, Religious Tract Society, 1894.
via: The Internet Archive
It’s time for the next leg of our journey with Nightjar.
The vineyards planted on Douro’s steep hillsides produce grapes with unique properties for wine production. We went in August, middle of the dry season and a little before harvesting starts. This region has been producing wine for nearly 2 millennia and is a UNESCO heritage site. Traditional farming methods are still used for the most part, but lately and due to increased demand, the pressure put on the river has been increasing to worrying levels. In addition to erosion, environmentalists have been denouncing the massive use of herbicides that obviously end up poisoning the river.
©Nightjar, all rights reserved
Andrew Lang. The Yellow Fairy Book. Illustrations by H. J. Ford. London & New York, Longmans, Green, and Co., 1894.
This week’s Andrew Lang book of fairy stories is brought to you by the colour yellow. The illustrations are again done by the talented H. J. Ford and I’ve added my favourites below the fold. There are big birds, dancing dragons, serpents, witches, beautiful maidens, brave dogs and a goat who made me smile. I hope you enjoy
Hamilton Drummond. The Justice of the King. New York, The Macmillan company, 1911.
I’m including the frontispiece for this book because it’s a better depiction of the cover. The artwork is by J.A. Williams
Frontispiece, The Justice of the King. Artwork by J. A. Williams.
via: The Internet Archive
The next part of Nightjar’s series.
The views upstream of the dam were even more striking, but it’s quite clear this isn’t a natural landscape. It made me wonder how this placed looked like before humans started reshaping it many centuries ago.
Upstream, ©Nightjar, all rights reserved
Well, hello my lovely, ©voyager, all rights reserved
The weather has been decidedly cold over the past few weeks, and it put our burgeoning spring on hold. Any bulb flowers that were up just stopped growing, and so did all the buds on trees and shrubs. It’s depressing to walk past so many flowers day after day, hoping for a bit of colour and seeing no change at all.
This week, though, has been warmer and rainy, and the flowers have been persuaded to get growing. Today we found our first purple of the year and a small patch of delicate white snowdrops. By tomorrow we should see open tulips in a rainbow of colours, along with sunny yellow daffodils and delicate pink hyacinths. The rain is supposed to stop over the weekend, and we might actually get a warm, sunny day that invites me outdoors to be amongst the flowers. I am positively humming with joyous anticipation.
Gene Stratten Porter. At the Foot of the Rainbow. Illustrated by Oliver Kemp. New York, Grosset & Dunlap, 1916.
via: The Internet Archive
I had some sort of brain fart yesterday and didn’t get part 2 of this series posted. Because of this, I’ve decided to post the series on Monday, Wednesday and Friday this week with the last 2 posts on Monday and Wednesday next week. That way there will be 2 weeks with beautiful photos by Nightjar, to whom I sincerely apologize. Without further ado, Nightjar presents The Douro Valley, Part 2.
I had never seen a lock operate before, let alone actually navigate through one, so I was really looking forward to this part of the cruise. Being raised 28 meters (92 feet) up a dam and looking back on it as we go upstream is quite an experience. I think these photos tell the story well.
Going towards the lock, ©Nightjar, all rights reserved
Henry Law Webb. The Silences of the Moon. London & New York, John Lane company, 1911.
via: The Internet Archive
Welcome to a new series from Nightjar. The story is told in 5 parts, beginning today and ending on Friday.
I’ve had this series semi-prepared for over a year but I kept meaning to write up a better story to accompany the pictures and since that never happened, I never shared them. I have now decided to write up something not as detailed as I had planned initially and just share the photos already. I’m sorry I couldn’t put more into this, but I hope you all enjoy it anyway.
Back in 2017 I did a (partial) Douro up-river cruise. Douro is one of our major rivers and the region around it is where Port wine comes from, as well as being home to important almond and olive plantations. I’ve regretted this trip, not only because cruises here are becoming too popular and thus environmentally costly, but also because shortly after it a scandal broke about workers’ rights abuse by the companies running this business. So, destroying the environment while trampling workers’ rights, that doesn’t exactly make me want to repeat it. But anyway, I selected a few photos I took during the trip to share. Here you can see an overview of the river and the surrounding landscape, some of its bridges and one of its dams. In the next chapter we, and the boat following us, will navigate through that dam. A 28 meters / 92 feet rise.
Overview, ©Nightjar, all rights reserved
Andrew Lang. The Pink Fairy Book. Illustrated by H. .J. Ford. New York, Longmans, Green, 1897.
This week’s Andrew Lang Fairy Book is pink. Bright pink with golden sunshine, angels and cherubs. Inside, the illustrations are again by the talented HJ Ford, and I’ve chosen my favourites to share with you. They include a Japanese tanuki, cats, dogs, baboons, dragons, mermaids and princesses of all sorts. I’m especially fond of the drawings with wind and water, both of which are difficult to draw, and Ford does it brilliantly. Enjoy.
