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From The Sick Rose: Disease and the Art of Medical Illustration by Richard Barnett.
I love how the book cover and contents marry a more vintage illustrative style with modern sensibilities (use of the grid and sans-serif type). I’m interested to do something like this on a smaller scale for my project, perhaps to produce a book/booklet/magazine in this kind of vein.
Drew this as part of an exploration on the Gemini twins/mortality and time. I enjoy doing quite a bit of macabre-looking illustrations in my free time and I’m carrying that aesthetic over in my explorations just to see how it works out. I liked the idea of using Siamese twins to see how else Gemini could be represented.
Castor and Pollux, in classical mythology, twin heroes called the Dioscuri; Castor was the son of Leda and Tyndareus, Pollux the son of Leda and Zeus. They were brothers to Helen and Clytemnestra. Castor excelled as a horseman and Pollux as a boxer. They were great warriors and were noted for their devotion to each other. In one version of the legend, after Castor was killed by Lynceus, Pollux, in accordance with the classical tradition that one of every set of twins is the son of a god and thus immortal, begged Zeus to allow his brother to share his immortality with him. Zeus arranged for the twins to divide their time evenly between Hades and Heaven, and in their honor he created the constellation Gemini. According to another legend, Castor was killed by Idas. The Dioscuri were widely regarded as patrons of mariners and were responsible for Saint Elmo’s fire. They were especially honored by the Romans, on whose side they were said to have appeared miraculously during the battle of Lake Regillus.
Read more here.
The myth of Castor and Pollux forms the basis of my project in that there are several interesting points to do with time in that one story about the twins of the Gemini constellation. Firstly the dichotomy between mortality and immortality, with one twin having a vastly different perception of the passage of time from the other. The potential of death for one versus the enduring existence of the other, when both twins are physically (and presumably biologically) identical, where the second dichotomy lies – undeniably similar, yet vastly different. It seems almost paradoxical to me that two people devoted to one another should be so divided by relative lifespan. The division of time between Hades and Heaven may also be an interesting thing to explore, though my primary concern is the differing lifespans of the twins themselves.
This is just the conceptual basis. I haven’t yet decided what direction to move in beyond that of an illustration-based project with possible video documentation being one of the outcomes.
Other sources of inspiration that I will draw on to conceptualize the final outcome will be astrology and the zodiac (star charts, birth charts, the Zodiac Man) as well as the traditional tarot deck. I like the illustration style used in all these esoteric things and the depth of meaning that these objects can have. Nautical illustration may also be relevant since the twins are patrons of mariners (as above), which is a lovely twist for me because I rather like nautical illustration and marine cryptids (the kraken, etc.).
Tarot Birthday Correspondences
There are cards in the major and minor arcanas of the standard tarot deck that correspond to the twelve astrological signs of the zodiac.
Gemini’s major arcana card is The Lovers. With my own birthday being taken as an example, my personal card in the minor arcana is the 10 of Swords. My court card is the Queen of Cups.
Pages from the Tibetan Encyclopedia that I scanned on my recent trip to the ADM Library while searching for references (both visual and conceptual).
“Time could become deformed as it moved forward. Time itself was uniform in composition, but once consumed, it took on a deformed shape. One period of time might be terribly heavy and long, while another could be light and short. Occasionally the order of things could be reversed, and in the worst cases order itself could vanish entirely. Sometimes things that should not be there at all might be added onto time. By adjusting time this way to suit their own purposes, people probably adjusted the meaning of their existences. In other words, by adding such operations to time, they were able—but just barely—to preserve their own sanity. Surely, if a person had to accept the time through which he had just passed uniformly in the given order, his nerves could not bear the strain…”
– Haruki Murakami, 1Q84
Senior Citizens Reveal What Tattoos Look Like on Aging Skin – My Modern Met
I’ve always, always been interested in tattoos (mostly from an artistic perspective). As a point of relevance to how we’re looking at time, I like seeing how all these tattoos these people have accumulated remain a constant on their skin while also changing along with them (i.e. fading due to exposure to sunlight, distorting due to the changing elasticity of their skin). There’s that same tension there (to me) as there is in the Castor/Pollux mortal/immortal dichotomy I’m looking into. Not to mention these photographs are quite stunning in themselves.
My mind map depicting my thoughts on the topic at hand. I’ve highlighted the areas that are of more interest to me; from the word and idea clusters I’ve been using I can already tell which areas under the main umbrella categories are of the greatest interest to me and my project.
I have a personal interest in astrology, horoscopes and mythology that stems from an early age – my mother encouraged me to read widely and my favourite stories were always the Greek myths, including those concerning the constellations. So I’ve decided to develop this interest alongside my project so as to be able to work on ideas that have more personal significance to me.
One of my friends tagged me in this video featuring a dotwork illustration process. I was thinking that this could be a good idea for me to show how therapeutic dotwork is for me. It may also be a good time-based documentation log, so perhaps I could produce my own kind of process video as one of my final three outcomes in my project.
Dotwork is personally really important to me because I got into the style when I was in a very sad headspace. The process of dotting helped me overcome my sadness and negativity and has now become something that I really enjoy regardless of mood.
Giornale Nuovo: Gnoli’s ‘Modern Bestiary’
I love the details and surreal quality of these images. I’m using them as visual inspiration for the kind of images I want to produce with regard to my own project. I’d also like to incorporate the juxtaposition of the natural and the bizarre which is what I do already in my own personal illustration work.
