Hi y’all,
Welcome to the blog! In an effort to be more transparent about my process, I’ll be posting here once a week or so. Stay tuned to keep up with current artistic projects — painting, poetry, and bears, oh my.
To get started, I want to share some studies for a project I’m excited about, although it’s still in early stages: a series of illustrations for Milton’s angels from Paradise Lost. For anyone who doesn’t know, Paradise Lost is a book-length poem that John Milton wrote in the 17th century. It retells the story of the fall of Adam and Eve. The poem starts with Satan’s fall from Heaven and ends (spoiler alert) with the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.
It’s truly a great poem — a lot of work, to be sure, but one of my all-time favorites. Milton earns his place in my top five with this poem for the sentences and rhythm alone. If that’s not enough for you, it’s got torture (literally), heartbreak (figuratively), and adventure (both).
I first tried to read it a few years ago in Delhi, but ended up giving the book away to a friend. I tried again with a reading group the next year in New York, but we trailed off. Finally, two years ago, during my MFA, I managed to get through it. Third time’s the charm.
I was also studying artistic anatomy, drawing, and painting at The Art Students League of New York at the time. One passage in particular fascinated me:
”[…] for spirits that live throughout
Vital in every part, not as frail man
In entrails, heart or head, liver or reins,
Cannot but by annihilation die;
Nor in their liquid texture mortal wound
Receive, no more than can the fluid air:
All heart they live, all head, all eye, all ear,
All intellect, all sense, and as they please,
They limb themselves, and color, shape or size
Assume, as likes them best, condense or rare.”
The passage comes from book six. Raphael, one of the archangels, is telling Adam about the battle in Heaven between the pro-God forces and Satan + his soon-to-be-fallen angels. Essentially, it’s pointless — since they’re all celestial beings, none of the angels can seriously wound each other. Here, Raphael is explaining how their angelic anatomy allows them to quickly recover from their wounds. If you’re curious how the battle ends (spoiler alert, again), the Son drives Satan and his companions out of Heaven on a fiery chariot. They plummet through Chaos into Hell. It’s pretty great.
This passage has been tickling my art-nerd brain ever since I read it — what would muscles, fibers, and bones that form as freely as the “fluid air” look like? For every little part of a body to be independently and fully alive? And part of a single being?
Well, here’s my best guess:
For now, I’m working through these studies one section of the body at a time. The first is an angel torso, the second angel legs. Both are pen and ink (microns, to be exact). I’ve been starting with studies of regular human anatomy, then distorting them to fit Milton’s description. Here are the corresponding regular human studies:
I’ve also worked up an angel torso on Procreate. The idea was to think through how these studies might eventually work as paintings (color, brushwork, etc.).
I’ll be doing more studies in the coming weeks with pen and ink, Procreate, and, eventually, real-life oils. Stay tuned here and on Instagram to see more. Thanks so much for reading! Keep creating and have a great week.