Monday 19 November 2007

Hickory Dickory

TO BE ABLE TO MEASURE TIME ~ the passing of the days, months, seasons and years ~ by means of watching the sky, has been an obsession of ours as humans since the beginnings of agriculture. By observing celestial movements people were able to organise their work on the land and so representations of the passing of time have long been linked to the earthy concerns of ordinary folk trying to survive from their crop yield throughout the year.
Calendars produced in the middle ages often depicted personifications of the zodiac or representations of the activities undertaken by the peasants on the land. There are some beautiful examples including the well known fifteenth century Les très riches heures du Duc de Berry (above) and the months of the year depicted in the 1475 Bedford Hours (below) which is housed in the British Museum.







If you would like to read more about medieval calendars I recommend the excellent book The Art of Time by Teresa Perez-Higuera.
It is a strange thing to allocate measurement to something like time .. which I think we all experience differently. I have never been known to follow the rigours of a strictly measured regime particularly .. indeed an early school report stated ( quite truly ) that "Rima has no sense of urgency" And I still find myself in a ever-so-slightly-floating-world that skips alongside the Other One that most others seem to operate in.


Well .. the point of all this was to tell you in a tiny little voice that I have a limited edition of small desk calendars featuring 13 of my illustrations for sale here ... by no means as exquisite as the medieval examples above ... but a little idea I had for selling my work in another way, and a chance for you to buy 13 little prints all in one go!



1 comment:

Sinensis said...

I watch your website and your works are simply amazing!