Illustrations

[Ecurb]

I recently read "Vanity Fair", which was illustrated by Thackeray himself. What do Litnetters think of illustrations? Can they influence our imaginations in a negative way (like seeing a movie of the novel might)? Are they more "legitimate" when created by the author instead of a professional illustrator?

Of course children's books generally include illustrations -- slowly diminishing in frequency as the child ages and moves from "picture books" to "chapter books". I can't remember which authors provide their own illustrations (Tolkien's, in the Hobbit, were good but perhaps amateurish), except for Thackeray. I enjoyed Vanity Fair's illustrations, although I'm not sure if they added to the text (except for the picture of Becky as napoleon, and the other one representing her as Clytemnestra).

What do other Litnetters think of illustrations, especially in adult novels?

[milagros]

hello:

I like when a book contains illustrations, but I think of they aren't necessary. Besides, not all illustrations are appropriate. The books sometimes have illustrations unexciting.

[Red Terror]

Yeah, I like illustrations--- if they are done with care and not in a sloppy and facile manner.

[Danik 2016]

I love ilustrations when they are good and add to the text. An example are the famous ilustrations of the Dickens books: https://www.google.com.br/search?q=Dickens+illustrations&client=firefox-b&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjAqZ_E36XOAhUEF5AKHQGQD0oQsAQIIA&biw=800&bih=450.
Another instance, which shocked the Victorians, were Aubrey Beardsley's drawings for Oscar Wilde's French play Salomé.
http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/aubrey-beardsley-illustrations-for-salome-by-oscar-wilde
However the ilustrations can be very bad or not complementary to the text.
In such a case it is better to do without them.

[mortalterror]

Tolkein's Lord of the Rings trilogy is vastly improved by the drawings people have contributed to it over the years. They formed the backbone of a visual language used in the films which was far superior to Tolkein's own prose style. Also, I straight up love the illustrations John Tenniel did for Alice in Wonderland and Aubrey Beardsley did for Salome. Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac, Maxfield Parrish, are also pretty dope. As much as I love Gustave Dore's work on Paradise Lost, Orlando Furioso, or The Rime of the Ancient Mariner the illustrations don't particularly influence what's in my head. Some illustrations work better than others. I've seen movies based on books where the actors took the place of the ones I had pictured previously. But more often I've rejected an adaptation for what was already conjured in my imagination. Illustrations are just interpretations, suggestions, or guidelines. Even with comicbooks where the representation is there on the page with the text, my idea of what Superman looks like differs slightly from what Alex Ross or Jim Lee have to offer.

It occurs to me that I'm sitting next to a copy of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling and a reproduction of Gauguin's Jacob Wrestling With the Angel. Things like the Lindisfarne Gospels, The Tres Riches Heures, or the Shanameh of Shah Tahmasp are cultural treasures. So illustrations based on books or the book arts themselves are not to be despised. Even today there are some fantastic illustrated manuscripts being created like the St John Bible, or the illuminated Silmarillion by Benjamin Harff. The Kelmscott Chaucer by William Morris is another lovely example.

[North Star]

No mention of William Blake yet‽

[Jacek Pudlo]

Despite enjoying scarcely more common ground than fish and fowl, prose and illustration manage to snap and peck at each other with fatal results. The argument can be a hilarious one (see Victorian illustrations of Lady Macbeth), but is unlikely to be an aesthetic success.

[Danik 2016]

Some books like The Little Prince wouldn´t exist without ilustrations.

[YesNo]

What I remember and like the most about The Little Prince and Alice in Wonderland were the illustrations.

Illustrations and words are different. They don't compete. I can see why they add expense in making a book and that is why they are usually limited to the cover. Hopefully they add value to the reader's enjoyment which should translate into value for the publisher if that value is managed properly. Rather than putting in illustrations a publisher might be better off creating an audio book to increase sales.

Regarding some technical writing, illustrations in the form of graphs and tables are often important to help the reader understand what the words are trying to say as well as provide evidence for the truth of the words.

[Jacek Pudlo]

Some books like The Little Prince wouldn´t exist without ilustrations.

Where the text is weak, illustrations will not make it stronger. Where the text is strong, illustrations will have an insinuating and vulgarising effect.

[JCamilo]

Mortal gave enough examples of Rich texts with great illustrations and someone also mentioned William Blake. I would also add that the visual of some movies have huge positive impact on some works, Disney come to my mind, the visual of Sleeping Beauty for example, add a lot to the stories. And this is not only about the illustrations of the works, but the image we have of the writers too... Look the usual Dante's portraits. He is often serious, not smiling (Dore has a rigid serious Dante with matches the vision people have him as very judgmental and in a way "condeming" people to Hell), look the romantic portraits of Keats of Wordsworth.

I am sure if Stukles is around and see this he will pin up enough examples of illustrations that are as good as the original work. Heck, books like 1001 Nights of The Bible would fill pages and pages of great illustrations considering the text is not always very descriptive (or with great variety).

[Pompey Bum]

I recently read "Vanity Fair", which was illustrated by Thackeray himself. What do Litnetters think of illustrations? Can they influence our imaginations in a negative way (like seeing a movie of the novel might)? Are they more "legitimate" when created by the author instead of a professional illustrator?

I oppose them if they interfere with with the intimate relationship between reader and writer (which is where the art actually happens). Obviously that means I make an exception for illustrations by the author since they are part of that communication. I also acknowledge that illustrated classics are a fact of life. John Tenniel's Alice, many illustrations of Dickens works, and even Sydney Paget's stiff and stilted Sherlock Holmes are with us whether I like it or not. (Beardsley posters adorned the steamy dorm rooms of too many freshman first-timers back in the 70s for me to take very seriously, but I sympathize with Mort's point). I look at such illustrations as I look at good old Victorian translations of Livy or Tacitus. If I were really trying to hear the author I would not go near them, but experiencing the style of a tried and true intermediary can (sometimes) be a pleasure in itself. Illustrations can (sometimes) be like that, too. That's all you're going to get from me, ecurb.

[mortalterror]

Technically the words on the page, the size and grade of the paper, the ink, format, and script used are all visual aspects of a book. The layout of a page can have an immense effect on how much one enjoys a book. Even without illustrations, a book still has a visual dimension. I'm reminded of how Mortimer J. Adler's Great Books of the Western World series was all but ruined by the Encyclopedia Britannica's decision to print them like encyclopedias to save space and money. Or how cramped my King James Bible is with it's tiny type and columns to get the whole thing into one medium sized volume. Compared to those the Doves Press Bible in five volumes is a work of art.

I'm trying to think. Didn't Daumier, Dore, Goya, and Picasso do sketches of Don Quixote? Wouldn't you want them in your copy?

[JCamilo]

Dore works for Quixote, Divine Comedy, Grimms and Iddyls of a King are fantastic. Yet, what about Shakespeare? Ophelia death scene has a collection of works that are as good as Shakespeare words. Millais painting is among my favorite. And who wouldnt want Waterhouse paintings or not think of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the pre-rafaelites and their close ties to books.

[Ecurb]

I'm trying to think. Didn't Daumier, Dore, Goya, and Picasso do sketches of Don Quixote? Wouldn't you want them in your copy?

I have a framed print of Picasso's Don Quixote on my wall. I inherited it from my parents' house when my father died. I remember when my mom and dad first brought it home. My brothers and I asked, "Why is that supposed to be great art? Anyone can draw like that!" (I was probably 6 or 7 years old). My dad gave us all pencils and papers and said, "Go to, my children."

We learned something about art -- or, at least, it made an impression on me -- because I still remember it.

I understand your point about the voice of the author, Pompey, but I have no objection to collaborative art. I mean, we needn't read Shakespeare's plays to appreciate them. We can see them performed. Illustrations in a novel are a minor influence on our appreciation of the "literature" compared to performances in the theater. Of course one might object to some PARTICULAR illustrations, just as one might object to some theatrical performances.

[ennison]

Illustrations can add a great deal to a text. Many's the classic text was illustrated by the Dundee cartoonist Watkins. He intended doing an illustrated Bible but never got round to it. I am sure he widened and deepened the visual imagination of many children reading these classics.

[Pompey Bum]

Technically the words on the page, the size and grade of the paper, the ink, format, and script used are all visual aspects of a book. The layout of a page can have an immense effect on how much one enjoys a book.

"Immense effect" is hyperbole. These things are done by publishers rather than authors in any case. Exceptions, such as Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience, deserve to be read (and viewed) in facsimile as a part of the original artistic communication. But in such a case, yes, the effect could be immense.


I'm trying to think. Didn't Daumier, Dore, Goya, and Picasso do sketches of Don Quixote? Wouldn't you want them in your copy?

You have missed my point. Literature-based illustrations and art can be enjoyable and sometimes even profound. Michelangelo's David, for example, is illustrative of 1 Samuel 17:1-25:7. I enjoy such art and even search websites like deviantart hoping to find modern examples. But I do so after I have read the book. This, as I said above, is to preserve the purity of the experience between the writer's imagination and my own. I prefer to approach a book as a virgin. After that I have no problem with sleeping around.

If a book was already significant enough to me that I decided to buy a hard copy, then no, I wouldn't object to fine illustrations. I would probably even choose a volume with a handsome layout. But most books I read come from Project Gutenberg or Amazon Kindle. I determine the font, size, line spacing, background, and degree of lighting myself. Accommodating my presbyopia is my chief concern. I spent years in Georgian before switching over to Iowan. It was a whimsical choice. Alas, there has been no "immense effect" to date. I'll let you know how it goes.

[JCamilo]

I have a framed print of Picasso's Don Quixote on my wall. I inherited it from my parents' house when my father died. I remember when my mom and dad first brought it home. My brothers and I asked, "Why is that supposed to be great art? Anyone can draw like that!" (I was probably 6 or 7 years old). My dad gave us all pencils and papers and said, "Go to, my children."

We learned something about art -- or, at least, it made an impression on me -- because I still remember it.

I understand your point about the voice of the author, Pompey, but I have no objection to collaborative art. I mean, we needn't read Shakespeare's plays to appreciate them. We can see them performed. Illustrations in a novel are a minor influence on our appreciation of the "literature" compared to performances in the theater. Of course one might object to some PARTICULAR illustrations, just as one might object to some theatrical performances.

I am not sure if this concept is correct. First, the number of literary works that enjoy the support of a performance is limited to one genre, while the number of works that enjoy the support of illustrations is basically... every genre, included philosophy, scientific books, etc. While works of Shakespeare obviously enjoy it, Dante or Hemingway do not. Even Quixote, this considering Cervantes also wrote a few plays.

Umberto Eco would disagree with that. He argues that the rich visual production of middle ages (which of course included more than illustrations, but still) was developed as a form to support the propragation of the texts among the popular classes, who could not read, but could use the visual references to understand better what was said. This is true for the Bible for example, the number of illustrations that shaped the imaginary (which includes the bearded jesus) is much bigger than the nativity perfomances (and even this one, the nativity scene became more usual to represent the text than a performance). Of course, drama was not exactly as well accepted during middle ages.

We are also returning into a age with huge visual references, digital culture uses illustrations, not drama. And movies mix them all.

[Ecurb]

Actually, novels are often read aloud, as is poetry. Perhaps it would be hyperbole to think the performance has an "immense effect" on the merit of the poem or novel, but it is certainly not true that drama is the only genre of literature that receives the "support of performance". Most of us probably began our careers as fans of literature when our parents read to us.

Personally, I like out-loud reading best when it is not over-acted. But the spoken or written word inevitably mediates between the author and the reader, and it doesn't seem to me that out-loud reading detracts from the "purity of the experience". Indeed, epics like Homer's were originally performed (most experts think) and were transcribed onto the page by scribes listening to the performance.

[Pompey Bum]

This is true for the Bible for example, the number of illustrations that shaped the imaginary (which includes the bearded jesus) is much bigger than the nativity perfomances (and even this one, the nativity scene became more usual to represent the text than a performance). Of course, drama was not exactly as well accepted during middle ages.

We need not look to the Middle Ages for the intrusions. The image of Jesus in the popular imagination (in the United States at least) is largely drawn from a modern picture the US military used to distribute to GIs. The picture gained currency in Sunday Schools and became a model for 20th century illustrators. If that is an urban legend I will stand corrected (I admit that I don't recall my source). But as you seem to know, the earliest images of Jesus depict him as clean shaven, toga clad, and sometimes carrying a magic wand. There is no beard for many centuries. Then again there is no contemporary physical description of Jesus; and none in the canonical Gospels. Jesus may have looked like Groucho Marx for all we know.

The nativity scene is more of a hybrid fiction. Everyone knows that Jesus' birth was attended by shepherds and three kings. But there are exactly zero accounts of that in the New Testament. The author of the Gospel of Luke knows the story of the shepherds, but there are only shepherds. The author of the Gospel of Matthew mentions an unspecified number of "magoi" brining gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The authors of the other canonical gospels know nothing of these stories or have chosen to suppress them.

There are lots of other visual intrusions into the Biblical text. Everyone knows that as Noah was building the ark his wicked neighbors mocked him. But after the flood came, those same poor deluded souls swam alongside the ark and begged to be saved. Noah wanted to help them, of course, but he couldn't because, um, it would have sunk the ark or something. Everyone knows. Except it's not in the text, not a word of it. It's in plenty of pictures from Sunday school booklets, though. I remember them from my youth, and google searches will still turn up quite a few.

But we ought to give the Middle Ages the credit it is due. The very popular passion plays annually depicted truly nasty Jews doing their diabolical worst to get Jesus onto that cross. Some have cited them as an important part of the European Jew hatred that led to centuries of pogroms and ultimately the Holocaust.

Let's not forget, too, that those who translated Biblical text into languages the people could read or have read to them, in part to oppose the images they were being fed, were routinely hunted down, tortured, and burned alive.


We are also returning into a age with huge visual references, digital culture uses illustrations, not drama. And movies mix them all.

And the next generation will rebel against the superficiality of the previous and return to content over form. Trust me, it's what next generations do.

[Jackson Richardson]

Let's not forget, too, that those who translated Biblical text into languages the people could read or have read to them (in part to oppose the images they were being fed) were routinely hunted down, tortured, and burned alive.

That's a protestant foundational myth. As many people in England had their guts wound out for being catholic as were burnt alive for being protestant.

A substantial amount of surviving Anglo Saxon poetry is paraphrasing scripture. Julian of Norwich in the 1300s would not have known Latin, but she certainly knew her Christian faith an scripture.

An English Bible was placed in every church by order of Henry VIII. The issue in most cases of religious condemnation I know of was not the role of scripture, but the nature of the eucharist and the authority of the Pope or monarch.

[Pompey Bum]

But not a myth in the sense that it didn't happen, right?

And what in the world does Anglo-Saxon poetry have to do with anything? These murders were committed centuries later in a different religious age, as you well know. Not all were killed for making translations, some just possessed them; others believed/said that there was a right to access text directly; and some did other things; but all were murdered for thinking independently of Rome and died for their convictions.

Here is an incomplete and highly selective list of some of the victims you are dismissing (lest anyone misunderstand how you are using the expression "foundational myth"). They are cases that involved accessing text (since that is what we were talking about); but many thousands of human beings were actually murdered for their beliefs. And yes, Protestant churches and princes killed Catholics, too. That changes nothing in the discussion on text, and nothing about the horrific nature of these crimes.

Now if we're finally done fighting the Thirty Years War, could we please get back on topic?

1400 - William Sawtree - Wycliffe follower - Burned at the stake

1409 - Tailor named Bradbe - Wycliffe follower - Roasted alive in a barrel

1417 - Sir John Oldcastle - Helped distribute Wycliffe Bible - roasted over a fire

1427 - John Purvey - Bible distribution - died in prison - 1421-7

1511 - James Brewster - Burned at the stake - Having a book of Scripture

1519 - Six men and women burned for teaching their children the Lord’s prayer - London

1525 - Gospel preacher named Schuch - Burned at the stake in Strasburg for preaching and having a Bible - His Bible was burned with him.

1528 - Patrick Hamilton - Burned at the Stake in Scotland for declaring that it is the right of any person to read God’s Word

1529 - Louis Berquin - Burned at the Stake in France for printing and distributing Bible tracts in French

1530 - John Tewksbury - Burned at the stake for Bible distribution - England

1531 - Thomas Bilney - Tortured and burned for preaching and distributing the Tyndale Bible

1531 - Richard Bayfield - Burned at the stake for Scripture distribution

1532 - James Bainham - Burned for possessing Scriptures in the English language

1535 - Dean Forret - Burned for having Scripture in the English tongue - Scotland

1536 - William Tyndale - Burned at the Stake for Translating the Bible into English - His translation became the groundwork for the King James Version

1546 - Peter Chapot burned to death in Meaux, France for bringing French bibles to France

1546 - Stephen Polliot - Burned at the Stake for bringing Scriptures into France - His tongue was cut out so he could not witness to those around him at his execution.

1546 - Ann Askew - Tortured and burnt for studying Scriptures

1548 - Paul Fagius - Burned for translating the Bible - England

1548 - Martin Bucer - Burned for translating the Bible - England

1553 - Nicholas Nayle - Burned at the stake in Paris because he brought gospel books for believers.

1555 - John Rogers - Translator of the Matthews Bible into English

1556 - Bartholmew Hector - Preaching and Bible Distribution -Burned at Thurin

1560 - Julian Hernandez - Burned at the stake in Spain for Bible Distribution

[JCamilo]

Actually, novels are often read aloud, as is poetry. Perhaps it would be hyperbole to think the performance has an "immense effect" on the merit of the poem or novel, but it is certainly not true that drama is the only genre of literature that receives the "support of performance". Most of us probably began our careers as fans of literature when our parents read to us.

Personally, I like out-loud reading best when it is not over-acted. But the spoken or written word inevitably mediates between the author and the reader, and it doesn't seem to me that out-loud reading detracts from the "purity of the experience". Indeed, epics like Homer's were originally performed (most experts think) and were transcribed onto the page by scribes listening to the performance.

You were talking about Drama, Teatre, plays being perfomed. Reading a novel (or a poem) e even oral storytelling performances are not teatre. In the case of Oral storytelling, they predate written literature, so would be a bit of temporal paradox to say they are supports to a text and not the other way around. Anyways, certainly there is Oral support to literature, but then we would also have to consider that illustrations are not the only visual manifestation that has impact on literature. All the statutes, monuments, etc would come to add here.

But the point is that we have centuries with illustrations was the main support of literature, we never had one for performance. Sure, we had times Oral Literature was the only literature, but they werent working with text in the sense we are talking here. Either have importance, but I wouldnt take for sure one or another so easily.

[ennison]

Is that Groucho with or without the cigar. I feel a blasphemous cartoon coming on. I read a hundred year copy of The Old Curiosity Shop some time ago where the illustrations certainly added an extra element of sentiment and grotesquerie. I felt they added to my enjoyment. Sometimes I can read grown up books with no pictures at all.

[JCamilo]

We need not look to the Middle Ages for the intrusions. The image of Jesus in the popular imagination (in the United States at least) is largely drawn from a modern picture the US military used to distribute to GIs. The picture gained currency in Sunday Schools and became a model for 20th century illustrators. If that is an urban legend I will stand corrected (I admit that I don't recall my source). But as you seem to know, the earliest images of Jesus depict him as clean shaven, toga clad, and sometimes carrying a magic wand. There is no beard for many centuries. Then again there is no contemporary physical description of Jesus; and none in the canonical Gospels. Jesus may have looked like Groucho Marx for all we know.

Sure, I was thinking the middle ages (and gave the Bible example as it was the most read book of all time) because the specific proposal of Umberto Eco about the support of visual medium to the literary. I am sure there are more, some funny as how the minotaur looked like or the influence of the old maps on the imagination of people . Eco suggests the idea of ocean full of sea monsters came after artists added them just as an aesthetic detail, for example.


The nativity scene is more of a hybrid fiction. Everyone knows that Jesus' birth was attended by shepherds and three kings. But there are exactly zero accounts of that in the New Testament. The author of the Gospel of Luke knows the story of the shepherds, but there are only shepherds. The author of the Gospel of Matthew mentions an unspecified number of "magoi" brining gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The authors of the other canonical gospels know nothing of these stories or have chosen to suppress them.

Yeah, this is a point were teatrical performances may have helped to shape the imagination. All those elements add a lot to the imaginery when you see the performances by popular groups during the holidays. I mean, the full steps to the golgota seems like a series of cues used by a director... Anyways, I was thinking of St.Francis Nativity Scene, you know, the one with miniatures and such, which, according the popular story, he build to help him to narrate the story to kids.



There are lots of other visual intrusions into the Biblical text. Everyone knows that as Noah was building the ark his wicked neighbors mocked him. But after the flood came, those same poor deluded souls swam alongside the ark and begged to be saved. Noah wanted to help them, of course, but he couldn't because, um, it would have sunk the ark or something. Everyone knows. Except it's not in the text, not a word of it. It's in plenty of pictures from Sunday school booklets, though. I remember them from my youth, and google searches will still turn up quite a few.

Yeah, but luckly for Moses, he still has no horns :D

[Pompey Bum]

Yeah, but luckly for Moses, he still has no horns :D

Yes, never underestimate the power of a translator's screw up. :)

[Jackson Richardson]

But not a myth in the sense that it didn't happen, right?

And what in the world does Anglo-Saxon poetry have to do with anything?

I was not dismissing the wicked persecution of such martyrs nor did I mean that their persecution was a myth.

By “protestant myth” I mean the idea that nobody was allowed to read the Bible before. The Anglo Saxon poems and Julian of Norwich are an examples that that was not so.

What was typically protestant was to treat scripture as primarily literal and all of equal value. Nor was it to be read primarily in the context of the person of Christ, the sacraments, creeds and imagery of Christian experience. Earlier it had not been read just as literal but providing the imagery in which to understand the work of God in Christ. That lead to a lack of interest in Christian art as the word was now considered more significant.

[Pompey Bum]

By “protestant myth” I mean the idea that nobody was allowed to read the Bible before. The Anglo Saxon poems and Julian of Norwich are an examples that that was not so.

The Anglo-Saxon period had virtually nothing to do with the situation at the end of the Middle Ages. The also-centuries-earlier experience of Julian of Norwich, who could read and write, was atypical of the vast majority of European Christians. You might as well argue that Isis tolerates religious diversity because Muslim Spain did--or that Iraqis go the bathroom on gold toilets because Saddam Hussain did.


What was typically protestant was to treat scripture as primarily literal and all of equal value. Nor was it to be read primarily in the context of the person of Christ, the sacraments, creeds and imagery of Christian experience. Earlier it had not been read just as literal but providing the imagery in which to understand the work of God in Christ. That lead to a lack of interest in Christian art as the word was now considered more significant.

That's an awfully sanitized version of what happened. According to Oxford Professor of the History of the Church Diarmaid MacCulloch, highly selected images, principally the crude painted Dooms, were long imposed on commoners looked on as they took the Eucharist. Because they could neither read a Bible (if they had ever even seen one) or even understand the Mass, these images interpreted the (missing) text for them. When Wycliffe and Tyndall produced English language Bibles (that could be read aloud), commoners were free to make images with their minds and actively participate in the Gospel message.

To return to the topic, this is a rather extreme example of illustrations intruding on a text since for most Europeans the images had wholly supplanted the text.

[ennison]

The reformers did not treat all "scriptures" as of "equal value". In general it was a struggle to get Biblical texts translated into native languages, a struggle opposed with much brutality by those who felt threatened by the idea. Thomas More used his home as a place to torture Bible smugglers. Many North American peoples had the Bible in their native languages before the Ghaidheil. But what has this diversion into niche history (interesting though it is) got to do with the value of illustration? Some illustrators are not as good as others because they are not such good draughtsmen or because they don't "get" the text in the first place. Sure an illustration can "short-circuit" our own imaginations but some can widen them.

[Pompey Bum]

But what has this diversion into niche history (interesting though it is) got to do with the value of illustration?

I brought up the persecutions because they illustrate official (and lethal) resistance to accessing text against imposed images. I did not expect the discussion to stray so far off topic.


Sure an illustration can "short-circuit" our own imaginations but some can widen them.

True, and as I have been saying, finding illustrations after first reading a text is worthwhile. But if some find illustrations helpful or enjoyable the first time, then they may well choose to use them. In very rare cases--maybe only Alice--I would recommend them. But at the end of the day, Alice is children's literature.

[YesNo]

I don't think antisemitism was its roots in medieval illustrations. Just consider John 19:1-22 where Pilate sentences Jesus: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+19&version=NLT

Is that what actually happened? I think a version closer to the truth would have read: "And then Pilate ordered that Jesus be crucified during the Jewish religious holidays making it look as if the Jewish leaders wanted this done because he so hated the Jews."

[mortalterror]

I don't think antisemitism was its roots in medieval illustrations. Just consider John 19:1-22 where Pilate sentences Jesus: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+19&version=NLT

Is that what actually happened? I think a version closer to the truth would have read: "And then Pilate ordered that Jesus be crucified during the Jewish religious holidays making it look as if the Jewish leaders wanted this done because he so hated the Jews."
That's probably how it happened. The early Christian church was often persecuted by other Jews as heretics. Remember Acts 7:54-60 the stoning of Stephen and how Paul himself mentions his persecution of the church as schismatics. Then there are several times mentioned in the Bible when Jesus runs into trouble with the Jewish religious authorities. They even put a curse against Christians into the daily prayers toward the end of the first century.

[ennison]

A text that cannot stand an illustration should have a boring grey cover too.

[Pompey Bum]

A text that cannot stand an illustration should have a boring grey cover too.

Project Gutenburg, Ennison. :)

[ennison]

A worthy and noble endeavour full of o'rleaping ambition smelling somewhat of archival dust. I have read from it. Wonder what they'll do with classic comics. A useful source post-apocalypse perhaps for those who have time to stop scrabbling in God's dirt to survive.

[Pompey Bum]

A worthy and noble endeavour full of o'rleaping ambition smelling somewhat of archival dust. I have read from it. Wonder what they'll do with classic comics. A useful source post-apocalypse perhaps for those who have time to stop scrabbling in God's dirt to survive.

I actually prefer Internet Archives where you also get 100 years of graffiti by wise *ss library vandals. I found one with a frontpiece photograph of Sitting Bull looking very grave while seated on small stool in front of his teepee. The caption says: SITTING BULL, to which some long-dead wit has added: SITTING.

This is what they did before the Internet.