The Commonplace Book

Woodcuts and pictures from other people’s books, copied out with a caption apiece, as early modern readers kept commonplace books. First gathered on Twitter: #WoodcutWednesday, #NotALion and the manuscripts.

Woodcuts do it better.

We need to find woodcut equivalents for ALL THE MEMES.

Only a matter of time that this look comes back in style and my life can be complete.

Woodcut Wednesday, 21 February 2020

Ordered a bag of cheap plastic animals for Bruno. Happy to report the #NotALion tradition is alive and well.

Oooooh! Hadn’t realized this lot included a chill #NotALion!

I can’t pass up #ShipOfFools woodcuts when they come up. Drunk fools from a 1610 Dutch edition.

Seventeenth century

Interviewer: Where do you see yourself in five years? Me: Minerva Britanna. London, 1612.

From: Henry Peacham, Minerua Britanna or A garden of heroical deuises furnished, and adorned with…
Printed: 1612
Image from: Early English Books Online (STC 19511)

Anyone for a game of #MysteryWoodcut? Just got one of a bear hunt—or rather a #NotABear hunt. Probably late 16th C.

My contribution to #WoodcutWednesday this week. A new Mandalorian print, #ThisIsTheWay.

Had to do it.

Image from: Early English Books Online (STC 20923)

Woodcut Wednesday, 2 July 2020

As a kicker, I also picked up an impression of one of my #WoodcutWednesday faves, the #MotherfuckingNutsSquirrel! Not the Topsell from above, but from a Gesner that the Topsell copied from.

If anyone it up for a game of #MysteryWoodcut, I have yet to identify this early 17C(?) French #NotABear hunt.

“Don’t let it dominate you. There is nothing to be afraid of. Don’t let it dominate your life.”

Also received these two Hans Weiditz woodcuts from a German edition of Petrarch’s Trostspiegel, 1559. A lovely wheel of fortune and a representation of insanity.

Moving in today, which sucks, but I did receive this wonderful Weiditz woodcut with a whole lotta #NotA. We’ve got a #NotALion, #NotABear, and a #NotAnElephant. Am I missing any?

Oooh! Did find my one and only #NotALion block. I think this is one of my first woodcuts—I had no idea what I was doing obviously.

1) Yes, I bought this. 2) No, it isn’t even a woodcut. 3) No, my wife won’t let me frame and hang it. And 4) Yes, no regrets.

Why am I meticulously creating a #pixelart version of one of Federico de Vinciolo's embroidery patterns of a #NotALion from his Les Singuliers et Nouveaux Portraicts (1588)? Dunno, but it seemed like it needed to be done.

Finished my embroidery pattern–>#pixelart digital transformation of this #NotALion from Federico de Vinciolo's Les Singuliers et Nouveaux Portraicts (1588).

Image from: metmuseum.org

First woodcut added to the collection of what can clearly and only be attributed to the existence of Ancient Aliens.

Just a woodcut shitpost.

Woodcut/ engraving mail call! Yet another Ship of Fools cut with a nice #NotALion. And a scholar dance of death with something bizarre going on with light/ breath.