The Language of Birds @aboxthecolourofheartache - Tumblr Blog

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the curator*: Box, she/her

Current forecast: Wizards, Wuxia, Whimsy

Elsewhere: anywhere I wish to be found, I am 'aboxthecolourofheartache' or 'colourofheartache'

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* This blog reflects the interests of a grown-up human person. Please moderate your experience wisely and in your own best self-interest.

Be Most Excellent To Each Other

#why not a wizard?#why not a mountain of WIPs?

heaveninawildflower

Persian Lilac (1652-1665) by Johann Walter (1604-1677).

Gouache on vellum.

Bibliothèque nationale de France.

#the secret commonwealth of queue

uwmspeccoll

A Conjugal Feathursday

Conjugal Relations and Their Consequences

This week we present more sentimental wood engravings of sparrows from from Animate Creation by the English natural history popularizer J. G. Wood (1827-1889), published in New York in three volumes by Selmar Hess in 1885. The 3-volume set (volume 2 is dedicated to birds) includes scores of wood engravings and many chromolithographs. The message of the engraving of birds and bees is not lost on us, but we wonder about the intended Victorian audience.

These wood engravings were made by the French engraver Édouard Berveiller (fl. 1874–1894) from drawings by the French naturalist artist and wood engraver Hector Giacomelli (1822-1904). We believe that the sentimental image showed a few weeks ago is supposed to be a part of this family narrative.

Our copy of Animate Creaton is a revised edition, adapted to American zoology by the American physician and zoologist Joseph B. Holder, of an earlier British publication by Wood first published in London by George Routledge as The Illustrated Natural History in 1853.

View more posts from this publication.

View more Feathursday posts.

#the secret commonwealth of queue

yayee-prsp

Don't forgive me

#Box reads Witch Hat Atelier

toyastales

René Lalique Serpent Pectoral Pendant designed around 1899.

if-loki-was-a-fox

Getting fixated in a piece of media will make you very curious about things you have never once in your life cared about beforehand just bc it's relevant to said media

chaotic-neutral-knitter

do you ever feel yourself fail a charisma check in real time

yarn-chicken

Steve for @a-literate-chicken on Art Fight! I've had my eye on this pattern forever, but I already have 3 chicken-shaped purses that I don't use, so I couldn't justify making myself a 4th.

a-literate-chicken

Bro I’m gonna flipping cry I love this so much

berkeleygirl3

canwriteitbetterthanueverfeltit

hey, tag this with a food people get really upset about you not liking

#I do not eat pork and my god do people throw fits #and tuna. I don't like tuna. and people flip shit.

uwmspeccoll

A Hoopoesque Feathursday

HOOPOES!!

Here is a wood engraving of the exquisitely-crested Eurasian Hoopoe (Upupa epops) from a drawing by the German nature artist Robert Kretschmer (1812-1872), as published in Animate Creation by the English natural history popularizer J. G. Wood (1827-1889), published in New York in three volumes by Selmar Hess in 1885.

We can never get enough of these excellent birds, found throughout Eurasia and the northern half of Africa. They're really good at eradicating pests; can't we import some to America? It's hard to tell what these birds might be related to, but they are a genus in the order Bucerotiformes, and so, perhaps surprisingly, are most closely related to hornbills. Of its magnificent fan-like crest, J. G. Wood relates this legend:

Solomon was once journeying across the desert and was fainting with heat, when a large flock of Hoopoes came to his assistance, and by flying between the sun and the monarch formed an impenetrable cloud with their wings and bodies. Grateful for their ready help, Solomon asked the birds what reward they would choose in return for their services. . . . the Hoopes answered that they would like each bird to be decorated with a golden crown; and, in spite of Solomon's advice, they persisted in their request, and received their crowns accordingly.

At first the birds rejoiced in their diadems of gold, but not long after they began to find themselves hunted for these valuable commodities. And so they sought out Solomon. . . .

full of repentance at their rejection of his advice, and begging him to rescind the gift which they so unwisely demanded. Solomon granted their request, and removed the golden crown from their heads; but, being unwilling that the birds should be left without a mark by which they might be distinguished from their fellows, he substituted a crown of feathers for that gold, and dismissed them rejoicing.

Our copy of Animate Creation is a revised edition, adapted to American zoology by the American physician and zoologist Joseph B. Holder, of an earlier British publication by Wood first published in London by George Routledge as The Illustrated Natural History in 1853.

View more posts from this publication.

View more posts with Hoopoes!

View more Feathursday posts.

#the secret commonwealth of queue

shrugsinchinese

Grace watch Rocky sleep (amongst other things)

#the secret commonwealth of queue

thekimonogallery

by Japanese painter Hayami Gyoshū,(1894 – 1935), about 1920s

#the secret commonwealth of queue

redmedic

Patreon Request - Empire Siblings

I'm definitely gonna mess with this piece at a later date and add some colour, but I wanted to show off the lines because I have had so much fun drawing these two. Beau is taking the dirt wizard for a walk whilst he's using Frumpkin-Vision.

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#the secret commonwealth of queue #Box attempts CritRole