[hollyberryillustration]

Re-uploaded from my other blog with original commentary:

Before I finished my degree I took a course on Shakespeare with an amazing professor named Dr. Sirluck. Besides our final paper she encouraged all of her students to engage with the texts in a “creative way.” A lot of people acted out scenes from a play but I decided to draw something and King Lear was, without question, my favourite. Without spoiling too much, King Lear, among many things, is a story about love. It is only when the tragic hero, after losing everything, having gone mad, and wandering a heath crowned with weeds, learns to “see feelingly,” (or gains empathy) and is redeemed. Consequently I wanted to draw Lear’s moment of realization.

Each bit of flora in his crown was described in passages from the play. In addition his eyes are symbolically darkened and he clutches at his chest above his heart.

He was met… As mad as the vexed sea, singing aloud, Crowned with rank fumiter and furrow-weeds, With burdocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers, Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow In our sustaining corn…

[hollyberryillustration]

I wanted to create a space to share my hobbyist illustrative efforts so I’ve re-uploaded this photo with edited commentary from my other blog.

“Recently watched and read Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. The young virtuoso Robert Frobischer, who was portrayed in the movie adaptation by Ben Whishaw, was my favourite character. There are notable differences in plot from novel to movie. The movie was understandably constructed to appeal to a wider audience than the book, which I was pleasantly surprised to find was a beautifully rendered criticism of the the philosopher Nietzsche’s infamous “will to power," (it is mentioned at least once in each of the six different stories). Mitchell challenges Nietzsche’s assertion that as people we are driven by will alone,  isolated entities cut off from the living and non-living world. Rather, "Our lives are not or own.  From womb to tomb we are bound to others, past to present. And by each crime and every kindness we birth our future.”

Ben Whishaw is one of my favourite actors :)