Gothic Art Now

Southern Gothic Arts on Artfire has a flair for the Gothic style with a modern touch and vision. His Gothic art prints, pen and ink drawings, and acrylic paintings shine with originality. Below is an example of this artist's works. Go to Southern Gothic Arts

20 Moons

 Article: Gothic Art Style Overview

Some Favorite Painters

They say beauty is in the eyes of the beholder and art is too. Some people can only appreciate representational art, while others like artists such as Kandinsky. He is one of my favorite artists. He was intrigued with color, and it shows in his work. His art is playful and that gets to me artistically.

Many people like Picasso. But cubism doesn't do anything for me, not Picasso's nor Braque's cubism. I do like Picasso's Blue Period and his Rose Period. Maybe it is the color thing. I have a friend that really likes cubism. Again, art is in the eyes of the beholder or at least what one likes goes from the eyes to the brain and lodges in the heart.

Another artist whose work intrigues me is Matisse. The way he flattened his work and the colors. Modigliani, I like the his penchant for giving his portrait subjects long necks, and the way he styled their faces...the expressions.

That's a short comment on a few of my favorite painter's. Their work looks great to my eyes.

Werewolf Movies: 1990's

Werewolf  Engraving 1700's

The 1990's produced a mixed crop of werewolf movies. In 1991, The Howling VI was released; it features a ferocious fight between a werewolf and a vampire. But the fight is short. It opens with a classic horror movie image: a church.

 Ian played by Brendan Hughes arrives and he becomes a sleuth of the town trying to solve the mystery of the missing people, which happens wherever a certain carnival shows up. This carnival is run by Harker played by Bruce Martyn Payne.

Ian works at repairing the run down church building. Harker captures him for his carnival of freaks. But Ian has a surprise for Harker, as he has a family history that calls for revenge.  He slays Harker and moves on.

Mad at the Moon is a 1992 release with a western setting in which a maiden of marrying age has almost reached the its too late stage, so marry who you can get. Jennie loves a guy that doesn't care for her. Her mother pushes her into hitching up with James Miller. He is a country boy with a penchant for transforming into a werewolf.


Wolf  was a 1994 release in which Will Randall acquires a more combative nature after an encounter with a werewolf. All of his senses are enhanced. His home life and work life are suffering when he is bitten, but his extremely civilized nature is changed. His unnatural abilities help him to regain his former job, which he had lost to an upstart that was more aggressive.


Bad Moon of 1996 tells the story of Ted who is trying to shed his werewolf traits. He settles his trailer on his sister's land in the hope of family affection ridding him of his werewolf problem.


It is adapted from Wayne Smith's novel Thor in which the dog's point of view is used to tell the tale. Michael is a photojournalist and while in Nepal his romantic interest is slain by a werewolf and he gets bitten. When he goes home to the Northwest, he ends up living with his sister and her dog settles the werewolf issue.

In 1997,  An American Werewolf in Paris  appeared; it was an effort to do as well as An American Werewolf in London. But it lacked the humor of the former movie. The characters become werewolves by using a serum.

Other werewolf movies are around especially in the b grade films.

Other Werewolf Articles
Werewolf in Legend and Movies

The Wolfman

Werewolf in Legend and Movies

Legends of people shape shifting abounded in ancient times and variations developed in different cultures. In a Greek myth told by Ovid in his Metamorphoses, Lycaeon, the king, is morphed into a werewolf  because he served human flesh to Zeus; he didn't think he was a god. His test backfired; Zeus gave him the perfect body for participating in what was considered a horrible act, a definite taboo in that culture. Another Greek writer, Herodotus, told of the Neuri people transforming into wolves each year for awhile, and afterwards they regained human form. Norse folklore explains that very fierce warriors donned bearskins or wolf skins to go into battle from which the word berserker is derived. 

Some ways to become a werewolf include stripping down and buckling on a belt of wolf skin or the whole skin, slurp water out of a stream that several wolves have drank from, sip water out of a wolf's paw, be cursed, and birthed during a new moon. The bite cause became dominant in later fiction and films, but in folklore changing by the bite usually denoted vampirism.

One of the first werewolf films was The Werewolf (1913). The main character was an Indian werewolf; this adaptation is hinged on the Henry Beaugrand's story of 1898 entitled "The Werewolves." The original anthropomorphic wolf man appeared in  Werewolf of London (1935)  in which Henry Hull is the main character. Due to his refusal to waste many hours being transformed by Jack Pierce the makeup artist, this film  pounced on the concept in a  Balkan legend of a plant based lycanthropy, wherein Dr. Glendon, a man of science brings on his experience as a wolf man. It was produced by Universal Studios.

But in 1941, Lon Chaney Jr. became the categorical movie monster man playing Larry Talbot in The Wolf Man. This set Chaney's acting career as a wolf man in several other movies: Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1932), House of Frankenstein (1944),  and House of Dracula (1945). He was the wolf man in all of those films. Chaney also portrayed Frankenstein in The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942); He was Dracula in Son of Dracula (1943), and he played the mummy in three mummy movies.

 Wolf man films have never totally disappeared from the horror movie genre. The teenage werewolf made the scene in 1957 with I was a Teenage Werewolf, Teen Wolf (1985), and Teen Wolf Two (1987). Ginger Snaps (2000) is the female teen wolf answer to the male versions.

The Howling appeared in 1981, film adaptation of Gary Brandner's novel.  A news reporter is followed by a serial killer and is almost fatally wounded. She is sent to a resort in the country because of amnesia. There are some strange characters there, and Karen learns about the werewolves as the story unfolds.

In 1981, An American Werewolf in London premiered. When two U.S.A. guys go backpacking on the English moors and encounter a werewolf, one of them dies and the other lives and his dead friend clues him in that it was a werewolf that assaulted them. With this information and help from his dreams he comes to understand the situation. He had been told it was a madman that jumped them. The doctor believes he is suffering from shock, but decides to make an investigation to confirm or deny David's story.

Davis ends up living with a nurse that had treated him at the hospital, and he is shot by the police at the end because he has been attacking people. He dies, but before he does Alex, the pretty nurse informs him of her love.

Werewolf movies keep breaking onto the scene: movies from the 1900's and 2000's coming next.

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Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: Novella and Movies

Stevenson

 In 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson published Strange Case of  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It is usually known as The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It tells the tale of  Dr. Jekyll as seen by Mr. Gabriel John Utterson an attorney friend of Dr. Henry Jekyll that scrutinizes the odd manifestations betwixt the malevolent Mr. Hyde and Utterson's friend.

 Summary

The theme of this novella is the fight between good and evil, although some have redacted the theme to concern a split personality. This modernest approach belies the moral theme, though it is clear that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are morally polar opposites. Stevenson had been pondering how to write a good story about the theme of good and evil for years. As a youth he penned Deacon Brodie; it is a play script about a deacon that has a secret life of thievery.

Utterson becomes concerned, after a relative tells him a story about Mr. Hyde and then Dr. Jekyll  abruptly redoes his will, so Mr. Hyde is the beneficiary of his estate. Gabriel Utterson is very leery of this change. He decides to investigate and see what is really going on. He noses around and locates Mr. Hyde. Utterson gets the creeps around Mr. Hyde, but quizzes him over the change in Dr. Jekyll's will, though Hyde is steadfast in his evasion of the truth.

A year passes and Mr. Hyde callously punches a man to death. The maid sees this incident and fingers Mr. Hyde. A man hunt ensues for the murderer, but they can't find him. Time passes, Dr. Landon become very sick from shock of knowing about Mr. Hyde.

Dr. Landon gives up the ghost leaving behind inscrutable documents with instructions to Utterson to open them upon Dr. Jekyll's death or if he vanishes. Utterson keeps visiting Dr, Jekyll, but he won't see him and Jekyll becomes a recluse.

Upon an evening, the butler of Jekyll decides to go see Utterson. He is vexed about Dr. Jekyll and thinks something is terribly wrong with the doctor, or dirty work has been done against his employer. He talks Utterson into going to Jekyll's home once more to invade the doctor's laboratory, and they discover Mr. Hyde laying deceased on the floor. They don't find the doctor.

Utterson takes the documents that reveal the truth of the mystery. Dr. Jekyll took an elixir to transmute into Mr. Hyde who became the embodiment of evil, and this transformation allowed the good doctor to indulge in various evil deeds, whereas he formerly spent a lot of time doctoring the poor for free.

Poster 1880's

Jekyll and Hyde Movies

This novella was among the first books that were fashioned into a movie. In 1912,  Blackhawk films adapted it for the screen. In 1920, Paramount released Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and three more film adaptions came out that year. The Paramount version starred John Barrymore, the renowned stage actor. This film inserted a music hall damsel into the story and made Dr. Jekyll much younger.

There are at least twenty movies based on the novella and many movie derivations like Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1953), Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971) in which the doctor mutates into a woman, and slasher fans can see Daughter of Dr. Jekyll (1957). The Nutty Professor is another version in which a cockamanny professor transforms into a cool dude. The estimate goes as high as 50 interpretations of Stevenson's  novella.

The physical aspects of the two main characters have been reversed in a couple of movie adaptions: The Two faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960) and Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype (1980). In the two faces version, the doctor is hairy, badly dressed, ill-mannered and rude, while Hyde is dressed well, well mannered, and urbane and in the hype version the doctor is unattractive and Hype is handsome.

Original Title Page

The versions and adaptions are growing as time passes because the tale's original theme lends itself to reconstructions, parodies, and adaptions, as the novella is rich in its use of a universal theme.

10 Interesting Trivia Points About the Story, Watch Video

The picture of Stevenson is public domain covered under {PD-US} – published before 1923 and public domain in the US. All picture or prints used are in the public domain.

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Tales (Oxford World's Classics)

Jekyll & Hyde - The Musical

Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Blackstone Audio Classic Collection)

Samhain: All Saints Day: Halloween: Black Plague: Ars Moriend

Halloween comes creeping up this month. But what is the origin of this holiday? Its roots go back to the Celts; this group of people has an antecedent in the Hallstatt culture of central Europe according to a widely held archaeological construct.

Historically, Celtic tribes spread from Europe into Western Europe and on to the British Isles. They preserved their cultural heritage with oral tradition, though Greek and Roman writers eluded to them. Later, in the 4th century A.D. they developed a way of writing called ogham.

Their culture also produced their own holidays and used their particular calendar. Our November 1st had its own designation on the Celtic calendar; it began their new year and winter. During this season, they celebrated the Samhain festival.

The Celtic people thought that the dead souls became animate and rambled around amongst the quick or living people at this time, as they journeyed to the afterlife. Ghosts, elves, and goblins were thought to return for harm. The Celtic priest fired up large fires made with oak branches, thought to be sacred. The priests protected the people with these fires and burnt animals and crop sacrifices. The folk extinguished the fires in their abodes. There were variations on theses practices in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.

Some Roman traditions were incorporated into Samhain postnate to conquering the British Isles in 43 A.D. such as the October festival of Feralia which honored the deceased and the festival of harvest or Pomona celebrating the goddess of fruit. Possibly, apple bobbing became part of Halloween because of Pomona. The Romans also liked apple cider and the Celts incorporated it into their celebrations.

When Christian missionaries came to the British Isles to convert the Celtic people, they strived to eliminate the pagan religion and its holidays. But All Saints Day originated to honor the Christian martyrs killed by the Romans during the latter days of their empire. Local congregations acknowledged the martyrs of their area. It had become a standard feast in Antioch by the conclusion of the 4th century. This feast is referenced by St. Ephrem in a sermon of 373 A.D. Originally, this feast day was observed  during the Easter season. In the 8th century A.D. Pope Gregory the Third changed the feast date to the 1st of November.

This pagan holiday and the Christian feast were blended together by the church trying to rid the converts of pagan ideas and influences and yet get them converted. Since part of the pagan festival was on November 1st these celebrations were melded as Gregory the First told his missionaries "engage " the traditions of the people in order to facilitate their conversion.

This reality of death that we face was ritualized in the Celtic ideas and the death of the saints has been observed by the Catholic Church and other orthodox traditions. People dealt with death through religion and art more than we do today.

The Black Plague has surfaced through the centuries, even before the Middle Ages. This finger of death wiped out 25 million folks from 1346 to 1352. It snapped its ugly fingers and wiped out millions more from the 15th to 18th centuries. It started in China during the 1330's and through trade ships traveled to Italy in 1347.

Boccaccio an Italian poet aptly defines the symptoms of the Black Plague in Decameron speaking of the swelling of the lymph nodes and other symptoms. He described the macabre nature produced by this disease too.

“How many valiant men, how many fair ladies, breakfast with their kinfolk and the same night supped with their ancestors in the next world! The condition of the people was pitiable to behold. They sickened by the thousands daily, and died unattended and without help. Many died in the open street, others dying in their houses, made it known by the stench of their rotting bodies. Consecrated churchyards did not suffice for the burial of the vast multitude of bodies, which were heaped by the hundreds in vast trenches, like goods in a ships hold and covered with a little earth.”

This atmosphere of continual death had men going through the streets with carts crying "Bring out your dead." It influenced the written and visual arts and music. One result in the visual arts of the Black Death was the Ars Moriendi, which means The Art of Dying. These books were produced in the historical background of the plague and its effects on society. It was adapted to several languages in Europe. It started the genre of how to die treatises. There is one existing copy of the long version with illustrations and 299 without the prints.

The short form of Ars Moriendi had 11 woodcuts that explained pictorially and could be used to explain The Art of Dying. The focal point concerns the Last Rites of the Catholic Church for a Medieval Christian. The woodcut below is depicting Pride, which is said to be a temptation among five that assaults a dying person. The man in the picture is assaulted by demons trying to get him  to accept crowns. This is an allegorical allusion to pride popular in Medieval Art. Jesus, Mary, and God the Father are  in the scene watching. ( circa 1460, Netherlands)

The Dance of Death is a woodcut by by Hans Holbein done prior to 1538 is shown below.

An illustration called Black Death  from the Toggenburg Bible of 1411 shown below.

This icon depicts monks deformed by the plague getting a priest's blessing. (Historiated initial "C")

We don't deal with death through art in a serious way anymore, at least usually not, but Halloween reminds us of the Grim Reaper's presence,which is an idea from Medieval Art that has a popular influence this month.

Chinese Papercut: Contemporary Artist: Space 301

The Chinese art of paper cutting reaches back into China's 6th century creativity. This art form was originated by Cau Lun  is also known as Jian Zhi. It gained more popularity during the 7th century.

Paper cutting began to be considered a higher art form during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.). The designs were utilized as sacrifices to gods or dead relatives. Later on, it became a decorative art in doorways, windows, and as lamps. When the art of making paper improved, various types of paper and more colors were available, and paper cutting artists took advantage of this good fortune. Eventually westerners became interested in this artistic endeavor.

Seven  intercontinental artists are bringing this technique to Space 301 in Mobile, Al from 10/14/11 until 12/17/11. These artist use this artistic genre to write visual narratives and create intricate abstracted designs. They use the spectrum of colors, and contrast elements with light and shadow. Just to wet your creative appetite--the artists are Lauren Scanlon, Jaq Belcher, Lenka Konopasek, Béatrice Coron, Reni Gower, Michelle Forsyth, and Daniella Woolf.




Making Chinese Paper Cuts

Amelia Earhart Photographs and Goggles Sold

Amelia Earhart has been an inspiration to generations of girls that is hard to match. She was inspired to become an aviator, when she experienced her first jaunt in the air during an air show with her aviator father. She was twenty years old. Earhart was inspired to take flying lessons from, Neta Snook, a graduate of  the Curtiss School of Aviation.

Earhart's first across the Atlantic scenario, started with Amy Phillips Guest; she owned a Fokker F.VII dubbed Friendship. Amy's family balked at the suggestion that she fly across the Atlantic. She requested that Richard Byrd a flier and George Putnam find the suitable female to go on the trip.

George Putnam an explorer, promoter, writer, and publisher then asked Capt. H.H. Railey to locate a woman to fly over the Atlantic. When Putnam meet Amelia Earhart he concluded she was the right woman for the flight. Earhart's flying experience didn't include instrument usage or flying with a multi-engine, thus, she didn't pilot this flight.

In 1928, Amelia Earhart, Wilmer Stultz, and Louis Gordon flew the Atlantic in a Fokker tri-motor aircraft. When they returned, President Coolidge sent a congratulations cable. the reporters flocked around Earhart, and ignored her flight companions. It upset her that they didn't get any attention from the reporters. This experience gave her international attention, which promoted her career as a professional aviator, lecturer, and author.

She made a solo trip during September of 1928 flying coast to coast from New York to Los Angeles. She assisted in organizing the All-Women's Air Derby in 1929;  she flew the race coming in third. This was the original cross-country race for women pilots. During 1929, Earhart became the original president of the Ninety-Nines, this organization composed incipiently of ninety-nine female pilots, purposed to support and advance piloting for women and was a social and business outlet. The Ninety-Nines was created shortly after the first  All-Women's Air Derby. There were 285 licensed female aviators at that time.

In 1932, she soloed a plane across the Atlantic, which was a first for women. In 1935, she was the first aviator to fly alone from Hawaii to the United States mainland. She piloted a Lockheed 5C Vega for this 2,408-mile trip; other aviators had died attempting this flight.

In 1935, Earhart forged speed records for piloting from Los Angeles to Mexico City and
Mexico City to New York City. In 1937, she and navigator Fred Noonan started a flight around the world in the Electra. Heading east was a turn around of their flight plan because of  bad weather around the Caribbean and Africa. They headed east from Oakland, California by dint of Miami, Florida. They made it to Lae, New Guinea by the 29th of June.

They had aviated 22,000 miles and would reach Oakland again after flying another 7,000 miles. On the 2nd of July, they left Lae, New Guinea heading for their next refueling spot, which was Howland Island. It is a tiny speck floating in the Pacific Ocean measuring 2 miles long and not a mile in width.
The radio communication between the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca and Earhart and Noonan wasn't good, though the ship was anchored by Howland Island to be their radio contact. Radio transmission around there was poor. This epic flight had induced a lot of commercial radio traffic.

The conclusion reached with the known facts is that the plane crashed at around 35 to 100 miles from Howland Island. President Roosevelt commissioned a search that failed to find Earhart and Noonan.

Recently, 24 pictures of Earhart and a pair of goggles were sold at auction in Oakland, California for more than $31, 000.

The video from YouTube was made by hillkaback.






Amelia Earhart: More Than a Flier (Ready to Read, Level 3)


Amelia Earhart (DK Biography)

DeviantArt Deviations by Deltachord

 Deltachord is now at deviantArt. Come see the gallery as it grows. Enjoy!

Digital Paintings by Deltachord

Ghostly Swamp

Misty River Landscape

Lonely Blue Mountain

Flowing Edge World

Mobile: Upper Dauphin Street: Art, Music, Food

This fun event began last year (2011) in March and was such a hit it keeps happening. The art galleries and business owners make this a great time and clue you in with banners proclaiming that artwork, food, and beverages are available here.

This fun time on the fourth Saturday each month starts at 11:00 a.m. and ends at 5:00 p.m. The next Upper Dauphin Street is scheduled for 10/22/11.

Marine Art Exhibition: Mobile Museum of Art

 Mobile is a  perfect spot to have maritime art show. It is situated on Mobile Bay on the Gulf Coast. The Mobile Museum of Art will host a juried show from 12/9/11 until 1/8/12 that features regional artists. The artwork will visually render the tale of Mobile's maritime history. 

Maritime plants, boats, ships, seascapes and so forth will be featured in paintings, photography, sketches, and sculpture. The museum will accept entries starting 11/28/11 and ending on 12/2/11.