I was supposed to be coming up with a song to practice for the bardic. Instead, I have ended up on a research tangent that started with
The Courtesan's Arts:Cross Cultural Perspectives edited by Bonnie Gordon and Martha Feldman. It looks at a variety of culture's courtesans through 18 essays, but the editors are musicologists and the central chapters are specifically about early modern Italian courtesans and music. I'm just starting to read it but am totally fascinated. You can read the 15 page introduction
here. While I was waiting for my copy to get here I moved to the Googlebooks preview of Linda Phyllis Austern's
Music of the Sirens, then doglegged off to a series of woodcuts and printer's marks associated with the publisher Francesco Marcolini. Then I came around again to a book I remembered reading sections of and being interested in regarding mermaid imagery in Venice called
The Mermaids of Venice: Fantasy Sea Creatures in Venetian Renaissance Art by Alison Luchs.
I still haven't found a song to sing, but I'm sure I need a green dress with embroidered undines. Did I mention that this is why I don't finish things?
Focus... You must find your focus. :)
ReplyDelete...(voice of temptation here)
ReplyDeleteUndines and hippocampi from 1603 Siebmacher here:
http://string-or-nothing.com/2013/01/24/hippocampi-and-undine/
(looks over shoulder and sneaks away). -Ianthé
I have been following your progress and keep having to restrain myself from doing a shawl like it in filet crochet since I am a rudimentary knitter at best. I've been taking note of mermaid patterns for a few years since my older daughter is both named for a mermaid and a Pisces so we have a bunch of themed things surrounding her. She still humors me and even likes them (usually.) I keep thinking an embroidered stomacher for with undines would be so much fun to do.
ReplyDelete