HERetic: Joan of Arc
Fort Lauderdale: Dorothy Simpson Krause, 2009. Hardcover. Number 6 of six copies of the deluxe edition of this powerful book by noted book artist Dorothy Simpson Krause, signed and numbered by her on the colophon. There were also 55 copies of the standard edition. Dorothy Krause is a painter, collage artist and printmaker who incorporates digital mixed media into her art. Her work is exhibited regularly in galleries and museums and featured in numerous current periodicals and books. In her artist's statement she says: "My work includes large scale mixed media pieces, artist books and book-like objects that bridge between these two forms. It embeds archetypal symbols and fragments of image and text in multiple layers of texture and meaning. It combines the humblest of materials, plaster, tar, wax and pigment, with the latest in technology to evoke the past and herald the future. My art-making is an integrated mode of inquiry that links concept and media in an ongoing dialogue – a visible means of exploring meaning." This exquisite book includes excerpts from the 1977 English translation of "Le Ditie de Jehanne d'Arc" written by the French poetess Christine de Piza in 1429. "As the first poem to have been composed – in any language – on Jeanne d’Arc, the only major one to have been written while Jeanne was still alive, and the last from the pen of a distinguished poetess, the "Ditié de Jehanne d’Arc" has unique claims to fame. It was completed on 31 July 1429, in the midst of continuing successes on the part of the French army which had just taken Château-Thierry, on 29 July. With the brilliant victory at Orléans and the coronation at Rheims now behind them, Jeanne and Charles VII were expected to enter Paris at any moment, defeat the Anglo-Burgundian forces and thus bring to an end the long years of foreign occupation and civil strife." [from the website Jeanne d'Arc La Puselle]. The text, printed on the verso pages, is taken from the poem. On each facing page,there is a striking image of Joan as portrayed in sculpture, with brief comments on her life, printed in red type on a black backgound. The pages covering her trial for heresy incorporate Joan's own words, taken from the trial document. Bound in full calf vellum with a longstitch over tapes for the spine. Held closed with red leather ties. The book's pages were printed on the Epson 3800 on InkPress Duo Matte 80 using German Latin, Uncial, and gold 10th Century Bookhand fonts. In fine condition. Measures 5 x 7 inches. Unpaginated [56 pages] ARTB/011524. Fine. More