Sekka's Mythical Beings

         Kamisaka Sekka (Japan, 1866-1942) was an artist who spanned the movement of Japanese art toward modernism.  The Japanese government sent him to Glasgow to study western arts, where he was much influenced by the Art Nouveau movement.  His work is more simplified and stylized than the styles of Japanese art that came before.  His masterpiece was the three volumes of Momoyogusa, which is sometimes translated A World of Things, and sometimes Flowers of a Hundred Worlds.  The latter is more poetic, but I’m guessing the former is more accurate a translation, and is certainly a more accurate description.  The 60 pieces depict some flowers, but also other plants and animals, views of nature and of daily life, objects, people, scenes from literature, and even a few mythical characters.  These last are what I have for you today.

        We have to start with the dragon, of course!  This is very dramatic, showing only the head and one taloned foot looming out of inky grey cloud.  The eyes and claws are gilded for extra punch, but it’s hardly necessary.

        Next up is another stormy character: Raijin, god of thunder.  He’s following his standard iconography by beating on his drums, while his hair flies wildly.  Again, you can see that this is relatively simple with large areas of flat color compared with traditional Japanese woodblock prints - but it’s still quite complicated compared with anything that uses a single block and a single color of ink.  (I mentioned Raijin’s companion thunder beast the raiju here.)

        And finally we have the hakuhō, translated as “white phoenix,” although I can’t find any information about what, if anything, this bird’s mythical powers might be.  Lots of fantastic birds seem to be translated as “phoenixes” without necessarily having anything in common with the phoenix proper, so I’d love to find out more about this one.  At the very least it’s certainly very beautiful.  I like the faint pattern of the wood grain in the background, and the delicate fluff of the bird’s tail feathers.

        If you want to see one of Sekka’s non-fantasy pieces, I featured his “Seven Herbs of Early Spring” in a previous post (or follow the link to the Cleveland Museum of Art in the credits to see lots of pieces.)

[Pictures: Ryū (Dragon), color woodcut by Kamisaka Sekka, 1909-10;

Raijin (God of Thunder), color woodcut by Kamisaka Sekka, 1909-10;

Hakuho (White Phoenix), color woodcut by Kamisaka Sekka, 1909-10 (All images from Cleveland Museum of Art).]

C.W. Taylor’s Textures

         I did a previous post on wood engravings by Charles William Taylor (U.K., 1878-1960) nine years ago, but today I saw a few more, and this time what really struck me about them was how everything in the image is built out of patterns of texture.  As I’m currently working on a landscape piece myself, I’m really studying how Taylor uses detailed patterns of strokes to make his layers of multiple trees, his water, his ground…

        First, however, is a small view of Colchester, and the light in this piece blows me away!  There's a contrast between dark shadows and light so brilliant that it washes out St. Nicholas’s spire in a sparkling shower.  And it’s all done with the texture of lines and crosshatching.  Look at the variety of patterns across the sky to see how Taylor has made a gradient of light, plus another pattern on the church, and contrasted with the yet different pattern on the building beside it.  (By the way, this lovely church was apparently demolished in 1955.)

        Somewhat more typical of Taylor’s work are the two pastoral landscapes, but this view of deer in Epping Forest also has amazing light.  Look how the deep shadow of the huge tree is an absence of grass and leaf litter, and how the light glints across the water and illuminates the outlines of the deer.  Look at all the different patterns of strokes - vertical, horizontal, diagonal, short, long, curved, straight - and how they define plants and differentiate the areas.  Instead of outlines around areas, these textures create the entire scene.

        The final piece looks like dusk is falling, and again Taylor’s mastery of light and shadow gives us everything we need to interpret the scene.  In my previous post I praised the sense of spaciousness Taylor brought to his landscapes, but with these examples the light brings a sense of intimacy, and a feeling that we have been offered a portal into a singular, enchanted time and place where the light happened to fall in just this extraordinary way, which Taylor has managed to capture in black ink on white paper.

[Pictures: Colchester, wood engraving by Charles William Taylor, (Image from Art UK);

March in Essex or Epping Forest (title given differently in two places), wood engraving by Taylor, 1920s-30s (Image from National Gallery of Art);

Wickford, wood engraving by Taylor, (Image from Art UK).]

Ghosts and Other News

         I’m excited to announce that my flash story “Hoarding Ghosts” was published today in MetaStellar.  Please head straight on over there and read it, and of course when you finish my story, check out all the other amazing pieces they’ve published.  (One funny note: if you notice a couple of words in square brackets, they’re an accidental relic of my own editing process that I apparently failed to clean up before submission, and they failed to clean up before publishing.  So you get just a little glimpse under the hood with that!)

        In other news, I’m off to Readercon Conference on Imaginative Literature tomorrow, and here’s my schedule.  You can see that with a solo reading, a solo kaffeeklatsch, and a solo lecture, I’ve been given more opportunities than usual to sit by myself in an empty room feeling foolish!  Ha!  But of course I’m actually very excited about all of this, so here’s the usual guide to related posts…

Alice in Wonderland

        Words of the Month - O Frabjous Words - featuring words invented by Lewis Carroll

        Reading Alice Aloud - and why my children didn’t appreciate Alice as much as I do.

        Words of the Month - Presupposition Triggers - including a famous example from Alice in Wonderland

        Alice, Irene, and Dorothy - comparing a few girls from classic early childrens’ fantasy

The Fantastic Bestiary

        A to Z 2019 - an entire alphabet of creatures, excerpts, snippets, and behind-the-scenes tidbits from On the Virtues of Beasts of the Realms of Imagination

        To learn about All the Creatures, try the label “mythical creatures” in the sidebar (230 posts and counting)

        Guess that Medieval Beast - the game that challenges you to think like a medieval illuminator (plus my Birds of a Feather game, just because it comes up with the same tag; but you can scroll past that one if you want!)

        See all the main creatures in my own bestiary here.

Speculative Pets

        Animal Companions - in which I lay out all you need to know about pets in spec fic

        Words of the Month - Petting Our Pets - etymology of pet-related words in English

        Seller of Cupids - in case you wish to acquire an unconventional pet

        Pokémon Go - the ultimate in catching all the fantasy pets

        In other news of publication, I’ve just had a poem accepted, but it won’t come out until fall 2027.  I’ve got stories coming in two anthologies that also won’t be out until 2027.  Of course I’m very pleased about having my work selected, but people, I have to tell you, I do not have the patience for this!  At least I don’t have to wait so long for gratification with my art: my piece “Robin’s Nest” is up now at a new Art Walk in Dedham, MA.

[Pictures: MetaStellar cover art by Oscar Ramirez (Image from MetaStellar);

photos by AEGNydam, 2026.]

Summer Heat

         Here are a few block prints that capture today’s summer heat.  These are linoleum block prints painted with watercolor, by Leslie Evans, and the acrostics within them are by Steven Schnur.  All the yellows and warm greens really give a sense of sunny days and sultry evenings, and from the comfort of my relatively cool desk, I can appreciate the lush garden outside.  This year  I’m not growing zucchini and I don’t even like eggplant, but I do like this print of veggies growing in the sun-warmed soil.  (My own garden is not nearly so inspiring - this morning I discovered that almost all of my tomatoes and blueberries have disappeared before they had even begun to ripen.  That’s just not fair!)

        On the other hand, my shasta daisies do look just like this second piece, complete with the occasional dragonfly, and they are indeed delightfully cheerful, just like little sunshines.

        This evening I’ll be sitting outdoors and it will be very hot indeed, but the glow and flash will be provided not by fireflies or (hopefully) lightning, but by the annual fireworks display.

        I’ve featured a few more lino prints by Leslie Evans before, in posts Young Youth Year and Melting Snow.

        If you have a garden or some pots, how are they growing?  And what summer traditions do you treasure?

[Pictures: Zenith, hand-colored linoleum block print by Leslie Evans from SPRING: An Alphabet Acrostic by Steven Schnur, 1999;

Daisy and Night, hand-colored linoleum block prints by Evans from SUMMER: An Alphabet Acrostic by Schnur, 2001.]

Words of the Month - Semiquincentennial

         Two hundred and fifty years ago there was a movement to start a new nation that would not be ruled by a tyrant.  Rather than a king who had absolute power to make whatever rules he wished, to crush dissent, to reward his buddies while accusing his critics of treason, to enrich himself at the expense of the people, to start wars on a whim, there would be a president voted for by the people.  His power would be balanced by two other branches of government, and held in check by the constitution.  Citizens would owe allegiance to the principles of the constitution instead of loyalty to that one powerful person, and certain rights were guaranteed, including the right to criticize the government and to protest injustice, and the right to due process of law.  This was to be a country that guaranteed everyone the unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  (Sure, it was far from perfect, particularly since the rich white men who came up with all this were thinking only of people just like themselves.  People of color, women, workers, and others have been striving ever since to be given their share of these rights.  Still, over 250 years a lot of progress had been made.)

        The people who wrote our founding documents picked their words with care, so for our Words of the Month, let’s take a look at some of those words.

        life - This word goes right back to Old English, and is deceptively simple.  Like many of the oldest, most basic words it actually has a very broad range of uses and connotations both literal and figurative.  Nevertheless the writers of the Declaration of Independence chose this because they wanted their statement to be clear, direct, and easy to understand and agree with.

        liberty - This one - along with all the rest of today’s words! - came into English in the 14th century via French.  Its original Latin sense was of legal freedom from slavery (making it all the more infuriating that the original lines condemning slavery were removed from the draft of the Declaration), but over time it also added the sense of individual ability to act according to choice.  Applying the word to whole communities “being free from autocratic rule” came by the late 15th century.  Presumably all of these connotations were in the minds of Jefferson and Adams as they drafted the document.

        pursuit - This word was an interesting choice because its original connotations back in the 14th and 15th centuries were fairly negative: hunting something down with hostile intent, and even persecution.  (Persecute comes from Latin per + sequi “follow/hunt through,” while pursue and prosecute both come from Latin pro + sequi “follow/ hunt forward.”)  Of course it’s also important to note that the unalienable right that was claimed was not the right to happiness, but the right to pursue it without threat to life or liberty.

        happiness - This word has the most interesting etymology of all, in my opinion, which is why I’ve already written about it.  For the scoop on happiness, which includes interesting connections to both pleasure and luck, read my previous post for Words of the Month - The Root of Happiness.

        declaration - In that same wave of words from French, this had the meaning in English “proclamation, formal public statement” by about 1400.  The word was applied to documents that recorded such proclamations by the 1650s, and although this 1776 document never called itself the “declaration of independence,” references to it were the first examples of the phrase.

        government - Chaucer may be the first attested use of this word in English, meaning “the act of governing or ruling; the system by which something is governed.”  Interestingly, before Middle English, before Old French, Latin borrowed the word from Greek kybernan, meaning “to steer or pilot a ship.”  It is, therefore, a nautical metaphor.  But as an example of strange etymological bedfellows, that Greek root was borrowed into English again in 1948 by the mathematician Norbert Wiener, who used it to coin the word cybernetics, meaning “theory and study of communication and control.”  And in the 1990s cyber- was broken off (not quite at the proper lexeme boundary) to use as a prefix applied to all things related to computers and the internet.  (For a prior post on the similar process and trajectories of a number of suffixes, read Words of the Month - the Suffixinator.)

        Finally, if you’re thinking it’s quite a coincidence that so many of these words came to English from French during the 14th century, no, of course it’s not a coincidence at all.  After the Norman Conquest in 1066, England was ruled by French-speaking Normans.  Not until the early fifteenth century did the Kings of England speak English (Middle English, at that point) as their own.  Henry V (crowned in 1413) was the first to write in English.  During that time, therefore, the whole apparatus of government and law were operated in Anglo-Norman (and Latin), and all those Anglo-Norman words were also used by the English-speaking people, thus bringing the words into English.  (And for more on this you can read my post Words of the Month - Threesomes.)

        Most of this may be mere trivia, of interest to word-nerds like myself but perhaps not really important.  Nevertheless, I think all of this does illustrate that words really do have power.

[Pictures: The Manner in which the American Colonies Declared themselves independent of the King of England, engraving from 1776, but I wish I had more info about this (Image from The European Political Print Collection);

The Signers, woodcut by Michael McCurdy from The Signers by Dennis Brindell Fradin, 2003.]

Heavy is the Head

         Here is an interesting woodcut from about 1540-50, by an unidentified Italian artist.  The subject of this portrait is Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire, but really the subject is the sultan’s magnificent jewel-studded helmet-crown, completed in 1532.  This helmet-crown was a very deliberate piece of propaganda.  Designed with one more tier than the papal tiara, it sent a clear message that the ruler of the Ottoman Empire was more universal and more powerful than the Pope or the Holy Roman Emperor.  Süleyman wore it to all his diplomatic audiences with Hapsburg rulers as he set off toward Vienna, intent on conquest.  (This was his second attempt to conquer Vienna, and they both ended in defeat, by the way.)

        The helmet-crown was made by Venetian jewelers and goldsmiths and was displayed in Venice at the Doge’s Palace after its completion before it was delivered to Süleyman, and the assumption is that the artist of this woodcut saw the helmet-crown in Venice.  In that case the artist had presumably not seen Süleyman wearing the crown, but had chosen to depict it that way in order to further legitimize the sultan’s claim to authority.  This is a large print, almost three feet tall by over 20 inches wide, carved on (at least?) two blocks and printed over (at least?) three combined sheets of paper, so it was probably intended for public display.

        This alone makes me curious about whether the artist was merely making a piece he thought would be popular with curious patrons, or whether he was actually a fan of the Ottoman sultan.  It also makes me curious about how heavy this crown actually was, and how onerous it would be to wear the darn thing.  But what really struck me about this jewel-studded helmet-crown is how much it reminds me of the radio-crown in children’s story Five Golden Wrens by Hugh Troy from 1946.

        I’ve mentioned Five Golden Wrens before, at this post.  The story includes not only the king’s radio-crown, but also a scheming queen who commissions jewelers and goldsmiths to create an even more impressive crown, which she wears on her diplomatic visit.  I can’t help wondering whether author-illustrator Troy could have been inspired by this woodcut of Süleyman the Magnificent’s helmet-crown!  Not only are the crowns similar, but so is Troy’s style of pen and ink drawing, showing every whisker of the king’s beard.  It’s certainly plausible that he could have seen a copy of this at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (although it is not currently on display), or elsewhere.  (I saw it in an exhibit at the Harvard Art Museum.  The version on top is at the Met, the version on the bottom is the one I saw at Harvard, owned by the Boston MFA.  They are not dated accurately enough to give a clue about why there are two versions, which came first, and whether they’re done by the same artist.  My guess would be that the second is a pirated version of the first, but I could be totally wrong about that.)

        Inspiration for stories can certainly come from all sorts of places, and I’d love to imagine that this woodcut from a turbulent time in Europe’s history provided inspiration to Troy during another turbulent time.  What do you think?

[Pictures: Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent, woodcut by anonymous artist, ca. 1540-50 (Images from The Met and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston);

Illustrations by Hugh Troy from Five Golden Wrens, 1946.]

Falling Short but Aiming High

         Frederick Douglass said, “Poets, prophets, and reformers are all picture-makers – and this ability is the secret of their power and of their achievements.  They see what ought to be by the reflection of what is, and endeavor to remove the contradiction.”  Artists are, of course, also picture-makers, and on Juneteenth it seems to me appropriate to share a linocut by Elmer William Brown (USA, 1909-1971).  Its carving is full of light and shadow, with dramatic dark-clouded sky and double outlines, both black and white, at the edges of many shapes.  I particularly like the pattern of the ground radiating out from the shovel, and the little cliff and tree to the left.  Its subject is a white overseer and a black chain gang, with all-too-many similarities to the abolished system of chattel slavery in the south.  The overseer looks scrawny and mean, the conditions rough, and an air of oppressive drama hangs over it.  Apparently the artist Brown had been incarcerated himself, for riding a freight chain illegally as a hobo, so he presumably had very personal emotions about the scene.

        This piece is showing “the reflection of what is,” in Douglass’s words, in order to get us to hold it up beside our ideals and see where we need to remove the contradiction.  Juneteenth is a commemoration simultaneously of celebration of the end of slavery, but also frustration and mourning that the promised freedom did not reach everyone as quickly or as completely as it should.  I believe it’s always important both to see the failures that exist but also to continue to hold up the ideals of what is possible without giving in to cynicism.

        (One final note.  A number of sources attribute the quotation from Douglass to a lecture he gave at Boston Tremont Temple in 1861.  However, I cannot actually confirm it in any primary source, which makes me uncomfortable.  Well, I’ve already spent enough time trying to track it down, so I just give you the caveat and leave it at that.  And of course if anyone can point me to the source, I’d be happy to see it!)

[Picture: Ol’ Peckerwood, linocut by Elmer William Brown, 1939 (Image from The Cleveland Museum of Art).]

Tribute to Jane Yolen

         Jane Yolen (USA, 1939-2026) was a giant in the world of speculative fiction, children’s books, and poetry.  She was the author or editor of over 450 books, including winners of the Caldecott Medal (Owl Moon), Nebula Award (Lost Girls), Locus Award (Pay the Piper), and World Fantasy Award (The Emerald Circus), plus she received a World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement.  I can’t add anything substantive to the recent articles celebrating her work, but I do want to acknowledge her life.

        In 2021 I was on a Poetry Reading panel with Yolen during the Boskone convention, and I was absolutely thrilled to be rubbing shoulders with some towering figures.  (Not just Jane Yolen - just look at this line-up!)  We had an absolute blast, making up silly little verses together as we waited for the panel to begin, admiring each other’s poems, and enjoying the great audience, as well.  Being in February of 2021, however, this convention was held on-line.  Afterwards I had a brief email correspondence with Yolen and then in subsequent years a couple of brief conversations with her at other (in-person) cons, mostly on the topic of Quakerism, which she had for a while been involved with.  In all of this she was gregarious, encouraging, and with a fun sense of humor.  I very much appreciated meeting her.

        Of course a blog about fantasy, with a special focus on juvenile fantasy, could hardly run for very long without mentioning some of Jane Yolen’s books.  Here are some prior posts in which I mentioned works of hers.

Fairy Tale Retellings (Briar Rose)

Feminist Fantasy Picture Books (Not One Damsel in Distress)

Monsters and Aliens (“The Giraft”)

Dinosaur Fantasy (How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?)

        On a seemingly unrelated note, in 2025 I did a Poet Laureate collaboration with Needham Open Studios in which I recruited artists to host Poetry Stations where visitors could collect ekphrastic poems: poems written in response to and about works of visual art.  The strange coincidence is that among the 10 poems I chose to be distributed, one was by Jane Yolen while another was a poem of my own inspired by a painting by David Hockney, who also happened to die on June 11, 2026.  I include them both here. (Don't forget you can click on the picture to make them big enough to read.)

        Jane Yolen will certainly be missed, but she leaves a huge legacy of thoughtful, sometimes funny, sometimes powerful, imaginative work for all ages.

[Pictures: Boskone58 program details, 2021, illustration by Julie Dillon;

“Grant Wood: American Gothic,” poem by Jane Yolen from Heart to Heart, ed. Greenberg, 2001; American Gothic, painting by Grant Wood, 1930 (Image from Art Institute of Chicago);

“Remembering Dreams,” poem by AEGNydam, 2025; Garrowby Hill, painting by David Hockney, 1998 (Image from Museum of Fine Arts, Boston).]

Jigsaw Printing

         The jigsaw method of printing is a way to print multiple colors while carving only one block.  The basic idea is that after carving a block you cut it apart into separate pieces for each color.  You can then ink each piece separately with a different color of ink, reassemble the inked block (hence the term “jigsaw”) and then print it all together as one block.  This has the advantage of saving time, as you’re pressing only once, and it also has the advantage of ensuring that all the different colors are perfectly lined up every time, which can be difficult when printing separately.

        I tend to think of this as a modern method, but in fact it was used in the second major book printed with moveable type in Europe: the Mainz psalter of 1457.  The Gutenberg Bible (about which you can read more here) included both black and red ink, but after a brief experiment with printing each page twice for the two colors, Gutenberg decided it was easier to print just once and have someone add the red letters by hand afterwards.  The Mainz psalter, printed by Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer, who had split from Gutenberg, included black, red, and blue ink.  It appears to have been printed with just one pressing for each page, meaning that the colored initials were inked separately and then set into the forme with the black letters.  And even more to the point for the jigsaw technique, the extra-fancy woodcut initials that include both red and blue ink were cut so that the letter slid apart from the ornamental surround, so they could be inked in two separate colors and then fit back together.

        Just for fun, I’ve included here for you the same letter B, once from the 1457 edition and once from 1459, because I think it’s interesting that the blue and red are reversed.

        Jigsaw printing is a technique I’ve wanted to try for a while, and I’ve just done a first simple experiment with this cat luxuriating on a comfy blanket.  The thing is, though, that Fust and Schöffer, as well as today’s artists who use the technique, use oil-based ink.  This allows them all the time in the world to ink as many different little bits of the block as they need and carefully reassemble them all before printing.  Because I generally use water-based ink which dries much more quickly, I don’t have time to ink multiple pieces and put them together before getting my paper pressed onto the reassembled block.  So this piece, while carved jigsaw style, was actually printed with each of the two pieces separate.  That meant I did still have the challenge of registration (getting the separate pressings to line up). 

        Despite not getting the full advantage of having my pieces reassembled before pressing, I’m still pretty pleased with this latest Cat Art.  (My next show isn’t until the fall, so I won’t know until then whether other people find it pleasing, too.)  At some point I may try a proper jigsaw block with oil-based ink - I do have a couple of ideas - but I confess that getting out multiple colors of oil-based ink at once may be a bigger mess than I have room for.  In any case, though, it’s an interesting technique.

[Pictures: Ornamental B and C, wood block prints from Mainz Psalter, 1457 (Images from University of Manchester);

Ornamental B and D, wood block prints from Mainz Psalter, 1459 (Images from Bodleian Libraries);

Life of Luxury, rubber block print by AEGNydam, plus photos of block, 2026 (Image from NydamPrints.com).]