“For a thousandmiles one floats upon light and beneath light in that doubleillumination&hellip
“For a thousandmiles one floats upon light and beneath light in that doubleillumination….which seems to transfigure common objects.” This sublime meditation on the nature of light was writtenby an artist (of course!) Edwin HowlandBlashfield in Afloat on the Nile,an account of his trip in 1891 up the sacred river. Blashfieldwas a noted America painter andmuralist who travelled extensively in Europe and the East – always with asketch book and travel diary in hand.What’s ourconnection? #BKMLibrary’s Wilbour Library of Egyptology owns severalof Blashfield’s image-filled travel diaries. Blashfield was also the son-in-law ofour namesake Charles Edwin Wilbour and he travelled frequently with Wilbourto Egypt and other parts of the Middle East. Looking at thesediaries we can see that in the age before Instagram, memory making involvedmore than just a quick click and capture. People, places, monuments and museumobjects were carefully observed and drawn. Crafting a remembrance of the pasttook time and often lasted through several changes of light.Posted by Roberta Munoz -- source link
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