Dyeing with Autumn Beech Leaves
Who doesn’t love the gorgeous shades of copper, red and gold of autumn beech leaves? I wanted to see if I could maybe capture some of that glorious coppery goodness in my dyebath, so I scooped up a big bag of fallen leaves from the wood near my house and put then to soak in […]
Dyeing with Alder Cones
I’d been wanting to try dyeing with alder cones for a while as I’d read you could get shades of dark grey through to almost black with them. Did I get that? No I did not… I managed to forage about 150g of alder cones and soaked them for a week. The water was already […]
Dyeing with Autumn Oak Leaves
I was pleased with the results of my acorn dyeing so decided to try some oak leaves. In her book “Wild Color”, Jenny Dean shows the oak leaves producing a variety of shades from tan through mustard-yellow to khaki. This being November, the oak leaves I gathered were brown, dry, crispy and fallen from the […]
William Degouve de Nuncques
William Degouve de Nuncques (1867- 1935) was born in Monthermé, in eastern France. His parents, descendants of an old aristocratic family, settled in Belgium after the Franco-Prussian war, where he taught himself to paint and married a fellow artist Juliette Massin. She was the sister-in-law of the Belgian Symbolist poet Emile Verhaeren, and it was […]
Arnold Böcklin
Arnold Böcklin (16 October 1827 – 16 January 1901) was born in Basel, Switzerland, and trained in Dusseldorf. He came late to Symbolism: all his early work was very much in the spirit of German Romantic painting: heavily atmospheric landscapes, lowering thunderstorms and lonely mountains. By the time he painted his most famous work, The […]
Gustave Moreau
Gustave Moreau (1826 –1898) was the first French artist who can rightly be called a Symbolist. Indeed, the evolution of his art up until 1880 was a major force in the creation of Symbolism in painting. Early influences were Delacroix and his mentor Chassériau, and it was not until after 1869 during his reclusive studio existence, […]