More work today on The Gabriel Ratchet. In
the Middle Ages, the cries of migrating wild geese flying by night were
explained as the baying of supernatural creatures of judgment. From
Gabrielle rache, fr. Gabriel, one of the seven archangels, thought of
as blowing a trumpet on Judgment Day. It was inspired in part by Giotto's The Lamentation, and the arrangement of the mourning angels.
I have twin maidens cowering with their ears covered. Shutting their eyes and not looking up at the noise overhead. Maybe they are just geese, and they would see that if they just looked up. Or maybe they are the creatures of Judgment heralding the End of Days, and they are smart to keep covered.
My painting is probably also inspired a great deal by the art nouveau work of Charles Robinson, in particular, A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson, illustrated by Charles Robinson. I have a very brittle copy which I look at sparingly. The illustrations have a lot of symmetry and "twinning" that I like a lot, and that I use a lot, when I judge my body of work as a whole.
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