3-041-680 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Collage, 1850s-1860s. Additional Info: The English amateur artist John Bingley Garland created this collage by arranging prints and gold foil paper on a large, buff-colored sheet of paper. He further embellished the collage with red opaque watercolor mimicking drops of blood. Garland arranged these elements to emulate the layout of a medieval illuminated manuscript. In the upper left corner, Garland glued a page from the facsimile edition of the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian I’s Prayer Book (1513-15), containing, among other motifs, a monstrous winged creature and a scene of Death armed with a scythe chasing a horseman. He replaced the original Latin text of the book of hours with a lengthy passage from the Night Thoughts, a fashionable poem written by Edward Young (1683-1765) that explores themes of grief and death of a loved one. Garland covered the rest of the sheet with cut-out prints as if they were marginal decoration of a codex page. In the lower center, Mary Magdalene lies prone on a bed of colored blossoms as an angel plays the violin. On the left, a minute figure of a crucified Christ surrounded by cherubs emanates golden rays. Above him, a serpent coils around terrified horsemen, creating a visual echo with the adjacent representation in the Prayer Book.