When I first saw @shaka's photo (shown below) for this week's contest I thought it was beautiful, but couldn't imagine what to do with it. In the back of my mind was the thought of Don Quijote, the errant knight created by Miguel de Cervantes more than 400 years ago. This idea was suggested by the medieval castle. What to do with it, though?
It turns out the LMAC white list of acceptable public domain sources does not offer a lot of Don Quijote images, so I had to be flexible. I like where that flexibility took me. Don Quijote lives in his imagination, after all. So, imagination would be my path to creating a collage.
Don Quijote Astride Rocinante
Credit: ruseyana on Unsplash. Cervantes describes the knight for us (from Project Gutenberg): "his wits being quite gone...The first thing he did was to clean up some armour that had belonged to his great-grandfather". The armour was rusted and covered with mildew. He enlists his horse, described as a 'hack', to be his steed and names the horse Rocinante.
Everything in my collage represents something from the book in which Don Quijote came to life: El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha (The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quijote of La Mancha). This book is considered by many scholars of Western literature to be profoundly influential in the development of the modern novel.
Sancho Panza on His Mule
Credit: falco, on Pixabay. Sancho Panza, who becomes Don Quijote's squire, is (from Project Gutenberg) "a farm laborer...with very little wit in his pate." The squire decides to take his mule as a mount. And so the two adventurers go forth in the night without giving family or neighbors notice.
So much of Don Quijote, the errant knight, lives with us today. The pot calling the kettle black? Trace that saying back to a 1620 translation of the book by Thomas Shelton. Tilting at windmills? Also derived from the misadventures of the delusional Don Quijote, who imagines himself fighting monsters when he attacks a windmill (note the windmills in my collage). The word quixotic in English is derived from Don Quijote and suggests someone impulsive, impractical, spontaneous.
Dulcinea, the 'Lady' of Don Quijote's Fantasies
Credit:janeb13 on Pixabay. Image from the ballet, Don Quijote Cervantes' mad knight decides that a local farm girl will be the damsel for whom he performs his heroic deeds. He names her Dulcinea.
Tributes to Don Quijote/Cervantes' role in development of the modern novel have come from many authors, among them Henry Fielding (considered the founder of the English novel). On the title page of his book Joseph Andrews, Fielding explains that Cervantes' book inspired the novel. Gustave Flaubert, in writing about Madam Bovary, expressed his indebtedness to Cervantes and Don Quijote.
Don Quijote in a Boat, Preparing to Fight A Watermill
Credit For the (Don Quijote figure):ikut on Pixabay. As is true of Don Quijote's other adventures, this one turns into a comedic farce (from Project Gutenberg:) "The boat overturns; knight and squire are rescued from the water by some millers."
Some of the artists on LMAC offer wonderful progress demonstrations. I don't do that because my progress is rather sloppy. I keep trying things until a collage starts to 'work'. Always in making a collage I find a rich resource in the LMAC library of images, LIL. That was true this week, once again.
I needed a stone wall with a medieval look. That I found in @muelli's collection on #LIL. @muelli offers a well that was perfect. Thank you @muelli!
I needed a picture of the sea, and horizon. @redheadpei offers a perfect picture for this, also, in her #LIL collection. Thank you @redheadpei@
@reheadpei loaned me that wonderful boat for Don Quijote to fight in . Thank you again, @redheadpei!
Finally, I needed figures (Sancho Panza and Don Quijote) for the castle. These I found on Pexfuel:
And windmills, which I borrowed from cdoncel, on Unsplash.
Dulcinella originally came from this photo (credited in the blog):
Here is a sense of how my work progressed:
Tools: GIMP, Paint, and Paint3D.
Making a collage for LMAC has become almost a weekly hobby for me. Although I don't compete in the contest, I make collages for fun. I'm amazed when I look back at the beginning of this community, when @shaka had an idea for making collages from his photos. A few enthusiastic people participated. How that idea has grown. There is a vibrant LMAC community now, with artists and non-artists producing startlingly creative collages for each round.
The LIL library is an outgrowth of @shaka's vision. Of course Lily, our librarian/bot, owes her personality and facility to our master coder/developer, @quantumg. And, the community would sputter without the attention of our bilingual moderator/curator, @mballesteros.
All of Hive is welcome to borrow from LIL and everyone may contribute to the image library. Rules and procedures may be found here. Also, we invite everyone on Hive to join in our contest, when the next round (#133!) begins on Thursday.
