Terrance Lindall: "The Gold Illuminated Paradise Lost Scroll" and "The Elephant Folio for Paradise Lost"

The Gold Illuminated Paradise Lost Scroll

Terrance Lindall

(Image from The Gold Scroll Brochure)

A month and a half ago, my cyber-friend Terrance Lindall, the great contemporary artist of fantasy and surrealism, emailed to ask, "Can I send you some artists proof prints?" He was referring to prints from his "Elephant Folio," and I of course said yes. The prints arrived yesterday, and Terrance also included a copy of the "Gold Scroll Brochure" that you see above, a signed copy in fact. That was a nice extra to go with prints from his "Elephant Folio," a large-sized, 13-by-19-inch book. From this "Elephant Folio," he sent a copy of the following "Muse Page," which I've borrowed from Terrance's website and which is also a proof print:

Muse Page

Terrance Lindall

(Image from Elephant Folio)

I'm inferring that the image is a depiction of Yuko Nii, fellow renowned artist and long-time friend of Terrance, for she has supported his artistic endeavors and thereby deserves the title of "Muse."

I've referred to this image above as a "proof print" because it states "nor the deep tact of Hell," which would be a fine comment on Satan as the soul of courtesy, but Milton actually wrote "nor the deep tract of Hell," and that's what my own proof print has, which means that Terrance caught the typo (and that's what proof prints are intended for). Terrance also sent me some other proof prints, "Harmless Innocence" and "The Fall," but I haven't located images for these at his website, so I can't show them here on Gypsy Scholar, but I would urge readers to go to the site for the "Elephant Folio" and look at what is shown there. The three prints sent to me by Terrance are each personally signed, as are also a number of other folio pages, which is a very generous gesture on his part, for I've done little more -- as a member of the Paradise Lost Committee -- than call attention to Terrance's wonderful art on John Milton's epic masterpiece.

In her "Introduction" to "The Gold Illuminated Paradise Lost Scroll," which you can read above, Yuko Nii quotes John Updike:

"The written word skims in through the eye and by means of the utterly delicate retina hurls shadows like insect legs inward for translation. An immense space opens up in silence and privacy, a space where literally, anything is possible."

I don't know from where this Updike quote comes, but I've found a variant online:

"It skims in through the eye, and by means of the utterly delicate retina hurls shadows like insect legs inward for translation. Then an immense space opens up in silence and an endlessly fecund sub-universe, the writer descends, and asks the read[er] to descend with him, not merely to gain instructions but also to experience delight, the delight of mind freed from matter and exultant in the strength it has stolen from Matter."

This variant appears on several websites online, but none identifies the textual source in Updike's oeuvre, but if it's correct, then Yuko Nii's quote might better be punctuated as follows:

"The written word . . . skims in through the eye and by means of the utterly delicate retina hurls shadows like insect legs inward for translation . . . . [A]n immense space opens up in silence and . . . privacy, a space where literally, anything is possible."

But perhaps Yuko Nii's version is more correct, for the variant stumbles over the phrase "silence and an endlessly fecund sub-universe," so maybe the full original was this:

"[As for t]he written word . . . [i]t skims in through the eye and by means of the utterly delicate retina hurls shadows like insect legs inward for translation. Then an immense space opens up in silence and privacy, a space where literally, anything is possible[,] an endlessly fecund sub-universe, [into which] the writer descends, and asks the read[er] to descend with him, not merely to gain instructions but also to experience delight, the delight of mind freed from matter and exultant in the strength it has stolen from Matter."

That would work, but I'm merely guessing, and the precise quote doesn't make a significant difference since any of these three also applies to Terrance's art, for he has taken Milton's written words and translated them into public images suggestive of an immense space opening up to the worlds of creation and beyond -- down into Chaos and "the deep tract of Hell" and up into the metaphysical realm of Spirit. That's partly why I once told Terrance:

"Your Milton series will live forever . . . well, at least as long as Paradise Lost does. That's pretty long."

And certainly long enough for Terrance's aesthetic vision to move others to once again read Milton . . .