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Greetings!

'A gaping silken dragon,/Puffed by the wind, suffices us for God./We, not the City, are the Empire's soul:/A rotten tree lives only in its rind.'

Wednesday 6 February 2013

Postmen...

... Patriots, Loyalists, Militiamen, Invaders of Canada, Defenders of Canada, Native Americans, Mexicans, Johnny Reb and Yankees... I have rhapsodised before about the heart-lifting role of the postal worker, especially when he/she delivers a much awaited book, and today the postman delivered a marvel. Most readers of this blog will immediately recognise the artist responsible for this Patriot:

Yes, Don Troiani. Although he has a slight tendency to render some of his Americans from the past in perhaps too clean-cut, college football style, this Minuteman is a bit more life worn. Excellent stuff! And, what's more, the book:


carries fascinating, detailed text by Messrs. Coates and Kochan (they sound like two names from the Revolutionary period), and photographs of a surprising number of surviving artefacts, including clothing as well as sharp, pointy things.

Aaah, bliss. And here are some of my 28mm American Loyalists to finish off the post:



God Save the King!

6 comments:

  1. Ditto!

    Splendid looking book you have there,just the thing to read around the fire on these cold nights.A book to transport you across time and space fueling your day dreams.
    Figures most evocatively photographed too.

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    1. My thanks,kind sir. There's nothing to beat a well illustrated book.

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  2. Mr. Troiani's works are usually based on younger fitter reenactors that he hires and photographs. He once hired men from my old Union Army reenactment group for several works.I was NOT invited because of size and age. While that hurt a bit, I'm glad NOT to see tubby, gray haired, subjects in his works when the demographics of war tend to be the young and fit.

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    1. Now, that's interesting, I hadn't thought of him using re-enactors. Quite agree on the youth angle - in fact, boys in their very early 'teens would, of course, be accurate - but what strikes me about some of his paintings is that the faces look very modern, very 'college boy'. I say that because comparing them with, say, the faces of the men/boys in the contemporary photographs in Ron Field's American Civil War Confederate Army, or Robin Smith's American Civil War Union Army, many look quite different (diet? environment?), quite specific to the mid 1800s. But, I still like Trioani's stuff - top banana!

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