A story from history

Hi Everybody!

Last week I made this collage. The background was an underlay page, and is somewhere between A4 and A3 size. It already had smudges of green and blue paint on  it, which gave me my colour scheme. There were also various stamps on the BG which I had been trying out. I once again used my (try)-to-clear-the-table-technique, and piled on as much as I could.

Then I decided to divide it into squares and oblongs

with a thick marker.

It still didn't look quite right, so I decided to sew over all of the

lines. I went over three of the squares with diluted gesso to knock them

back a bit, and then added some Hebrew alphas. I left the threads on the sides hanging, as the Hebrew texts and alphas reminded me of a

Tallith, the prayer shawl worn by men:

I am linking to Art Journal Journey, 

Erika's lovely theme of 'tell me a story' - 

there are lots of stories woven into this piece, and to 

Simon Monday challenge, square.

I was most interested to see the models of Kaiserswerth

in the town museum in Düsseldorf.

This is what our castle ruins used to look like:

And this painting shows a political event from about 1000 years ago.

The report is from Wikipedia:

'About the year 700 the monk Saint Suitbert founded a Benedictine abbey on a  werth, a river island that formed an important crossing point of the Rhine. The abbey was destroyed 88 years later. On that area there is now the "Erzbischöfliches Suitbertus-Gymnasium", an archiepiscopal secondary school with the old chapel and parts of the abbey. The former monastery garden is a meeting point for the upper school between lesson times.

The Kaiserpfalz which is a general term for a temporary seat of the Holy Roman Emperor was built at an unknown date but before the year 1016. In 1062, the archbishop of Cologne, Anno II, kidnapped the underage German King Heinrich IV from here and in this way obtained the unofficial regency of the Holy Roman Empire. At this time the island's name was changed from Werth to Kaiserswerth - emperor's island. In 1174, Friederick I Barbarossa moved the Rhine customs collection to Kaiserswerth. The eastern branch of the Rhine around the island silted up connecting Kaiserswerth to the east bank of the river. In 1273, the emperor pledged Kaiserswerth to the Archbishop of Cologne forming a de facto enclave within the Duchy of Jülich-Berg. In 1591, Friedrich Spee von Langenfeld was born in Kaiserswerth.

 Due to its strategic position the town changed regularly. The town was captured in 1586 during the Cologne War, and then occupied by the Spanish from 1589 to 1592. In 1636 the town was captured again by the forces of Hesse. When in 1688 the Elector of Cologne made an alliance with Louis XIV during the War of the Grand Alliance he gave the French access to the Rhine crossing at Kaiserswerth. This caused the Dutch and Brandenburg to lay siege to the town in the June 1689. The French garrison surrendered at the end of the month when their supplies were destroyed by fire. The French reoccupied Kaiserswerth in 1701 during the War of the Spanish Succession and the Allies laid siege to it again in 1702. After a long and hard struggle the town surrendered and the Alliance decided to demolish the fortifications.'

And that's why we only have the castle ruins today!

 I also found this installation really good. When the vaulted cellar
under the tower where  the Shipping museum now is
was  cleared, they found rubbishfrom ancient times
up to modern ones. The artist built the installation

using the found pieces and showing them in their layers:

I hope today's 'history lesson' didn't bore you all to tears!

Have a great day, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!