Egyptian Green – Susan Allix’s illustrated travel book
A great illustrated travel book reaching back in time from Plutarch and Catullus up to the present day
(Susan Allix) Egyptian Green. Artist’s book by Susan Allix. Text by various authors. [London. 2003.] 28 etchings madefrom original drawings and printed in color, some with added watercolor and pencil, of various sizes. 129p.13″ x 11″.Four etchings are on fine Japanese paper enclosed in folded sheets of natural Kozo. Various papers of Velin Arches, blanc and crème; Egyptian papyrus; occasional colored Nepalese Lotka and Daphne sheets and Leauw Algae; also Japanese Tosa Shoji and Kozo Natural. The typeface is 18pt. Verona Italic together with various sizes of Bodoni. Handset and printed by letterpress. Emerald green goatskin covers spine, fore-edge and remaining edges. Panels of small, abstract cut-out shapes, through which is visible the textured, cotton-mesh orange paper which also frames a central portrait of a shadow-print etching of the goddess Hathor. Small green and orange dots sprinkle over the cover. The endpapers, doublures and fly-leaves are of Nepalese paper. Book in a green, felt-lined cloth box with printed labels and a separate, decorative opening page. An edition of 24 signed copies. Fine. Last copy for sale.
Allix writes: “The idea of this book is to link past with present and to make a picture; a limited one when looking at the richness of Egypt, but a view that is seen and stitched together with a thread of green.Green links together the progression of time; the fields beside the Nile are always brilliant emerald and the palms of a desert oasis greenish-grey. Green indicates the protection of Osiris, God of the Underworld, and as a holy Muslim colour appears as a mosque carpet. Likewise the luminous green sea and the smudges of paint remaining in tombs all take their place.
“At which exact moment, and why, I began to note greenness I cannot say. It is a colour not immediately associated with Egypt, but with observation it is seen to be interwoven into many aspects of Egyptian life. The continuity of past to present became obvious when I observed that the profile of a man on a bus was exactly the same as those in an ancient tomb at which I had just been staring. Naguib Mahfouz, the Egyptian novelist, seems to echo this when he says of one of his present day characters in Adrift on the Nile – ‘What is the point whether you remain on this earth or depart? Since historical time is nothing compared to the time of the cosmos she is really a contemporary of Eve.’ The texts in Egyptian Green are mainly drawn from travellers visiting or writing about Egypt. The earliest is a spell written inside anancient coffin; later writers include Plutarch and Catullus, also Leonhart Rauwolff, who noted in 1672 that the water of the Nile was ‘perfectly green,’ and Amelia Edwards on the precise colour of palm trees. There are two calligraphic pieces of Kufic script printed from the original blocks found in Cairo.”
Related items: Artists' Books, Catalogue 36 - Summer 2008, Catalogue 37 - Summer 2009, Susan Allix