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I’ve been working on this sculpture on and off, mostly off, for a few years now. After it got chewed on by a squirrel and knocked over by my cat, I kind of gave up on it for awhile, but just now decided to finish it. My plan is to mold and cast the darn thing.
It depicts Doctor Alfred Prunesquallor of Gormenghast experiencing one of his odd aesthetic emotions, and was inspired by two scenes from the novel “Titus Groan.”
“Nothing, however, seemed to be able to keep the mercury out of Doctor Prunesquallor, and after looking quickly from face to face, he examined his finger nails, one by one, with a ridiculous interest; and then turning suddenly from his task as he completed the scrutiny of the tenth nail, he skipped to the window, a performance grotesquely incongruous in one of his years, and leaning in an over-elegant posture against the window frame, he made that peculiarly effeminate gesture of the left hand that he was so fond of, the placing of the tips of thumb and index finger together, and thus forming an O, while the remaining three fingers were strained back and curled into letter C’s of dwindling sizes. His left elbow, bent acutely, brought his hand about a foot away from him and on a level with the flower in his buttonhole. His narrow chest, like a black tube, for he was dressed in a cloth of death’s colour, gave forth a series of those irritating laughs that can only be symbolized by ‘ha, ha, ha,’ but whose pitch scraped at the inner wall of the skull.
‘Cedars’, said Doctor Prunesquallor, squinting at the trees before him with his head tilted and his eyes half closed, ‘are excellent trees. Very, very excellent. I positively enjoy cedars, but do cedars positively enjoy me?....’
and
“Dr Prunesquallor had circled around Steerpike with his head drawn back so that his cervical vertebrae rested against the rear wall of his high collar, and a plumbless abysm yawned between his Adam’s apple and his pearl stud. With his head bridled backwards thus somewhat in the position of a cobra about to strike, and with his eyebrows raised quizzically, he was yet able at the same time to flash both tiers of his startling teeth which caught and reflected the lamplight with an unnatural brilliancy.
He was in an ecstasy of astonishment. The spectacle of a half-nude, dripping Steerpike both repelled and delighted him.....”
Not that I can do justice to the words of Mervyn Peake!
Official Mervyn Peake website: [link]
It depicts Doctor Alfred Prunesquallor of Gormenghast experiencing one of his odd aesthetic emotions, and was inspired by two scenes from the novel “Titus Groan.”
“Nothing, however, seemed to be able to keep the mercury out of Doctor Prunesquallor, and after looking quickly from face to face, he examined his finger nails, one by one, with a ridiculous interest; and then turning suddenly from his task as he completed the scrutiny of the tenth nail, he skipped to the window, a performance grotesquely incongruous in one of his years, and leaning in an over-elegant posture against the window frame, he made that peculiarly effeminate gesture of the left hand that he was so fond of, the placing of the tips of thumb and index finger together, and thus forming an O, while the remaining three fingers were strained back and curled into letter C’s of dwindling sizes. His left elbow, bent acutely, brought his hand about a foot away from him and on a level with the flower in his buttonhole. His narrow chest, like a black tube, for he was dressed in a cloth of death’s colour, gave forth a series of those irritating laughs that can only be symbolized by ‘ha, ha, ha,’ but whose pitch scraped at the inner wall of the skull.
‘Cedars’, said Doctor Prunesquallor, squinting at the trees before him with his head tilted and his eyes half closed, ‘are excellent trees. Very, very excellent. I positively enjoy cedars, but do cedars positively enjoy me?....’
and
“Dr Prunesquallor had circled around Steerpike with his head drawn back so that his cervical vertebrae rested against the rear wall of his high collar, and a plumbless abysm yawned between his Adam’s apple and his pearl stud. With his head bridled backwards thus somewhat in the position of a cobra about to strike, and with his eyebrows raised quizzically, he was yet able at the same time to flash both tiers of his startling teeth which caught and reflected the lamplight with an unnatural brilliancy.
He was in an ecstasy of astonishment. The spectacle of a half-nude, dripping Steerpike both repelled and delighted him.....”
Not that I can do justice to the words of Mervyn Peake!
Official Mervyn Peake website: [link]
Image size
3300x1457px 421.43 KB
© 2011 - 2024 imagination-heart
Comments13
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Thanks, Dead Doll. 
I think John Sessions' heart was in the right place but even he admitted he would need massive plastic surgery to properly play the Doctor. Just odd they chose a short, pudgy person to portray the tall, elegant, and extremely thin Prunesquallor. And of course the direction was completely different from the character in the books. Dr P is supposed to speak in "an extraordinary falsetto," laughs like a hyena, and minces and prances around far more than Sessions did. Think about the scene at the Lake when he leaps up and screams about Titus being eaten by a shark. And his wacky singing in the bathtub scenes. I think the production team figured the character was too outrageous and distracting (scene stealing) to put on film and decided to tone him down nearly to extinction. Plus his relationship with Fuchsia was practically expunged. 
Oh I could go on and on about the BBC Gormenghast! But I'm glad the show got made, after decades of people trying.
Thanks to help from my husband, I've finally molded this sculpture and am now in the process of painting the casting in lifelike colors. I feel I work at glacial speed on these personal projects. Paying work has to come first, alas.
I think John Sessions' heart was in the right place but even he admitted he would need massive plastic surgery to properly play the Doctor. Just odd they chose a short, pudgy person to portray the tall, elegant, and extremely thin Prunesquallor. And of course the direction was completely different from the character in the books. Dr P is supposed to speak in "an extraordinary falsetto," laughs like a hyena, and minces and prances around far more than Sessions did. Think about the scene at the Lake when he leaps up and screams about Titus being eaten by a shark. And his wacky singing in the bathtub scenes. I think the production team figured the character was too outrageous and distracting (scene stealing) to put on film and decided to tone him down nearly to extinction. Plus his relationship with Fuchsia was practically expunged. Oh I could go on and on about the BBC Gormenghast! But I'm glad the show got made, after decades of people trying. Thanks to help from my husband, I've finally molded this sculpture and am now in the process of painting the casting in lifelike colors. I feel I work at glacial speed on these personal projects. Paying work has to come first, alas.