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>One piece of trivia about "A TV Dante" that might be of interest: one of
>the collaborators on the programme was Tom Phillips, a visual artist
>(American, I think) who is best known for his book "A Humument", in which
>each page of a Victorian melodrama was lavishly drawn over, such that
>poems emerged from the existing text, surrounded by images. [...]
>Nicole Matthews, Griffith University, Gladstone Pod Campus,
>Brisbane, Australia
 
I'm not surprised to hear about Phillips' collaboration. Greenaway's book
of drawings, _papers_ (Paris: Dis Voir, 1990), shows his mastery of the whole
eclectic gamut of visual styles of the late 1970s and '80s. The level of his
draftsmanship, especially of human figures (but also in the overall quality
of his line) suggest to me that he recieved formal training at a U.K. art
college.
He shares stylistic concerns with David Hockney as well as Phillips - I
wonder if he has collaborated on any projects with Hockney, who designed
sets for several operas, as I'm sure many subscribers know.
 
What sets Greenaway apart from all of those static visual artists is
of course his translation of such ideas into the fluid, dynamic (and
transitory...) medium of film, where the whole is greater, exponentially
greater than the sum of its parts. I suppose that is his magic.
 
David Smith