Alphabe Thursday M is for Matrix

This is my last Alphabe from Brazil, for a while, I all but exhausted the 3 cordels I bought at the beginning of the holiday. Each one has been a typical love story of previous time enjoyed worldwide. Tales of kings, queens and their ‘gifted’ [or not so] offspring in far flung kingdoms with significant names and invocations. Places where enchanted creatures roamed with wise old women and wicked wizards or visa versa.  These stories first published in cordels have since been translated and illustrated with the new world in mind.  

But I notice still using wood cutting illustrations, but with a beautiful twist. These images are not the finished picture but the matrix.  Using the wood block after it has been ‘inked’;  the remaining cut wood shines through in contrast.

These matrix and those used in the original cordels  are valued as a memento of the prints used  centuries ago mere pamphlets of ephemera and discarded after use.