Starry's idea vault

…the night

…the dragon

The first shot was taken in June 2010 by @HadriansWall (Cumbrian photographer Joan Thirlaway), the illustration below was painted by John Howe (Canadian-born illustrator) in 2005.

A curious coincidence. I’m not sure if John used a shot of Hadrian’s Wall (not the person but the construction this time) as a reference for the painting, but the explanation that I prefer is one of artistic collective unconscious. A while back I toyed with the following idea: would it be possible for two people to create the same picture (painting, photograph etc.) independently and uninfluenced by each other, purely by tapping into a kind of art pool?

The artists themselves will be the judges, and I will follow up on this post with the “verdict.” But I’d like to believe what really happened here is a beautiful coincidence, and even more admirably: cross-medium.

Images © Joan Thirlaway and John Howe, respectively