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sherlock60 Since I'm currently trying to catch up, here are both parts of "Hound", plus a bonus drabble based on a very peculiar quote in one chapter.
Canon Story: The Hound of the Baskervilles, Part 1
Title: Headonism
Author: Mary Sutherland
Rating: PG
It is not the shape of a man's skull that matters, as Mr Mortimer assumes, but its contents. Dr Watson has a fine head, judging by appearances, yet he repeatedly comes to the most erroneous conclusions. Still, despite his mental limitations, there is no man worth more at your side in a tight place, as he proved again on Dartmoor.
***
Canon Story: The Hound of the Baskervilles, Part 2
Title: Smokescreen
Author: Mary Sutherland
Rating: PG-13
"You use me and yet do not trust me!" - Hound of the Baskervilles, Chapter 12
I trust my dear Watson's loyalty, but not always his sagacity. He hides in the dark spying on Barrymore without realising that the man might have smelt his cigarette; he drops a distinctive stub by my lair while hurrying to entrap the stranger on the tor. If only smoking were the stimulus to his brain that it is to mine.
***
Canon Story: The Hound of the Baskervilles, Part 1
Title: Artistic licence
Author: Mary Sutherland
Rating: PG
"For two hours the strange business in which we had been involved appeared to be forgotten, and he [Holmes] was entirely absorbed in the pictures of the modern Belgian masters. He would talk of nothing but art, of which he had the crudest ideas" – Hound of the Baskervilles, chapter 5
When Watson complains that my notions of art are crude, he means only that they are unconventional. To him, a painter who manipulates the viewer's sentiments with a saccharine picture of a faithful dog or an innocent bride is the supreme artist. But it is the pure colour theory of chromoluminarism and pointillism that appeals to my own scientific mind.
Note: The artistic movements of Chronoluminarism/Divisionism and Pointillism were developed in France in the 1880s and rapidly spread to Belgium. Since Hound is set in 1888 or 1889, it may be slight artistic licence to imagine such paintings had already reached a fashionable London gallery. But I feel confident that Dr Watson's tastes ran to Landseer.
Canon Story: The Hound of the Baskervilles, Part 1
Title: Headonism
Author: Mary Sutherland
Rating: PG
It is not the shape of a man's skull that matters, as Mr Mortimer assumes, but its contents. Dr Watson has a fine head, judging by appearances, yet he repeatedly comes to the most erroneous conclusions. Still, despite his mental limitations, there is no man worth more at your side in a tight place, as he proved again on Dartmoor.
***
Canon Story: The Hound of the Baskervilles, Part 2
Title: Smokescreen
Author: Mary Sutherland
Rating: PG-13
"You use me and yet do not trust me!" - Hound of the Baskervilles, Chapter 12
I trust my dear Watson's loyalty, but not always his sagacity. He hides in the dark spying on Barrymore without realising that the man might have smelt his cigarette; he drops a distinctive stub by my lair while hurrying to entrap the stranger on the tor. If only smoking were the stimulus to his brain that it is to mine.
***
Canon Story: The Hound of the Baskervilles, Part 1
Title: Artistic licence
Author: Mary Sutherland
Rating: PG
"For two hours the strange business in which we had been involved appeared to be forgotten, and he [Holmes] was entirely absorbed in the pictures of the modern Belgian masters. He would talk of nothing but art, of which he had the crudest ideas" – Hound of the Baskervilles, chapter 5
When Watson complains that my notions of art are crude, he means only that they are unconventional. To him, a painter who manipulates the viewer's sentiments with a saccharine picture of a faithful dog or an innocent bride is the supreme artist. But it is the pure colour theory of chromoluminarism and pointillism that appeals to my own scientific mind.
Note: The artistic movements of Chronoluminarism/Divisionism and Pointillism were developed in France in the 1880s and rapidly spread to Belgium. Since Hound is set in 1888 or 1889, it may be slight artistic licence to imagine such paintings had already reached a fashionable London gallery. But I feel confident that Dr Watson's tastes ran to Landseer.
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Date: 2013-02-11 12:44 pm (UTC)Yes, it was a little dim of Watson to throw down a fag end while lurking in wait for Sherlock Holmes. That was such an habitual action for people who smoked all the time, he wouldn't have even thought. At least, in a pre filter-tip age, the butts weren't as obnoxious!
Good 'point' about the paintings. Pointillism made such a splash, if the gallery was contemporary enough, they might have had a painting by then. I should think Stubbs for Watson, or maybe a good hunting print. ;)
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Date: 2013-02-11 10:50 pm (UTC)And now my head-canon Watson has a Landseer dog painting in his home. :)
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Date: 2013-12-21 08:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-22 08:23 am (UTC)What we do know about Watson is that he's responsive both to beauty and to emotion (he's always commenting on the beauty of the women in the cases). He's also a story-teller: and Landseer's paintings are often of beautiful and skilfully painted animals in scenes that tell a vivid story. They may seem cliched now, but only because they were so popular that they've been repeated a thousand times since.