useful links

I copied this list from another brilliant weblog about illustration, cartography, scientific illustration etc. It's called bibliodyssey (which is a well found name, until you have to spell and type it). The author made this list of reference sites (with rss feeds). I just had to take it. Mainly because the main purpose of this log is to have a clever and more visual means of bookmarking (and share that, for those interested).
Most of the sites below are in my bookmarks folder SOMEwhere... here they all are. enjoy and many thanks to "peacay" for compiling it.


∇ library of congress
∇ british library
∇ library france
∇ library holland
∇ library spain
∇ library portugal
∇ european library
∇ library australia
∇ collections canada
∇ digital poland
∇ nypl digital
∇ botanicus digital
∇ rare book room
∇ britmuseum prints
∇ smithsonian galaxy
∇ casglu'r tlysau
∇ rumsey collection
∇ digital scriptorium
∇ cesg manuscripts
∇ digital book index
∇ primary sources
∇ online exhibitions
∇ worldcat search
∇ library directory
∇ digital librarian
∇ intute resources
∇ herder institute
∇ warburg institute
∇ lexilogos links
∇ digiwiki links
∇ archivalia blog
∇ book arts web
∇ arts journal
∇ artcyclopedia
∇ woodblock
∇ coconino
∇ alchemy website
∇ health history links
∇ history network
∇ new advent

intelligent blog

This is an intelligent blog about illustration: illustrationart.
 Not just a collection of pictures and shop-talk (like this blog is). There are some provocative issues on this site that are interesting enough to read and think about.
I like the article about Disney drawings (or the absence of them) and the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) the post is called " A Holiday quest for Mitigation). I don not agree with the author because I think he's (deliberately) denying some important differences between animation/illustration and art (or commercial (lowbrow) art and conceptual (high brow) art). However, I do think it is very interesting and necessary to (deliberately) forget about these obvious differences and question the position of both fields.
Another thing that is really good about this blog is that the author has an obvious knowledge of the history of the trade (and of image making in a more general sense of the word). This blogger also uses scientific (or faux-scientific) methods of image analysis and compares genres, artists and (aspects of ) images.

cute dolls from the girls

Very cute dolls. Unfortunately only one seems to be for sale (and even that I can't seem to buy). Cute anyway.
One of the girls, Amanda Visell,  is a very gifted (fifties style) illustrator, the other girl Michelle Valigura, is a gifted toy and doll maker (that is not the right job-description, but anyway). Together they're the girls productions beautiful little logo by the way.

Geert Wilders

I found a nice (very fitting) portrait of Geert Wilders.
This portrait couldn't have been done better by someone who actually wanted to portray Geer Wilders.
For those of you who don't know who Geert Wilders is. Keep it that way. you do not want to know, believe me.
This guy knows his linework (and he knows the work of Charles Burns, but he would be a fool not to know that). Good Job!

origami with the slick of the earth

Found this on a nice blog.
Origama, folding , with currency. It looks fantastic!

fifties style illustration

Actually I think Jonas Bergstrand works in just about every style the fifties had to offer (which I mean as a compliment). I do believe it's copycatting, but I also believe that almost every illustrator (including myself) steals his way trough the rich traditions of the past. The art is doing it in such a way that is the result is self-evident and in a way where the image works for itself rather than being a style pastiche. I can't say that goes for all his work, but the good work does that. And well.

eduard orecife

Beatiful, rich, layered work by Eduard Orefice. Collage, Eclectic, but new and estranging.

Eduard, if you see this post, I hope you don't mind me showing the picture here. It is meant as a sample of your talent.
That goed for all the images on this blog (and on all blogs for that matter

cool illustrators

Some cool illustrators:
Kenneth Lavallee



Irene Schoch


 

Tadahiro Uesugi



Richard Wilkinson




Christian Turdera



Jörn Kaspuhl

good logs

http://wepresentthe0and1.wordpress.com/
http://pruned.blogspot.com

photography and the role of time

I was made aware of a great photographer, Michael Wesely,  by good friend Auke Vleer (who is not that bad himself :))
This photographer is very famous (so this post is like way duhhh) for his long exposure shots of buildings and cityscapes.
This is his website Too bad that he doesn't have any large format pictures on his website (not that I would have dared to post them). As a mater of fact I think his website looks more as a german (he ìs german) modernist (he is) architect (for which he has an obious knack) than the site of a hot photographer, but, hey, who the hell am I to judge the guy.
I must say that I was slightly disappointed with the photographic results. When I was told how this man works and that uses shutter times up to three (!!!!) years I became extremely curious. I did not know what I could expect but the sheer monumentality of the effort, this almost archaeological endeavour... I guess I had expected the final result to be a bit more awesome aswell. Monumental if you wish.
Don't get me wrong I believe these are fantastic and gorgeous images, but it turns out that for me the patina of history, the flux, the erosion caused by people and elements are simply vanished. Maybe the shutter time is on the long side after all?




This image which I took from another great weblog (yeah, there's a couple out there..) is taken in Berlin and has a shutter time of two (devastating) years.


Another photographer that makes interesting work is Bill Travis. Something completely different, yet...!
What we see here is a different kind of visualization of time (and the passing of it). For me this borders on kitsch, but at the same time the historic and nostalgic looking photo's remind me of Davis Lynch movies (but from the 1900's).
Check out the link above for photo's.

Reason I am interested in all of this, besides a natural interest in photography, is that I bought a panorama photo from ebay.
 

It is a photo from 1919 and made with a so-called cirkut camera. This camera passes a scene in a couple of "sweeps". It is therefore possible for  people and elements to appear several times in the picture (which it was not used for in this image).
The same friend that told me about Michael Wesely had a book about the work of Eugene Goldbeck. A photographer who's claim to fame is the assembly, production and visualization of huge vistas of military personnel who are arranged in Norh Korean style. Absolutely stunning images.
So, I decided I wanted one of those panorama's for my home. This McClymonds photo is humble in it's compositional ambition compared to Goldbeck, but it is something I can't wait to see and admire.



I believe there's 21.000 people in this picture....


McClymonds info

yeah and this

throw these in while you're on it!

wishlist

I want this book (among a thousand others). Chris Ware's The Best American Comics 2007

 

life without buildings

a very inspiring weblog. It had so many great posts that I will only post the link. find out for yourself.
One picture I can't hold back. For me it is iconic. It reminds of a picture from Rem Koolhaas' Delirious New York. The 1909 theoreum. This is obviously different, but it is very similar. A fantastic rendering though.

illustrators of the "gouden boekjes"

Alice Provensen

Gustaf Tenggren



Richard Scarry (a childhood hero of mine)

Arne Ungermann

Leonard Weisgard a favourite

Mary Blair

more tomorrow!
Have a good new year!

Willem Bijmoer

For the Christmas holidays I am staying at the house of my father and mother in law.
I was browsing through some old children's books when I came across the cover of Abeltje. Since time is on my side here I can spend a good deal of time browsing and searching for things I like and that I am curious about.
The illustrator is Willem Bijmoer. His work is very recognizable for dutch children and for dutch people in general. He illustrated a lot of the books that Annie M.G. Schmidt wrote. And since she is the most popular writer of children's books in Holland for I think the second half of the century, her work is iconic. And so are the illustrators.
So, I have known this work of course. But only now have I looked it up and it turns out to be really excellent work; very fifties, but beautiful in it's technique, with characters that are alive and not as boring as they should have been for the time when they were drawn (just like the stories of Schmidt). Bijmoer also made very nice decors.
I am really into the fifties (and earlier) illustration-styles since the Charlie Harper "discovery". I am experimenting with chalk and pencil to obtain the slightly shaded effect which a lot of the illustrations from that period have. There is also a lot to discover when it comes to the use of dry brush techniques and ink styles.
I cannot post any pictures since there is a strict copyright procedure.
 

on authority (Max Weber)

I was trigered by this sentence when reading the final chapter of a book on the Haight Ashbury (by Charles perry):
"To that extent the Digger Crusade can be seen in terms of Weberian sociology as part of an endless conflict between charismatic and bureaucratic authority."
Somehow this conflict rings a lot of bells. I recognize it in my own work and life.
This is what a summarized piece in wikipedia says:

The sociologist Max Weber defined charismatic authority as "resting on devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person, and of the normative patterns or order revealed or ordained by him." Charismatic authority is one of three forms of authority laid out in Weber's tripartite classification of authority, the other two being traditional authority and rational-legal authority. The concept has acquired wide usage among sociologists.

source: wikipedia

something else that sounds interesting enough to read up upon, is:
"The accepted psychological explanation of fascism was that the authoritarian personality was taught to suppress it's feelings and submit to it's superiors, on the condition that it was allowed to take out all it hostilities on underlings and outsiders"

This is a definition from Wilhelm Reich, from his book The Mass-Psychology of Fascism (Die Massenpsychologie des Faschismus). Een marxistische uitleg

This definition is clearer than any definition I have ever heard or read. It also is a huge yellow warning sign for a reoccurring fascist tendencies. Because the heart of fascism is not an old fashioned ideology but a sociological phenomenon (which can be exploited).
"Fascism is only the organized expression of the structure of the average man's character.."

I am trying to digest that. It is worth chewing on.

Boris Bilinsky

Boris Bilinsky's work for the Fritz Lang Film Metropolis











This work probably inspired by his posters but not from his hands.

research links catalogues

index of research databases:

Tales from the vault: Canadian Pulp fiction

Canadian Mail Order Catalogues

and more postcard links

and more:
Great Britain with annoying ads, but hey, it's free, and it's high-res

postcards III

okay, this one was bound to be continued: International Postcards.. mjummy
But at ridiculous prices...


New York, Barclay Vessel Building


Adolf Hitler at the grave of his mother..