Posts Tagged ‘illustrations’
“I suppose illustration tends to live in the streets, rather than in the hermetically sealed atmosphere of the museum, and consequently it has come to be taken less seriously”*…
But surely, it shouldn’t necessarily be so…
Old Book Illustrations was born of the desire to share illustrations from a modest collection of books, which we set out to scan and publish. With the wealth of resources available online, it became increasingly difficult to resist the temptation to explore other collections and include these images along with our own. Although it would have been possible to considerably broaden the time-frame of our pursuit, we chose to keep our focus on the original period in which we started for reasons pertaining to taste, consistency, and practicality: due to obvious legal restrictions, we had to stay within the limits of the public domain. This explains why there won’t be on this site illustrations first published prior to the 18th century or later than the first quarter of the 20th century.
We are not the only image collection on the web, neither will we ever be the largest one. We hope however to be a destination of choice for visitors more particularly interested in Victorian and French Romantic illustrations—we understand French Romanticism in its broadest sense and draw its final line, at least in the realm of book illustration, at the death of Gustave Doré.
We also focused our efforts on offering as many different paths and avenues as possible to help you find your way to an illustration, whether you are looking for something specific or browsing randomly. The many links organizing content by artist, language, publisher, date of birth, and more are designed to make searching easier and indecision rewarding…
And rewarding it is! See for yourself at Old Book Illustrations (@obillustrations)
(TotH to @Recomendo6)
* master illustrator Quentin Blake
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As we visualize, we might send powerfully-drawn birthday greetings to Silvio “Sal” Buscema; he was born on this date in 1936. An illustrator and comic artist, he is best remembered for his time at Marvel, especially his ten-year run as artist of The Incredible Hulk and his eight-year run as artist of The Spectacular Spider-Man.
Comics were a family business. His elder brother John is similarly renown for his work on The Avengers, The Silver Surfer, and Conan the Barbarian.
“Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light”*…
The Ecological Relations of Roots (1919) is a book by John Ernest Weaver (1884 – 1966), an American biologist and prairie ecologist. During his life, Weaver published a series of books on the relationship between plant species, their climate and the specific soils they inhabit. This book focuses on the roots of native plants in desert climates, featuring more than 140 species chosen after the examination of more than 1000 individual plants across different territories.
The text is beautifully illustrated, with detailed section drawings depicting the relationship between the plants emerging over the soil and its underneath root system. The drawings were either made from photographs or at the same time as the root was excavated featuring precise measurements.
Series of grids and scales illustrate very efficiently the varying proportions of the different species. For Weaver, one of the main aims of this publication is to understand the root distribution to ultimately find “a more intelligent solution to the ecological problems of grazing.”
In the last section of the publication, a series of photographs show the plants and their roots over a black background. While both illustrations and photos are employed for scientific purpose, they reveal an underlying aesthetic pleasure in their composition and execution.
In the introduction of the book, John Ernest Weaver thanks Miss Annie Mogensen and Mrs F. C. Jean for their assistance in drawing many of the root systems…
More beautiful illustrations at Socks (@socks_studio): “Patterns from the World Underneath: The Ecological Relations of Roots by John Ernest Weaver.” Or browse the entire book at The Internet Archive. (Via the ever-illuminating Boing Boing)
Loosely related (and similarly beautiful): “How Xavi Bou Makes His Mesmerizing Portraits of Birds in Flight.” (TotH to EWW)
* Theodore Roethke
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As we dig it, we might spare a thought for Hieronymus Bock; he died on this date in 1554. A Lutheran minister, physician, and botanist, he began the transition from medieval to modern scientific botany by arranging and naming (over 700) plants by their relation or resemblance. His was the first documented use of the modern word “Riesling” (in 1552).
“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream”*…
In 1565, twelve years after the death of François Rabelais (1494-1553) — the French Renaissance author best known for his satirical masterpiece The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel, the bawdy tale of two giants, Gargantua and his son Pantagruel [see here] — the Parisian bookseller and publisher Richard Breton brought out Les songes drolatiques de Pantagruel (The drolatic dreams of Pantagruel). The slim volume, save a short preface from Breton, is made up entirely of images [like the one above] — 120 woodcuts depicting a series of fantastically bizarre and grotesque figures, reminiscent of some of the more inventive and twisted creations of Brueghel or Bosch…
More of the backstory and more of the illustrations at “The Drolatic Dreams of Pantagruel.” See the original, in full, at The Internet Archive.
* Edgar Allan Poe
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As we explore the extraordinary, we might send mysterious birthday greetings to a master of grotesque characters: Mary Flannery O’Connor; she was born on this date in 1925. The author of two novels and thirty-two short stories (as well as a number of reviews and commentaries), she was an exemplar of the Southern Gothic movement in American literature. Her posthumously compiled Complete Stories, which won the 1972 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction, has been the subject of enduring praise.
Up, Up, and Away…
Your correspondent is headed to the other side of the International Blog-Post Line; so, while occasional missives may emerge over the next several days, regular service will resume on or around Memorial Day.
Lest readers be under-occupied in the meantime, the illuminating illustrations of Nathan Pyle:
Danger Quiz!
The Other Numbers
More at Pyle.
As we commit to continued self-improvement, we might recall that it was on this date in 1856 that a pro-slavery posse led by Sheriff Samuel J. Jones burned the Free-State Hotel, destroyed the equipment of two anti-slavery newspapers, and looted several other businesses in Lawrence, Kansas– an attack known as the “Sack of Lawrence.” Abolitionist John Brown’s nearby Pottawatomie Massacre is believed to have been a reaction to this attack.
Five years earlier– on this same date in 1851– the nation of Columbia abolished slavery.
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