I was reading about Gustav Mahler on wikipedia when… this caricature. 1901.
June 8th, 2011
medieval dentistry
I like this medieval illustration of dentistry.
Miniature on a initial ‘D’ with a scene representing teeth (“dentes”). A dentist with silver forceps and a necklace of large teeth, extracting the tooth of a seated man.
From Wikipedia.
March 26th, 2011
francis antonio blake
Antonio Saura‘s illustrations sometimes look like a mix between Quentin Blake and Francis Bacon… A lot of his work can be found categorized neatly on the website of his succession.
Above is an example of his graphic work from 1973.
Previous post: Quentin Blake keeps it jazzy
February 18th, 2011
in brainbows
Proto magazine has some gorgeous images and representations of brain structures. Above is “Broad Overview [of a Human Hippocampus],” Tamily Weissman, Jeff Lichtman and Joshua Sanes, 2005.
It was the hippocampus as no one had ever seen it, illuminated in radiant hues. The image is called, aptly, a Brainbow, the colors serving a scientific purpose by highlighting specific neural structures. Yet their choice also reflects an artistic bent; scientists display the brain not the way it is (an undifferentiated gray) but the way we want to see it, “painted” with bursts of fluorescent color.
Below is “Olfactory Bulb [of a Dog],” by Camillo Golgi, pen and ink on paper, 1875.
More at Proto magazine.
February 11th, 2011
an example of making anything signify anything
For much of his long and largely secret career, Colonel William F. Friedman kept a very special photograph under the glass plate that covered his desk. As desks go, this one saw some impressive action. By the time he retired from the National Security Agency in 1955, Friedman had served for more than thirty years as his government’s chief cryptographer, and—as leader of the team that broke the Japanese PURPLE code in World War II, co-inventor of the US Army’s best cipher machine, author of the papers that gave the field its mathematical foundations, and coiner of the very term cryptanalysis—he had arguably become the most important code-breaker in modern history.1
At first glance, the photo looks like a standard-issue keepsake of the kind owned by anyone who has served in the military. Yet Friedman found it so significant that he had a second, larger copy framed for the wall of his study. When he looked at the oblong image, taken in Aurora, Illinois, on a winter’s day in 1918, what did Friedman see? He saw seventy-one officers, soon to be sent to the war in France, for whom he had designed a crash course on the theory and practice of cryptology. He saw his younger self at one end of the mysterious group of black-clad civilians seated in the center; and at the other end he saw the formidable figure of George Fabyan, the director of Riverbank Laboratories in nearby Geneva, where Friedman found not just his cryptographic calling but also his wife Elizebeth (flanked here by two other instructors from Riverbank’s Department of Ciphers). And he saw a coded message, hiding in plain sight. As a note on the back of the larger print explains, the image is a cryptogram in which people stand in for letters; and thanks to Friedman’s careful positioning, they spell out the words “KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.” (Or rather they almost do: for one thing, they were four people short of the number needed to complete the “R.”)
The photograph was an enduring reminder, then, of Friedman’s favorite axiom—and he was so fond of the phrase that some fifty years later he had it inscribed as the epitaph on his tomb in Arlington National Cemetery.2 It captures a formative moment in a life spent looking for more than meets the eye, and it remained Friedman’s most cherished example of how, using the art and science of codes, it was possible to make anything signify anything.
More at cabinetmagazine via 3qd.
December 11th, 2010
a cat from deergrass
A cat from deergrass, sticks and maple seeds.
I love the resourcefulness of these DIY toys, made from the materials of nature. The illustrations are also charming in themselves. The resulting products are all the more charming and special because of their limited lifespans and their fragility.
Autumn was perhaps the best time for these. But the principle of resourcefulness is unseasonal.
(via designsquish)
September 28th, 2010
penny university
Image: Discussing the war in a Paris Café, 1870. Frederick Barnard (1846-1896)
Penny University is a term originating from the eighteenth century coffeehouses in London, England. Instead of paying for drinks, people were charged a penny to enter a coffee house. Once inside, the patron had access to coffee, the company of others, various discussions, pamphlets, bulletins, newspapers, and the latest news and gossip. Reporters called “runners” went around to the coffee houses announcing the latest news, perhaps not too unlike what we might hear on the TV or the radio today.
This environment attracted an eclectic group of people that met and mingled with each other at these coffee houses. In a society that placed such a high importance on class and economic status, the coffee houses were unique because the patrons were people from all levels of society. Anyone who had a penny could come inside. Students from the universities also frequented the coffee houses, sometimes even spending more time at the shops than at school.
Since that time, various coffee shops all over the world have used the name “Penny University”.
The original sense, of a coffee house, probably grew out of a common experience: that you came out of a coffeehouse feeling ten times as smart as you were when you went in (as Montesquieu observed in The Persian Letters). As, indeed, wide-ranging conversations ensued therein, from the commercial (leading to the founding of, in London, Lloyd’s of London, and in New York, the New York Stock Exchange) to the political, and the purely intellectual; the idea that one could acquire an education for the price of a cup of coffee, that is, a penny, took hold of the poetic imagination.
Penny University at Wikipedia. Thanks Alice for the link!
September 23rd, 2010
art is love is art is whatever
Milton Glaser speaks about art as a cultural unifier, about teaching art, and about holding on to your “capacity for astonishment”.
(via grafischontwerpgent.be)
September 18th, 2010
rakefingers
Above is a birch letter from the 13th century found at Novgorod, Russia. Wiki:
Birch-bark letter no. 202 contains spelling lessons and drawings made by a boy named Onfim; based on draftsmanship, experts estimate his age as between 6 and 7 at the time.
Birch Bark Document @ Wikipedia
There are thousands more examples from Novgorod, like letter 292, which contains an epigrammatic invocation against lightning.
August 23rd, 2010
blake keeps it jazzy
Blake by Blake.
Quentin Blake on illustrating Roald Dahl’s The BFG:
Sometimes the writer even makes changes to the story if the pictures seem to need it. For example, in the original version of The BFG, the giant was wearing a big leather apron and knee-length boots. They were only mentioned once, but of course they had to appear in every drawing. However when I did the first drawings, Roald felt that the apron got in the way when the giant moved and ran and jumped, and that the boots were just dull. So we sat down round the dining table to rethink the costume. But we couldn’t agree what the BFG should wear on his feet. Several days later I received through the post a rather oddly-shaped and oddly wrapped brown paper parcel. Unwrapping it revealed a large sandal – one of Roald’s own, which is what the BFG now wears.
Blake’s website is full of interesting information like that about his work and his process, all in interview format.
I like his approach to the process of illustration:
I do a free-wheeling sort of drawing that looks as if it has been done on the spur of the moment, although in reality it’s not quite like that. I start with lots of roughs – some of which turn out to be quite close to the finished drawing, and some of which are discarded. For a book there’s lots of planning. What goes on which page? Do the actions carry on from one picture to another? Do the characters still look the same on each page?
For about twenty years I’ve used a lightbox, which I find really useful. On the light box I put the rough drawing I’m going to work from, and on top of that, a sheet of watercolour paper. Ready to hand is a bottle of waterproof black ink and a lot of scruffy looking dip pens. What happens next is not tracing; in fact it’s important that I can’t see the rough drawing underneath too clearly, because when I draw I try to draw as if for the first time; but I can do it with increased concentration, because the drawing underneath lets me know all the elements that have to appear and exactly where they have to be placed.’
From Quentin Blake.com.