Tag: illustration

Heinrich Lefler and Joseph Urban

Heinrich Lefler and Joseph Urban, Illustrations for “Die butcher der Chronika der drei Schwestern: The Books of the Chronicles of the Three Sisters”

“The Books of the Chronicles of the Three Sisters” is a German fairy tale translated by Johann Karl August Musäus, The illustrations from the 1900 edition were done by Heinrich Lefler and Joseph Urban who were set designers as well as illustrators. The publisher was Verlag von J. A. Stargardt in Berlin, Germany.

Johann Karl August Musäus (1735-87) was part of the extraordinary flowering of literary culture that characterized the court of the Duchess Anna Amalia at Weimar, a court that included Wieland, Goethe and Herder among its luminaries. Musäus had himself written two satirical novels before he published in 1782-86 his “Volksmährchen der Deutschen (Folktales of the Germans)”.  Irony, critical spirit and linguistic virtuosity make Musäus’s tales one of the brilliant, unsung achievements of eighteenth-century German literature.

Musäus has suffered at the hands of folklorists because he did not treat his material like the Grimms. Most literary historians have neglected him because his more serious attitude towards the folktale was quite different from that of the Romantics. Nonetheless, his tales have survived, sometimes revised or abridged and made suitable for children, who were certainly not the readership that Musäus first intended.

Tadanori Yokoo

Illlustration by Tadanori Yokoo

Tadanori Yokoo’s work, while highly successful commercially, is deeply personal. Employing his own themes, pictures, and references to himself and his anti-modernist collage style, his approach is instantly recognizable and individual. He has said that he learned in the late 1960s “to escape from compromise when designing by linking my creations directly to my lifestyle.”

Yokoo’s work crosses the border between design and fine art. Seemingly devoid of limitations or rules, his paintings are warm, autobiographical, and mystical and draw on a variety of seemingly incongruous influences such as spiritualism, Japanese aesthetics, the psychedelic posters of the ’60s, science fiction, and comic art. It also consciously draws on Ukiyo-e, or “the art of the floating world,” whose themes express the impermanence of life.

Several motifs recur in Yokoo’s work. His fascination with waterfalls borders on obsession. In 1999, in a group exhibition titled “Ground Zero Japan” at the Mito Museum of Art, Yokoo filled an entire room from floor to ceiling with postcards of waterfalls which were reflected in a black mirrored floor. Other exhibitions on the subject include “Craze for Waterfalls” at the Kirin Art Space Harajuku and “Tadanori Yokoo’s Magical Make a Pilgrimage Round” exhibition. In 1992, Absolut Vodka commissioned him to design an advertisement titled Absolut Yokoo featuring twenty-five of his waterfall paintings.

Yokoo is also known for his science-fiction posters and Ken Takakura gangster-film posters, and his designs have been used for theater sets in Japan and Italy.

Aaron Coleman

Aaron Coleman, “The Flight Of A Torn Kite”, 2014, Five-Color Lithograph, 30.5 x 40.6 cm, Private Collection

Aaron S. Coleman is an artist and educator living in Dekalb, Illinois.  He received his Master of Fine Arts degree from Northern Illinois University in the spring of 2013.  Aaron is a mixed media printmaker utilizing mezzotint, lithography, intaglio, relief and serigraphy to create works focused on political and social commentary.  He combines imagery from comic books and stained glass windows to raise questions concerning misconstrued belief systems and twisted moral values in our society.

Aaron is an adjunct instructor at Northern Illinois University where he teaches various printmaking courses.  He also teaches traditional stone lithography at the Chicago Printmakers Collaborative and drawing at Elgin community College.  Aaron stays in tune with the printmaking community, organizing portfolio exchanges and exhibiting both nationally and internationally.  In 2012 he organized an international mezzotint exchange titled “Both Sides Of The Brain” which hosted 17 artists from 6 different countries.  The portfolio was exhibited across the U.S. at several universities and galleries.

The Art of Writing

The Art of Writing

These images are pages from a 17th century German book on calligraphy. The full title of the book is, in English: “The Proper Art of Writing: a compilation of all sorts of capital or initial letters of German, Latin and Italian fonts from different masters of the noble art of writing”. The book was compiled by Kunstrichtige Schreibart and was published in 1655 by Paulus Fursten Kunsthändlern in Nürnberg, Germany.

A great range of different styles are represented seemingly increasing in elaborateness, and also illegibility, as the book goes on.

Ann Brauer

Ann Brauer, “Prairie Sky”, 2006, Quilt, 96 x 120 Inches

Ann Brauer has had an impressive quilting career for over 30 years. Based in Shelburne Falls, USA, her quilts are a celebration of captivating colour and immaculate technique. Her style constantly evolves, often reflecting the landscape and seasons around her, yet her enduring use of colour makes her work both recognisable and timeless.

Image reblogged from the artist’s site: https://www.annbrauer.com