'By Pullman Car to Venus!': Re-imagining Children's Murals

Everyone remembers a particularly treasured book from their childhood; one that is so much a part of you that you can't imagine your life without it. From A. A. Milne to Uderzo, our childhood memories are filled with images and stories that have shaped us in profound ways. That's why I consider the opportunity to paint a mural for a child such a gift; it's that chance to introduce an indelible image of creativity and imagination.

I've always thought that these early Science Fiction illustrations were excellent source material for murals. They have an inherent narrative that speaks of wonder and exploration, perfect for children. I think it's time for a change, so here are some ideas that may spark an alternative to the same old 'flowers and teddy bears' school of murals.

These images are from two books called 100 years of Science Fiction Illustration 1840-1940 (Frewin, Bloomsbury Books 1974), and Quand Nos Grand-Péres Imaginaient l'An 2000 (Racine, Editions Nathan, 1991).

There's something refreshing and uplifting about the energy of these works. Dirigibles, petticoats and umbrellas on a Nineteenth Century futuristic voyage to nowhere. Dwarfed by their fanciful creations (echoing the Industrial era in which they were created) there is yet something optimistic about these frail humans and their prognosis for our society.

Most of the work seen here is the work of one of the most popular book and journal illustrators of the Nineteenth Century, Albert Robida. Robida is to Jules Verne what Arthur C. Clarke is to Isaac Asimov:  He was an inventor who "proposed inventions integrated into everyday life, not creations of mad scientists, and he imagined the social developments that arose from them, often with accuracy: social advancement of women, mass tourism, pollution, etc." (Wiki). Indeed, his concept of the Telephonoscope seems remarkably prescient: a flat screen television display that delivered the latest news 24-hours a day, the latest plays, courses, and teleconferences.

Anyone interested in the direct lineage in thinking between Robida and Clarke need only read Clarke's fascinating book, Profiles of the Future, and it will become immediately apparent. But let's spare the children Robida's darker visions of germ warfare, and concentrate on the lighter stuff for now!

Here's a Flickr set I posted of his futuristic contraptions, and a separate blog post on the topic of flying machines that you may find useful as inspiration. Of course, there's always the flying machines website, and Matt Novak's excellent Paleo-future blog.

In a way it all seems quaint in retrospect, considering that the future these guys envisioned hasn't happened. We can't live forever, we can't even clone ourselves. The most we can do is Botox ourselves into a hideous mess or artificially inflate our pecs, remaking ourselves in the image of the biggest jock in high school. Why don't we have Utopia yet? I want names dammit!

On a more positive side-note: It's old news that we're botching this planet, but I think one nice thing we could do before we go is to come up with some sort of lightweight resin or polymer to replace all our disappearing glaciers. Make them look identical in every way to the original, only not wet or cold. That way the robots who take over Earth will have something nice to look at on vacation.

Bruce McCall, New Yorker illustrator and 'retro-futurist' made a fun presentation of his drawings at TED:




I have a dog-eared and well-worn copy of 1000 Tin Toys (apparently now titled 1000 Robots), by Taschen. It's a compendium of beautiful photographs of the coolest tin toys around; a lifetime of obsessive hoarding by Japanese collector Teruhisa Kitahara. Any one of these images looks great painted on a sheet of cut-out plywood and hung on the wall as a stand-alone piece, or as inspiration for a mural.

The last word goes to the great Franklin Booth:

Mrs. Vanderbilt's boudoir

No strangers to ostentation, the Vanderbilt's spared no expense at The Breakers, their 1895 gilded 'cottage' in Newport, Rhode Island. There are a number of exquisitely painted decorations, including a couple of the prettiest ceilings I've ever seen. Unfortunately; no photography allowed. If that's going to be the case, then please at least give us a decent bookstore!

The Artist as Editor v. the Autistic Savant

"Art is nothing if not an editing process. "

I put that in quotations to make it seem like some sort of rule, but I just said it myself. Actually it's more of a truism than a rule, like "An evil genius always has an English accent."

But all-knowing Wikipedia tends to agree. When discussing composition, it says of 'Simplification' that:

"Images with clutter can distract from the main elements within the picture and make it difficult to identify the subject. By decreasing the extraneous content, the viewer is more likely to focus on the primary objects."

I've touched on the broad subject of composition elsewhere on this blog, but it's always interesting to note the exceptions to any 'rule'. Generally speaking, we use our cognitive and creative abilities to whittle down to (our version of) the essence of an object. Like applying filters, we remove information or supplant it with our personal impression of what is essential.

If we accept that as more or less true, then what do we make of someone like Franco Magnani, the so-called 'memory artist'? Through a neurological disorder he is concerned with the opposite, creating paintings of his home town, a place he hasn't seen in over 20 years, that are a manifestation of the almost holographic visions that occur to him with hallucinatory force. He seems to paint in a very real attempt to put down every single detail.

Or, what of the case of artist Stephen Wiltshire? Diagnosed with autism, his primary mode of communication as a child was through pencil and paper, sketching buildings in incredible detail. His 13' x 7' drawing of London (after being raised up to a vantage point in a helicopter) is beyond impressive: it's a testament to the innate power of the human brain. A brain that, by the way, has not changed at all, genetically speaking, since our days of knuckle-dragging across the Serengeti. Of course, development of one part of the brain to this degree usually carries with it the terrible price of a kind of atrophy of others, specifically with regard to socialization skills. It's as if, in these instances, raw brain power blisters up through the protective layers of socialized norms. 

There are a number of videos on Youtube dedicated to his amazing abilities. Here's one:



The Wisconsin Medical Society said that:

"Perhaps the most striking and astonishing display of Stephen's remarkable visual memory and drawing ability occurs in a segment on a 2001 BBC documentary entitled Fragments of Genius. In this segment Stephen is taken on a helicopter ride over the city of London. After a brief ride, he returns to the ground where, in three hours, he completes a stunningly detailed and remarkably accurate drawing of London from the air which spans four square miles with 12 major landmarks and 200 other buildings drawn to perfect perspective and scale. Words cannot describe the prodigious ability and visual memory that drawing documents; it needs to be seen to be appreciated."

There were hundreds of calls and letters to the BBC following that broadcast seeking to purchase originals of Stephen's artwork. That initial interest and then a sustained demand for the drawings led to the publication of an entire volume of his works entitled Drawings (J.M. Dent & Sons, Ltd, London, 1987).

Stephen has produced three additional books including Cities ( J.M. Dent & Sons, London, 1989) and Floating Cities (Summit Books, New York, 1991). The latter became a "#1 best seller" in England with remarkable drawings of Venice, Amsterdam, Leningrad and Moscow. His most recent book, Stephen Wiltshire's American Dream (Michael Joseph, London, 1993) was devoted to U.S. architecture and the desert landscape of Arizona.

As a side note, there's an interesting set of slides called Art and Autism on the studio 360 site showing the different ways of viewing a piece of artwork between an autistic person and a so-called "normal" person. The process of skimming that we do on a daily basis in order to reduce the sensory load on our brains, wherein we make instantaneous decisions about what is important about a subject, is somehow skewed or missing in some autistic people.

So what to make of the process of creating art in the light of anomalies such as these? I believe that the majority of us must be content to follow the rules, treading a line between expression and restraint. Gunter Grass says "we must brave the strength of our emotions every day". Waxing poetical as usual, Kalil Gibran [Prophet and Art Critic! - he's getting two pay checks this week] says:

"Your reason and your passion are the rudder and sails of your seafaring soul. If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas. For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction."

Well, all hyperbole aside, there's probably a nugget of truth there. Any thoughts?

Outdoor Advertising Murals; a dying Art?

UP THERE from Jon on Vimeo.

I've always loved looking up in New York and seeing the faded remains of these beautiful murals. Vinyl has really changed the landscape and made it much harder for artists to survive in this field.

This short film is a meditative homage to the Art, and is well worth looking at. I couldn't help but agree when one of the guys in the film said "there's a few of us keeping it going...which is good, because I don't know how to do anything else."

Read more on the official website at uptherefilm.com

Masterpieces of Marquetry

Pierre Ramond wrote a three set volume of books called Masterpieces of Marquetry, published by Getty. It's impossible to overstate the awesomeness of the set. If you can, you should really get your hands on a copy, if only just to pore over the incredible photographs and corresponding pen and ink illustrations. I received these as a gift from a good friend, and have treasured them since.

Here's the product description from the Amazon site:

"Marquetry, also called intarsia or inlay, is the art of creating intricate pictures and designs on furniture by skillfully cutting and fitting together thin pieces of colored wood, horn, metal, shell, and other precious materials. While this highly specialized art has roots in ancient times, it was popularized in the eighteenth century in France and today remains centered in Paris. This three-volume set—originally published in French and now available for the first time in English—is the most comprehensive examination to date of the techniques used by expert marqueters in creating their exquisite masterpieces."

"The first two volumes are detailed studies of the history of the medium from antiquity to the end of the twentieth century, illustrated with examples from the collections of European furniture and decorative arts in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Musée du Louvre in Paris, the Wallace Collection in London, and the Getty Museum. A final volume presents the masterpieces of some of the greatest cabinetmakers and marqueters in history, including Pierre Golle, André-Charles Boulle, Bernard van Riesenburgh, Jean-Francois Oeben, Jean-Henri Riesener, and Abraham and David Roentgen. Methodically organized and lavishly illustrated, this set is an invaluable resource for art historians, antique collectors, and dealers, as well as contemporary fine furniture makers."

Ramond was born in 1935 in the southern French town of Soreze, near Toulouse. After studying his craft, Ramond moved and set up a studio at his new home in Paris. During this time he began teaching marquetry at l'École Boulle, the prestigious craft school in Paris, and was named Full Professor in 1978. He is now President of the Jury of Marqueters for the contest of the "Meilleurs Ouvriers de France," lecturing and traveling widely to establish schools of marquetry in Montreal and at the J. Paul Getty Museum in California.

It's fascinating how symbiotic the historic relationship is between the development of Art and Technology. The one has always informed the other. As far as marquetry is concerned, the taste for more intricate detail and organic shapes required a smaller cutting blade and stronger steel. The call from the ateliers to the toolmakers was clear: "We need better tools."

The same is true today. Even giants like DuPont are working with artists and pushing the boundaries of products such as Corian. I'm getting on to a different topic here, but it's definitely one that I will come back to. We are pioneers!

These gorgeous drawings are a great add-on and study aid to an earlier tutorial I posted detailing how to draw the acanthus.

Panneau décoratif

This incredible panel is from the collection at the Musée Des Arts Decoratif, in Paris. Wow!

Maybe some day I'll get a chance to paint something like this. The scale and proportion of each element is perfect; so hard to find these days. Here's an unfinished panel (below) that I started to paint. Unfortunately, unless there's someone waving a check at the finish line, I find it hard to spend the time to complete. 

Chinoiserie Panel

Maison Jansen

The apartment of Pierre Delbée, the President of Jansen, was home to five incredible inlaid doors. Made of ebony and ivory, each was a surrealistic take on an architectural theme and displayed the incredible artistry of the Jansen atelier. They took three artisans over twenty months to complete.

The original doors were sold at Christie's Monaco in 1999, so I was asked to replicate them. Unfortunately this project never got beyond the design stage. These images are from the book Jansen, published by Acanthus Press. I posted images of all five doors on my Flickr page.

Here is the drawing I did of a section of the door above, and a sample showing the ebony and ivory inlay, with silver areas (yet to be leafed) left light blue.

Nicolas Lancret

Lancret will always play second fiddle to his peer, Watteau. In fact, he only really became popular after Watteau died, being the last man standing for this kind of work.

Anyway, I like him better than Watteau because he was kicked out of the Academie Royale in 1708 for bad behaviour. Imagining all those powdered prigs behaving badly is hilarious, until you realize they'd run you through with a sword for using the wrong fork.

Though he painted more than seven hundred works, these gorgeous paintings of Chinoiserie-inflected frames (with typical fête galante scenes) are difficult to find. I love them mostly for the frames, and have referred to these several times in my own work. I hope you find them useful too.

A House Painter's Guide, from 1840

All Illustrations this article from the book by Henry William Arrowsmith (published 1840), called The house decorator and painter's guide; containing a series of designs for decorating apartments, suited to the various styles of architecture. 

I posted a complete set of illustrations from this volume on my Flickr page, here.

These wonderful illustrations make me smile. I can't imagine the economic system that existed where it was conceivable even to publish a book such as this. I mean, who's house is this that they're supposed to be painting? Not mine! It reminds me of this funny article from The Onion:

Report: Nation's Gentrified Neighborhoods Threatened By Aristocratization

"According to a report released Tuesday by the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank, the recent influx of exceedingly affluent powder-wigged aristocrats into the nation's gentrified urban areas is pushing out young white professionals, some of whom have lived in these neighborhoods for as many as seven years.

"When you have a bejeweled, buckle-shoed duke willing to pay 11 or 12 times the asking price for a block of renovated brownstones—and usually up front with satchels of solid gold guineas—hardworking white-collar people who only make a few hundred thousand dollars a year simply cannot compete," Kennedy said. "If this trend continues, these exclusive, vibrant communities with their sidewalk cafés and faux dive bars will soon be a thing of the past."

"Around here, you used to be able to get a Fair-Trade latte and a chocolate-chip croissant for only eight bucks," said Getz, who is planning to move back in with his parents after being forced out of the lease on his organic grocery store by a harpsichord purveyor. "Now it's all tearooms and private salon gatherings catered with champagne and suckling pig. Who can afford that?"

"It's just a terrible shame," Getz continued. "There was this great little shop right across the street from my duplex apartment where I bought my baby daughter a Ramones onesie a couple of years ago, just after she was born. That whole block is an opera house now."

"These accusations are pure, slanderous rubbish," said Lord Nathan Dunkirk III, the owner of a prodigious manor house that, along with its steeplechase course and topiary garden, sits on what was once the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. "If anything, the layabouts and wastrels have been afforded a veritable glut of new and felicitous opportunities as bootblacks and scullery maids."

Other aristocrats have echoed Dunkirk and have additionally deflected blame onto regification, a process by which they say they were priced out of their vast rural holdings by kings who wished to consolidate property and develop monumental palatial estates."