These plates are from an edition of Ivan Kotlyarevsky’s 1798 poem Eneida, a ribald retelling of Virgil’s Aeneid. Kotlyarevsky transposed Aeneas, the Trojans, and Greek mythology into the folklore of Ukrainian Cossacks. It is among the first major works written in Ukrainian, and is a cornerstone of Ukraine’s national literature. Wonderfully, it also defines the very notion of a burlesque – vulgarizing lofty notions like love, family, faith and battle, feigning seriousness in the face of absurdity, and is packed to the gills with slapstick humor, comic skits, bawdy songs, and, natch, healthy portions of friskiness…

This particular version, printed in 1969, in Kiev, Ukraine, is, simply stated, one of the most beautifully designed, illustrated, typeset and produced books I’ve ever seen. Sturdy and stout, clad in a satisfyingly course gray canvas, it opens onto a corker of a title page. From the swashbuckling script of the authors name, the elemental block-y-ness of the title, and the illustration of a muscular and languid Cossack/Trojan, it’s a bravura opening gesture. From there, graphically, the book never flags – block after block of typeset verse on heavy cream paper. But the heart of the book lies in the illustrations, by A. Bazylevych, whose style is a deft hybrid of wood block engravings, thick-lined expressive cartooning, and abstract color blocks.

My recollection of the book from childhood is profoundly visceral. I can recall my father reading vignettes that swirled thrillingly in a noggin already stuffed with mythological adventures. But it’s the illustrations that left an indelible impression. It’s a phantasmagoria of soldiers and sieges, gods and devils, maidens and crones, battles and scraps, feasts and revelries, a cosmos of melodrama. Looking at them again after a span of decades, my recollection is immediate and electric – what’s vital in art, in fiction, and in life seems to spring forth in an exuberant, lusty, unruly parade.

Simply magical illustrations by Louis Darling for Eleanor Cameron’s 1958 young adult lark, Mr. Bass’s Planetoid. The book is the third in the six volume Mushroom Planet series. The books follow the adventures of two young boys, David and Chuck, and their travels to the Mushroom Planet, a small class M moon in an invisible orbit 50,000 miles from Earth covered in various types of mushrooms and populated by little green people.

I love how Darling’s illustrations merge the feel of classic mid-century boys adventure books with the epic, scientifically rigorous space art pioneered by artists like Chesley Bonestell.

The book has some personal significance as well. It’s like this – The whole Mushroom Planet series begins when the two boys, spurred by a mysterious newspaper advert, construct a rocket from everyday materials. Well, when I was a squirt, my cousin convinced me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I could build my own functional rocket. More about that in this post, here, but suffice it to say, I spent the better part of that summer absolutely sure I was space bound.

The vividness of my belief was, to this day, one of the most powerful manifestations of my imagination. So when my cousin brought over Mr. Bass’s Planetoid recently, it was quite something to feel that childhood fantasia reduced to an idea in a book I was holding in my hand 30 years later. Rather than a cold shower of demystification, though, the moment gave a fresh gloss to a tired conceit – the power of the best fiction and art to make imagination tangible.

The early 70′s edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica was a three stage rocket of concentrated knowledge. The base stage was the sturdy brown and gilt edifice we all know, and remember fondly as it fades into its new role reinforcing the foundations of used bookstores the world over. The second stage was the crimson leather bound Junior edition, the starch and fibre of a million middle school book reports. The final stage was the now nearly forgotten toddler edition – “The First Adventure in Learning Program” (See a vintage ad of the whole set here.)

They where co-produced with the Golden Press folk, which goes a long way to explain their graphic excellence. At first blush, what impresses is the serial design – amazing palette, spare but strong unifying compositions and type. And a totally killer logo – the thick-lined little birdie wearing a mortarboard. But they really blow your noggin when you grok the distinct styles and nuances of the illustrations. No surprise – the volumes were illustrated by a veritable who’s who of classic kid art – Joe Kaufman, Trina Schart, JP Miller, Dagmar Wilson, June Goldsborough, Caraway, and Art Seiden. (Another post will cover the inside art of the volumes, which is just as good)

The series grouped knowledge around experiential themes like math, comprehension, metrics, etc… one, though, was much more profound – “The Magic of Everyday Things.”  Basically it was a kid manifesto for the idea you can discern art, beauty, and coolness in just about anything, provided you’re receptive, enthusiastic and imaginative enough to try. An insight for a lifetime, and when I think about how long I marinated in these books as a squeaker, I figure I owe them a mighty debt. Take a bow little mortarboard birdie!

Jean-Gabriel Domergue – Came across this dandy cat’s work in a survey of art deco illustrators. The appeal lies in the mix of foxiness, style, and flamboyant draftsmanship. Also, they evoke many appealing associations: Degas, the decadent verve of Parisian poster art, and the lux, velvety pin up art of Rolf Armstrong.

Details are sketchy. He studied under Giovani Boldini, was a coveted society painter, organized many famous Parisian galas and soirees, designed couture fashion, and was the curator of the Jacquemart-André Museum – a man of his time having the time of his life. Galerie de Souzy has some biographical information and offers some of his lesser work for sale. There is a small museum at his family estate in Cannes. The monograph  Jean-GabrielDomergue, l’art et la mode by Gérard-Louis-Soyer is hopelessly scarce.

Henry Yan’s work invigorates a cliche – the notion of rendering as releasing a figure from its background. As technique, it’s thrilling – the wipes, the smears, the lifts – so much nuance teased out from a thin scrim of supple vine charcoal. Yan’s process is so evident, so dynamic that his work always seems to be in the process of making itself, which is what makes it so satisfying as art.

Yan began his art education in China. Eventually he moved to the United States where he studied at the Academy of Art College in San Francisco, where he is now a faculty member. These selections are from his book Henry Yan’s Figure Drawing: Techniques and Tips. His site, here.

As with most great pop art, the pleasures of Mimmo Rotella’s decollages are simple ones – expressive technique, flashy subjects, and a lusty joie de vive. Rotella tore away at lurid, glamorous and melodramatic Italian ads and movie posters, ripping and chemically dissolving them into something essential. In each case what is revealed is a burst of pure expression: shards of glamour, rough tapestries of melodrama, and blurts of type. Although critical appreciations of his work are often barnacled with pomo foolishness, they lead to fascinating places. He was a member of a European variant of Pop art called Nouveau Réalisme, which was founded in Paris by Yves Klein. Related philosophically and aesthetically to the Dada and Fluxus movements, it will certainly be a subject of further research… (By the way, what is it with all the Italians around here lately? Boldini, Disco Volante, now Rotella, an upcoming post on Virna Lisi…)

I came across this diagram recently while flipping through one of my old Junior Mechanics books. Thirty years later, what strikes me, besides the awesome Dr. Who-ness of the design, was the insane level of detail in the plans. As a kid I used to obsess over this illustration, and its specificity embedded in my little noggin not the notion of it’s construction but the inevitability of its use in my imminent exploration of outer space….

Around the same time, when I was little, 5 or six or whatever, I forget… my cousin explained to me in great detail how I could build a personal rocket ship from parts found in used car lots, hardware stores and workshops. The description left an in impression so vivid and specific – fuel mix, cockpit glass, etc – that I can still dredge up whole chunks of its imagined schematic. Still rattling around in my imagination is a faded loop I can replay at will….  zooming around in my rocketship, hugging the giant strips of no-mans land following the power lines behind our house.  Dwelling on all this now, I think it might be one of the last signposts of my childhood – when yearning imagination could still be as tangible as reality itself.

1. Andrew Wyeth and John Updike seemed to have a preternatural communion with the fundamentals of their art. Updike apparently brokered a separate and special understanding with the English language. Wyeth seemingly could will individual bristles to do his bidding in a brutally unforgiving medium awash with chance and accident.

2. Both were, fundamentally, sophisticated traditionalists. Neither flinched from the progressive edge of their art. In fact both, for the sheer love of craft, frequently experimented beyond the comfortable boundaries of their mastered style. As a result they were able to continually infuse their renderings with a freshness and modernity that kept their work free of a willfully grumpy stodginess.

3. Their aesthetic sensibilities were rooted in the landscape of rural Pennsylvania. In my own noggin, there is a direct and immediate shortcut from Updike’s descriptions of the sandstone farmhouse he grew up in Plowville to any number of Wyeth’s paintings.

4. Oddly, Updike initially set out to be an artist and graphic illustrator. He attended The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art in London. It was there and then that E.B. White offered him a position at The New Yorker, setting him on the path to becoming John Updike.

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I haven’t even collected my thoughts on the passing of Andrew Wyeth and now this… John Updike was among my very, very favorite writers. He wrote with a breathtaking dexterity and admirable directness, very often about two of my favorite things: art and women. More in tribute and thanks, later.

I had neglected to post this amazing set of vintage office party photographs from the Magnum collection, via Slate magazine… That neglect had a lot to do with not actually having blog yet. Oversight corrected. Enjoy. (hat tip Brad Failor)