tristesse engraved january 2012 issue

tristesse engraved january 2012

contents page 3-10: camera lucida - john herschel page 11-16: richard throssel page 17-39: adventures in posterland page 40-45: sam hood page 46-60: stig lindberg page 61-71: ruth davidson abrams page 72-83: frantisek kupka page 84-95: joyce badrocke page 96-111: maria prymachenko page 112-131: anonymous tantric paintings page 132-138: mary fedden page 139-143: charles fletcher lummis page 144-145: by an unknown photographer page 146-152: an archive # 4

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camera lucide - john herschel

The camera lucida performs an optical superimposition of the subject being viewed upon the surface upon which an artist is drawing. The artist sees both scene and drawing surface simultaneously, as in a photographic double exposure. This allows the artist to duplicate key points of the scene on the drawing surface, thus aiding in the accurate rendering of perspective. At times, the artist can even trace the outlines of objects.

The camera lucida was patented in 1807 by William Hyde Wollaston. There seems to be evidence that the camera lucida was actually nothing but a reinvention of a device clearly described 200 years earlier by Johannes Kepler in his Dioptrice (1611).[1] By the 19th century, Kepler’s description had totally fallen into oblivion, so Wollaston’s claim was not challenged. The term "camera lucida" (Latin "Light Room" as opposed to camera obscura "Dark Room") is Wollaston's.

Herschel (1792-1871) the mathematician, chemist & astronomer also made several important contributions to the development of photography, including inventing the cyanotype process & his other artistic skills are clearly evident in the following examples of sketches he made using a camera lucide

bengore head, ireland 1827

church of st.antonio, padua 1828

clay columns at stalde in the visp thal 1821

interior of the crater of vesuvius 1824

les eaux chaudes 1850

the old schloss, baden baden 1829

the waterfall of chede 1828

richard throssel (1882-1993)

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Richard Throssel was born in Marengo, Washington in 1882. Throssel is best known for his photographs of the Crow Reservation from 1902-1911. These photographs of the Crows, which cover ceremonies, dances, scenes of everyday life, as well as individual and group portraits, are not only priceless historical documents they are, very simply, beautiful photographs.[1] Though Throssel was not Crow, his quarter blood of Canadian Cree heritage and 1906 adoption into the Crow Nation afforded him intimate moments, which non-Indian photographers could not experience with the Crow People of Montana.

After a long bought with rheumatism, it was recommended he live in a drier climate. At the age of twenty, Throssel moved to the Crow Reservation in Montana as a clerk for the Indian Services office. He was exposed to the outstanding art environment that existed on the Crow Reservation. Throssel observed stunning Crow beading, narrative ledger art, and the paintings and photographs of non-Indian artists, Joseph Henry Sharp and Edward S. Curtis.

Through painting lessons with Sharp, Throssel learned not only technique; he acquired the principles of design and composition.

p adventures in posterland

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sam hood (1872-1953) Samuel John Hood was an Australian photographer

and photojournalist. His career began in the late 1880s. He ran a successful business in ships portraits (these negatives are now held by the Australian National Maritime Museum, Sydney) and portraits of people in the late nineteenth - early twentieth century. What is most compelling is Sam Hood's adaptability to the changing nature of commercial photography.

He opened his first studio in 1899 and the main source of income was generated from the main application of photography in the day - portraiture and weddings. Sam also supplemented this with income generated from selling finished and framed images of sailing vessels to the crews of vessels as they arrived in Sydney Harbour. He is reputed to have photographed every vessel that entered the Sydney harbor during a career that spanned 60 years (1890s-1950s).

In 1918 he acquired the Dalny Studio at 124 Pitt Street, and began to expand his business into press photography, providing photographs for The Sydney Mail, the Australasian, the Daily Guardian, the Daily Telegraph Pictorial, the Labor Daily, the Sun, the Daily News and The Sydney Morning Herald. Press photography increasingly came to dominate his business, and in 1934 he joined the Labor Daily for a short time as a full-time photographer, engaging other staff to look after his studio. At the beginning of Sam's career photography in newspapers was a novelty and although the technology to reproduce half tone illustrations was in use by 1880 the Australian papers and in particular wood engravers whose job it was to illustrate articles resisted the new process. The Sydney Morning Herald did not reproduce a photograph until 1908. Sam Hood is acknowledged as a trailblazer in this genre becoming adept at capturing the sensational, trivial and in particular sporting moments with his camera. A number of photographers worked for Dalny Studio: some of these include Ernie Bowen, Gus Daley, Jack Lazern, Lethington Maitland as well as Sam's own children Gladys and Ted. By the mid-1930s most newspapers employed their own photographers, and Hood's commissions from the papers began to decline. Hood sought other kinds of commissions, and won a number of long term advertising and commercial contracts. He contributed a number of photographs of Sydney buildings and streets to Building, Construction and Australasian Engineer during the late 1930s and early 1940s. Hood also had extensive contacts in the entertainment industry, who called upon him to document celebrity events and stars, as well as theatre advertising. Throughout his career he worked at the stock-in-trade for commercial photographers: portraits, weddings etc.

stig lindberg (1916-1982) ceramics

Stig Lindberg (1916-1982) was one of Sweden's most important postwar designers. His seminal vision of design has influenced an entire generation of new Swedish designers, with timeless, beautiful and inherently Swedish creations.

Bemz has chosen to reproduce two of Stig Lindbergs famous textile designs ”Bulbous” and ”Herbarium”. These designs have been reprinted by Bemz for the first time since the 1960s when they were originally produced. We feel that they fit perfectly with our feeling of Scandinavian design and the revived interest in retro design and style.

Stig Lindberg studied at the Swedish State School of arts, crafts and design in Stockholm, hoping to become a painter. Lindberg was employed by one of the preeminent ceramics houses in Sweden and worked with Gustavsberg’s studio until 1980 when he then moved to Italy to establish his own studio.

r ruth davidson abrams (1912-1986)

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frantisek kupka (1871-1957) Born in Bohemia in 1871, František Kupka first studied at the School of Fine Arts in Prague where he received a traditional, academic training. This was followed by a period in fin-de-siècle Vienna, at that date the capital of the AustroHungarian Empire and the vibrant setting for thinkers and artists such as Sigmund Freud and Gustav Klimt. There, Kupka’s early spiritual interests soon led him to become interested in Symbolism, a style that focused on the quest for universal truth, the use of metaphor to express ideals, and a mood of introspection. The artist’s profound interest in the metaphysical and his fidelity to his origins would be evident throughout his career. The modern spirit of Paris encouraged Kupka to move there in 1896, and he remained there until his death in 1957.

j joyce badrocke (b.1926) british fabric designer - key work for Horrockses.

m maria prymachenko (1908-1997) Mysterious and emotionally charged, the works of Maria Prymachenko, a folk master of Ukrainian decorative painting, seem to absorb the age-old traditions of many generations of Ukrainian master-craftsmen who, from the depths of the centuries, have brought forth their understanding of good and evil, of ugliness and beauty.

Images often had арреаred to the artist in dreams and later materialized in her compositions. Maria Prymachenko's art works depict fabulous mythological beasts and take their roots іn folk legends and fairy-tales, nourished bу real life and culture of the Ukrainian people.

The works of Prymachenko can be subdivided into thematic, symbolic and ornamental pieces. All compositions are characterized by a subtle and fluent rhythmical arrangement.

There is a maxim: "Style makes man." As for Prymachenko, one can state this in reverse: man makes style, for Maria Prymachenko has developed a style of her own. In this evolution one can discern traces of constructivism (1930s); the victory of harmony (1960s- 1970s); and the decorative approach (1980s). Her latest works impress one by their daring decorativeness of form. Prymachenko gravitates to the world of fairy-tale and mystery: her birds, beasts and plants interact on her pictures just as harmoniously and easily as they do in natural surroundings. Philosophy of the good animates the content of her works. The good embodied in the images of 'kind' beasts and birds (lions, bears, hares, storks, swallows) is juxtaposed against the evil, this mighty force which is sometimes difficult to identify with certain living things. The artist often resorts to her favoured device of personification: she depicts fabulous animals with large eyes surrounded with a trim of eye-lashes.

Thematic compositions occupy a special place in Prymachenko's creative legacy as far as the complexity of compositional arrangement and harmonious balance are concerned. Raw actuality and fairy-tale become blended in her compositions into one single whole, triumphantly demonstrating the unity of Nature. People depicted in these compositions are composed and full of dignity and self-respect. Her early compositions were executed against a white background, associated with the whitewashed walls of peasant cottages. But in the 1970s-1980s the artist turned to coloured backgrounds. It seems that colour itself creates the effect of colour-bearing space. There are no professional secrets in her arsenal: she paints on Whatman paper with factory-manufactured brushes and uses gouache and water colours.

She prefers gouache which gives a bright and thick decorative base with graphic contours.

Apart from searches in colour scheme, the artist strives to achieve expressive outlines and an effective rhythmical arrangement. Another salient feature of Prymachenko's art is a keen sense of composition, which is especially evident in her choice of format. Horizontal formats are most suitable for topical and multifigured compositions depicting subsequent scenes of the narration, while the vertical format is used for representative decorative compositions.

The originality of the artist's imagery is revealed in her unique formal and stylistic discoveries (the depiction of trees, simultaneous representation of a cottage's interior and exterior, etc.).

The struggle between good and evil permeates all of Pryymachenko's works. Good always triumphs in her compositions. But the motif of exuberant joy often gives way to sorrow and grief (a grave adorned with flowers and rushnyks is frequently depicted on her pictures).

t anonymous tantric paintings

m mary fedden

c charles fletcher lummis (1859-1928)

the verrugas bridge, peruvian central railroad 1893

‘v’ at tambo de visa, peruvian central railroad 1893

the infiernillo, peruvian central railroad 1893

chaupichaca bridge, peruvian central railroad 1893

ď Ź by an unknown photographer hibiscus 1915

ď ş an archive # 4

spanish land grants in florida (from the archives of the florida state library)

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