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The Translation of the Arch-Imperator , (H. Durand-Brager: Sainte-Hélène, 1844 / C. N. Lemercier: Translation du corps de Napoleon, ca.1842)
Special Artist Henri Durand-Brager had made a name for himself with an opulent documentation of the return of the remains of Napoleon I from foreign, British occupied soil to his homeland. Brager´s expedition report Sainte-Hélène was published in an impressive folio format in 1844. What is remarkable, is that the cycle completely disregards the actual […]
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Drawn by Light. Camille Corot and his `cliché-verre´ experiments
Cliché-verre is an ambivalent thing, an inanity, the zero point in the graphic arts of the second half of the 19th century, to cite the opinion of Roland Barthes.(1) The wide variety of terms used to describe this phenomenon in itself speaks volumes: “dessin sur verre pour photographie”, “photogenic drawing”, “dessin héliographique”, “Hyalographie” (glass print), […]
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“Confound the Line” – Photo-Graphics of the New School of Wood Engraving (Exhibition)
“With the new school nothing is theoretically impossible, and no means are illegitimate.” (Frederick Juengling, 1880) Wood engraving, actually a product of early English Romanticism, experienced its breakthrough with the rise of the illustrated press. Its phenomenal success owed to its hybridity, for it combined the fine mechanical quality of copper engraving with the advantages […]
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spiegeln (mirroring) – Pictorial Improvisations on Heine´s Winter´s Tale (Cycle of aquatint etchings)
In her extensive cycle of graphics, which she began with in 2011, Manuela A. Beck references in a free associative manner motifs drawn from Heinrich Heine´s complex philosophical-political verse-epic. The technique of etching is not employed for reproductive purposes here, but as the original medium of pictorial composition.The artist succeeds in creating pictographic-abstract formulations that […]
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Examples of handdrawn photo-views and photo-graphic hybrids [Handdrawn Photo-Views by Louis Glaser] (Recommended by Ben Katchor)
Souvenir postcards are a major source of visual documentation, in some cases the only surviving images of places and things.There are several souvenir albums online published by Louis Glaser from Leipzig in the last decades of the 19th century. The Catskill archive explains that these views were made to simulate photographs in texture and tone, […]
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The Lake Country-Sketchbook , June 23-July 18th 1863
In addition to a number of studies on the flora of the Lakes, two sketchbooks of Linton with landscape views have come down to us. One is in the collection of Yale University, another in the Linton-Archive of the Melton Prior Institute. The latter contains watercolours and drawings made during hikes in the North East […]
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Das Grauen, das aus Archiven kommt : “Kriegszeit” in Stuttgart (Ausstellungsbesprechnung)
Not translated: Offensichtlich wurde diese Kriegs – Ausstellung der Staatsgalerie Stuttgart um das reichhaltige Konvolut von exzellenten Grafiken und Originalzeichnungen von Käthe Kollwitz herum konzipiert, das sich in der hauseigenen Sammlung befindet. Mehr als ein Drittel der Ausstellungsfläche ist ihrem Werk gewidmet; darunter befinden sich auch die beiden grafischen Zyklen Ein Weberaufstand (1897) und Bauernkrieg […]
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On Cotman´s Trail in Normandy
John Sell Cotman is mainly known for his groundbreaking retinal and neoclassical approach to landscape painting which showed him as an early precursor of Cezanne. In contrast, his huge body of etchings enjoys a rather bad reputation. It is said that his printed works, which he mainly executed in commission of his patron Dawson Turner, […]
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Illustration expanded. William James Linton: Bob Thin or the Poorhouse Fugitive. London, 1840- 45
Lintoniana III “Men like no prosy tales: we’ll try How doggrel rhyme fits history.” The MePri-Collection holds four different copies of Linton’s groundbreaking social poem in which he accuses the afflictions caused by the inhuman legislation for the poor. “This poem established Linton as a peoples poet and became part of the repertoire of radical […]