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Graphic Arts

Viktor Deni, "1st May", poster 1929, lithography print

Soviet Propaganda and Anti-Religious Campaigns

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To win in the civil war, the sprouting Soviet power had to ensure it was supported by the workers and the peasants. How could they show the illiterate population that the Bolsheviks were on their side? With a bright poster and a catchy slogan…Soviet propaganda found the soft spots of the powerless poor people, and the outstanding artists of the Russian avant garde helped attack them.” – From Bird in Flight, “The Early Days of Soviet Propaganda.”

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The Soviet Union was the first state to have as an ideological objective the elimination of religion. Toward that end, the Communist regime confiscated church property, ridiculed religion, harassed believers, and propagated atheism in the schools. Actions toward particular religions, however, were determined by State interests, and most organized religions were never outlawed.

The main target of the anti-religious campaign in the 1920s and 1930s was the Russian Orthodox Church, which had the largest number of faithful. Nearly all of its clergy, and many of its believers, were shot or sent to labor camps. Theological schools were closed, and church publications were prohibited. By 1939 only about 500 of over 50,000 churches remained open.” – From the Library of Congress, Revelations from the Russian Archives, Anti-religious Campaigns.

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Gustave Dore, "Young Beggar," Pencil & Watercolor.

Paul Gustave Louis Christophe Doré

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``I have been told for a long time that painting would make me despair of life.``

Gustave Dore,”The Hare and the Frogs.” Engraving, 1868.
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Left side: “Paolo and Francesca da Rimini.” Oil on canvas. | Right side: “The Inferno, Canto 5.” Etching.

Doré was born in Strasbourg on 6 January 1832. By age five, he was a prodigy troublemaker, playing pranks that were mature beyond his years. Seven years later, he began carving in cement. At the age of fifteen Doré began his career working as a caricaturist for the French paper Le Journal pour rire, and subsequently went on to win commissions to depict scenes from books by Rabelais, Balzac, Milton and Dante.

In 1853, Doré was asked to illustrate the works of Lord Byron. This commission was followed by additional work for British publishers, including a new illustrated English Bible. In 1856 he produced twelve folio-size illustrations of The Legend of The Wandering Jew for a short poem which Pierre-Jean de Ranger had derived from a novel of Eugène Sue of 1845.

In the 1860s he illustrated a French edition of Cervantes’s Don Quixote, and his depictions of the knight and his squire, Sancho Panza, have become so famous that they have influenced subsequent readers, artists, and stage and film directors’ ideas of the physical “look” of the two characters. Doré also illustrated an oversized edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”, an endeavor that earned him 30,000 francs from publisher Harper & Brothers in 1883. (wiki)

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 Gustave Doré, “The Martyrdom of the Holy Innocents,” 1868.

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Doré’s illustrations for the English Bible (1866) were a great success, and in 1867 Doré had a major exhibition of his work in London. This exhibition led to the foundation of the Doré Gallery in Bond Street, London. In 1869, Blanchard Jerrold, the son of Douglas William Jerrold, suggested that they work together to produce a comprehensive portrait of London. Jerrold had obtained the idea from The Microcosm of London produced by Rudolph Ackermann, William Pyne, and Thomas Rowlandson in 1808. Doré signed a five-year contract with the publishers Grant & Co that involved his staying in London for three months a year, and he received the vast sum of £10,000 a year for the project. Doré was mainly celebrated for his paintings in his day. His paintings remain world-renowned, but his woodcuts and engravings, like those he did for Jerrold, are where he really excelled as an artist with an individual vision.

The completed book, London: A Pilgrimage, with 180 engravings, was published in 1872. It enjoyed commercial and popular success, but the work was disliked by many contemporary critics. Some of these critics were concerned with the fact that Doré appeared to focus on the poverty that existed in parts of London. Doré was accused by The Art Journal of “inventing rather than copying.” The Westminster Review claimed that “Doré gives us sketches in which the commonest, the vulgarest external features are set down.” The book was a financial success, however, and Doré received commissions from other British publishers.

Doré’s later work included illustrations for new editions of Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Milton’s Paradise Lost, Tennyson’s The Idylls of the King, The Works of Thomas Hood, and The Divine Comedy. Doré’s work also appeared in the weekly newspaper The Illustrated London News.

Doré never married and, following the death of his father in 1849, he continued to live with his mother, illustrating books until his death in Paris following a short illness. The city’s Père Lachaise Cemetery contains his grave. The government of France made him a Chevalier de la Legion d’honneur in 1861. (wiki)

Gustave Dore, "The Empyrean".

 Gustave Doré (1832-1883): Master of Imagination
 Gustave Dore, “The Descent Of The Spirit.”
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Top: “The Neophyte.” Oil on canvas. | Bottom: “The Neophyte.” Pencil.
Karl Friedrich Schinkel,"Der Brand von Moskau, 1812/1813"

Karl Friedrich Schinkel

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``First delight, then instruct.``

Karl Friedrich Schinkel,”Allegorie auf Beuth, den Pegasus reitend,” 1837. Watercolor. 37,4 x 35,9 cm

Karl Friedrich Schinkel (13 March 1781 – 9 October 1841) was a Prussian architect, city planner, and painter who also designed furniture and stage sets. Schinkel was one of the most prominent architects of Germany and designed both neoclassical and neogothic buildings. Schinkel’s style, in his most productive period, is defined by a turn to Greek rather than Imperial Roman architecture, an attempt to turn away from the style that was linked to the recent French occupiers. (Thus, he is a noted proponent of the Greek Revival.) His most famous extant buildings are found in and around Berlin. (wiki)

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``use the best possible materials and reveal the qualities of those materials and the craftmanship of their assembly.``

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Later, Schinkel moved away from classicism altogether, embracing the Neo-Gothic in his Friedrichswerder Church (1824–1831). Schinkel’s Bauakademie (1832–1836), his most innovative building, eschewed historicist conventions and seemed to point the way to a clean-lined “modernist” architecture that would become prominent in Germany only toward the beginning of the 20th century. (wiki)

 Karl Friederich Schinkel, “The Gate in the Rocks,” 1818. Oil on canvas. 29.1 x 18.9 in
Copyright Information

The images on this page are not authored by Lines & Marks. They are shared under “fair use” for non-profit, educational and reference purposes, and may be subject to copyright. If for any reason this status is contested, notify us and we will remove the image(s) immediately. All other, © Lines & Marks, 2015.

Ernst Haeckel, Specimen of radiolaria (a type of marine Protozoa)

Ernst Haeckel

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Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) was a German scientist and artist who discovered thousands of new species, described and named life forms, invented biology terms and wrote numerous scientific studies during his lifetime. He is best known for his beautiful illustrations ranging from micro-organisms to human genealogical trees. In the 1850s, just after cell theory had been formulated, he was one of many students excited to make discoveries in a field that wasn’t yet fully developed, though he soon became dissatisfied with what felt like an unfulfilling scientific practice. In the late 1870s, however, while looking through a microscope at grains of sand, Haeckel began to sketch the mineral-shell specimens called radiolarians. It was through these drawings that his passion for science was reignited and he set out to map every type of marine life, seeing radiolarians as a “key to the creative power of nature.” 

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Ernst Haeckel, Various species of Siphonophoral (in the same class as hydras).
Ernst Haeckel, Specimen of red algae (Rhodophyceae).

Haecklel’s meticulous drawings gave a visual power to Darwin’s theory, helping him defend and spread his work. In 1868, his illustrated findings became a bestselling book entitled Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte.  It was translated to English in 1876 as The History of Creation. But years of struggle also haunted Haeckel – he was subjected to harsh criticism by his scientific colleges of the time as he tried to integrate artistic and scientific practices. Even so, his scientific and artistic output was so extensive and prolific that even Darwin credited him in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, saying that if Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte “had appeared before my essay had been written, I should probably never have completed it.” (wiki)

Ernst Haeckel, Specimen of radiolaria (a type of marine Protozoa)

“Proteus: A Nineteenth Century Vision, by Director David Lebrun, 2004”
Copyright Information

The images on this page are not authored by Lines & Marks. They are shared under “fair use” for non-profit, educational and reference purposes, and may be subject to copyright. If for any reason this status is contested, notify us and we will remove the image(s) immediately. All other, © Lines & Marks, 2015.

Blu | MUTO – Wall Painted Animation

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A short street-art film by Blu. An ambiguous animation painted on public walls. Made in Buenos Aires and in Baden (fantoche).

blublu.org
Music by Andrea Martignoni
Produced by Mercurio Film
Assistant: Sibe

Blu is the pseudonym of an Italian artist who conceals his real identity. He was born in Senigallia. He lives in Bologna and has been active in street art since 1999. Blu’s fame began in 1999, thanks to a series of illicit graffiti painted in the historical center and suburbs of Bologna, the capital of Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region. In the early years of his career his technique was limited to the use of spray paint, the typical medium of graffiti culture. His characteristic style appeared in 2001, however, when Blu started painting with house paint, using rollers mounted on top of telescopic sticks. This new solution allowed him to increase the painted surface area and convey a stronger intensity to his visual vocabulary. Huge human figures, sometimes sarcastic, sometimes dramatic, who looked as if they were borrowed from comics or arcade games, began appearing along the streets of Bologna around this time. (wiki)

James Gillray, "The Plumb Pudding in Danger."

The Secret of Drawing | Ep.2, Storylines

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This four part BBC series, presented by Andrew Graham-Dixon, explores how drawing has shaped our lives.

Storylines
Season 1 | Episode 2
Aired date: 

Episode 2 – Storylines
Andrew Graham-Dixon examines the variety of ways in which drawing has been used throughout the centuries to tell narrative stories, many of them dark or satirical, from animation to Japanese manga books. Political cartoonist Martin Rowson explains how his savage commentaries on contemporary politicians are influenced by 19th century masters Hogarth and Gillray, and in a rare interview the American comic strip artist Daniel Clowes talks about what inspired his celebrated graphic novel Ghost World. Also covered is Manga artist Misako Rocks!, Hollywood storyboard artist, J. Todd Anderson, early animator, Winsor McCay and French animator Sylvain Chomet.

The Secret of Drawing Series is the property of the BBC and is subject to copyright. Header video is the work of SI Scott.

Anders Nilsen, Car Engine with Tires. Ink on Paper. 38" x 46"

Anders Nilsen

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{ See Anders Nilsen’s Full Interview. }

“Anders Nilsen – Don’t Go Where I Can’t Follow, Big Questions, Rage of Poseidon—is surely one of the finest cartoonists of the last decade. Big Questions won lots of awards and helped further the cause of the graphic novel’s literary worth when it came out in 2011. The fold-out book Poseidon is an object d’art in addition to being a multi-leveled parable of humanity and divinity.” (Read more at comicsbeat.com )

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See more: Anders Nilsen Website | Blog | New York Times

Anders Nilsen

“Untitled (Flowers and Boxes in Landscape).” 20 panel accordion book, ink and gouache on paper, 100″ x 7″, 2013

The text and images on this page are used by permission of Anders Nilsen & Drawn & Quarterly and are subject to copyright law.

Charles Burns Black Hole, Cover #7 (4)

Charles Burns

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“I wasn’t great at sports, I didn’t have a flamboyant personality, but I could draw.”

“At the juncture of fiction and memory, of cheap thrills and horror, lies the dark world of Charles Burns’ art. His stories, appearing in alternative comics such as Raw since the early 1980s, take comic book clichés — wiseacre kids, sinister scientists and tough-as-nails detectives — and rearrange them into disturbing yet funny patterns. Beneath this interplay of familiar iconography lurks the real traumas of childhood, traumas of loss and alienation.”  (Read more on The Comics Journal)

Charles Burns, "Fear(s) of the Dark/Peur(s) du noir." (2007)

Charles Burns, “Fear(s) of the Dark/Peur(s) du noir.” (2007) WARNING: Graphic Content.

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Charles Burns, “Altoids Commercial.” (2005)

Images courtesy of Adam Baumgold Gallery and are subject to copyright. © Charles Burns.

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