A Daily History of Holes, Dots, Lines, Science, History, Math, Physics, Art, the Unintentional Absurd, Architecture, Maps, Data Visualization, Blank and Missing Things, and so on. |1.6 million words, 7500 images, 4.9 million hits| Press & appearances in The Times, Le Figaro, Mensa, The Economist, The Guardian, Discovery News, Slate, Le Monde, Sci American Blogs, Le Pont, and many other places… 5000+ total posts since 2008.

Unusual Antiquarian Perspective–Directly Above and Oblique. J.J. Grandville, 1844

JF Ptak Science Books   Quick Post

This is the fourth installment in as many days (starting here) on the artwork of the great proto-Surrealist, J.J. Grandville.  Today’s quick post (again from his Un Autre Monde, 1844) isn’t so much fantastical as the other work pictured here, but it is subtly unusual.  It is my experience in looking at prints and other artwork for the last 30 years or so that antiquarian images looking straight and directly down froma  height are very unusual–so too for the next thing closest to it, looking down from a slightly oblique angle.  Grandville does this often in his work, and I think gives another insight into a brain that was just seeing (most) things differently.  [Here’s a link for some posts on looking straight down, here and here, for example.]

photo

photo
photo
photo
photo
photo

 

Recent Posts

Archives

Categories