[internisus]

I was in a shop today in NYC called Odin, a boutique or some such, and the items that caught my eye were not fashion wear but two books from Phaidon press, whom I have somehow never heard of before. One book was Vitamin D: New Perspectives in Drawing, which is full of stuff from tons of different artists that blew my mind. My favorite bit was a couple pages features work by a guy whose name I am sure was Francis Robertson, but I can't find anything online now. Very not happy about that.

The other book was a gorgeous dedication to Hokusai, who may simply be the greatest artist ever. I've seen his work before, but mostly very few of the same images on posters and such. This book showed me just how flexible his style was. Some of the paintings border on cartography; others are essentially methodical recordings of the culture -- for example, one that caught my eye seemed to be a study of people walking over a bridge. I mean, it seemed to emphasize the relationship between the people and the bridge. Everything he has done is so varied yet consistently iconic. As I looked through the book, I found myself overwhelmed with emotion as I was faced with the diverse possibilities of humankind; it was a great deal like the end of Royal Space Force: Wings of Honeamise, in which the credits roll during a glorious display of sketches idealising technology.

So it seems like this publisher, Phaidon, has an enormous catalogue of books, and it seems like every one of them is incredibly beautiful. I'm ruined.

Oh, I also found SWEILL: Swedish Illustrators 1, which was very very delightful, although the pages shown on that site are not my favorites.

When I was in college, I borrowed a large and lovely book dedicated to Mark Rothko. It even had some essays at the end. Some of my favorite pieces of his I have not seen anywhere but this book -- like his very late stuff, which looks like abstract moonscapes.

Awhile ago, I had an idea for a book that would collect uniforms of all kinds from all cultures. The idea was that it would be arranged with drawings using the same set of poses throughout to emphasize the clothing, like some anime artists' development work seems to show the same set of angles and poses for all of their characters. Systematic. And it would have information about the functionality, aesthetics, and history of each uniform. Well, it occurs to me now that such a book must already exist, right? So I was wondering if anyone knew of something like that. I found this but it doesn't seem as systematic or thorough as what I had in mind.

Also of note are books like this that visually collect anatomical information about organisms of all species. I know there are quite a few books like this. Actually, I've always been kind of interested in the type that features fictional creatures, too. Borges has a book of fantastical creatures that's pretty cool, but it's not really an art book.

Anyway, that's enough about art books. I also spent a lot of time in Paul Smith (another boutique, heh) looking at their wonderful collection of over-sized books. I don't know how to explain this, but.. my already substantial biblophilia powers are limit-released when I come upon large books of beautiful publishing. I spent a lot of time in college browsing the oversize section in the library. I actually hand-copied many pages (of text) from a wonderful book about motifs in Jewish art that just fascinated me. But that's another art book, I suppose. I'm trying to say that I'm in love with big, beautiful books of all walks.

You know those The Annotated... printings of books like The Wizard of Oz and Flatland? I have those. They're quite nice! They don't really seem to fit with the above, but that's what I'm trying to say. Let's throw around some really nice books! Just not literally, please!

[Iacus]

This isn't exactly about books you can buy but I occasionally read a blog called BibliOdyssey that features scans of illustrations of old/rare books and other printed media.

It has some pretty amazing things

Also Codex Seraphinianus
_________________
Guayaba 2600

[internisus]

Wow. That is one sweet blog. Thanks!

[Wilkes]

guardian why don't you like me