Art Books Research Articles

“Tenets” of V. Konashevich for modern children’s book artists

“Tenets” of V. Konashevich for modern children’s book artists

Алтайский орнамент как элемент образной структуры в книжной графике В. А. Раменского

The article discusses the graphic heritage of the Altai book artist V. A. Ramensky in terms of the use of the traditional Altai ornament as an element of the image structure of works of fiction. The problematics of the article lie in the field of transformation of the traditional ornament in the space of the author’s artistic interpretation. The aim of the study is to identify the special features of the use of ornamental tradition by the artist V. A. Ramensky. The scientific novelty of the study consists in identifying and formulating the main principles of interpretation of the Altai ornament in the image structure of the works by V. A. Ramensky. As a result, the article gives the main principles of the use of the traditional Altai ornament by the artist V. A. Ramensky in the book design and illustration: 1) reproduction of ethnographic ornamental motifs of the Turkic peoples of Altai; 2) use of ornament as an element of design (decoration) of the book; 3) creation of an artistic image through ornamental stylization; 4) introduction of basic principles of ornamentation (rhythm, symmetry) into the compositional structure of works of art.

Theme: Memory, Repair, and Creative Recovery

This presentation centres upon a collaborative project called BookArtObject, a long-term artist book group project based in Australia. Since starting in 2009 after a conversation between Caren Florance and Sara Bowen during a bookmaking workshop, the project has varied wildly in scale and scope. The primary concept is for participants to respond creatively to a published text, whether it is poetry, fiction, or non-fiction.

Concurrently Simultaneously

Concurrently Simultaneously is a book that contains not only the art and academic research and explorations of two artists but also a more intimate narrative of the experience of a family momentarily divided by the implications of Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic. On 30 August 2020, Killian Dunne arrived in Scotland from Ecuador to begin his new role as a Lecturer in Printmaking, Publishing, and Editions at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, University of Dundee. His wife Désirée and their three-year-old son were to stay in Quito, Ecuador until Christmas while he organised accommodation for the family and while Désirée concluded her university teaching semester. Unfortunately, COVID-19 restrictions and the complications of Brexit meant that by May 2021 Désirée and their son had still not arrived in Scotland. At that point, the artists decided to create an artist book responding to this experience. Killian created his section of the book in Scotland, and Désirée created her section of the book in Ecuador. They then digitally printed the book’s editions in Ecuador and Désirée brought the books to their new life in Scotland when she and their son could travel.

Bunian People: Myths, Perceptions and Impressions of Behavior and Culture in Minangkabau

Minangkabau has a unique and diverse culture, starting from art, culture, songs, fairy tales, poetry, beliefs, characterizations and visual characters. One of the unique things about Minangkabau is that it is a belief that is widely known by the public and has been discussed from time to time until now. One of the interesting beliefs in Minangkabau is about the Urang Bunian mythology, however, the lack of understanding of the target audience and the lack of optimal media in conveying information about Urang Bunian visualizations are the main factors for the author to design the Urang Bunian character design in Minangkabau culture through the Art Book media. Urang Bunian was made in the form of an Art Book media which contains about creating character designs from the information obtained. Apart from the Art Book media, the delivery of this information is also supported by several other media which help the main media to introduce the subject to the target audience, namely posters, stickers, t-shirts, tote bags, holograms, x-banners, mini x-banners. The design method used is the 5w+1h approach, namely what, who, when, where, why and how. By using the 5w+1h theory, all aspects summarized in the character design design process can be created through Art Book media

A study on fire risk and its mitigation in gravure printing press

The gravure printing process is widely utilized for large-scale, high-quality, multi-colored printing tasks executed at high press speeds. This includes a diverse range of products such as art books, greeting cards, currency, stamps, wallpaper, magazines, and more. This thesis addresses the fire risks associated with gravure printing, acknowledging the use of highly flammable materials and the potential for static charge-related incidents. Despite its prevalence, there is limited research on fire prevention and control in gravure printing. The study employs field observations, stakeholder interviews, and an extensive review of literature on fire risk and control in printing press operations in India. It analyzes the causes of fires using the fire triangle model, emphasizing the role of heat, combustible materials, and oxygen in fire incidents within the printing press environment. The thesis categorizes preventive measures into fire prevention and fire suppression actions, focusing on reducing fire load, static charge mitigation, and implementing firefighting systems. It observes that poor housekeeping, lack of awareness, and inadequate emergency control plans contribute significantly to fire hazards in press facilities. Additionally, the research identifies key factors such as high press temperatures, low humidity, improper storage, and inadequacies in firefighting systems as potential causes of fires. It emphasizes the need for optimal environmental conditions, proper storage practices, and effective firefighting infrastructure within press facilities. The study concludes with comprehensive guidelines for loss prevention and control, including management programs, housekeeping, operator training, pre-emergency planning, preventive maintenance, and plant security. It also addresses safety measures specific to gravure printing presses, such as automatic sprinkler systems, fire hydrant system, carbon dioxide flooding systems, and portable fire extinguishers. In summary, this thesis provides valuable insights into the multifaceted nature of fire risks in gravure printing presses and recommends a holistic approach for effective fire prevention and control.

‘It's all there in the language’—a conversation with Garrett Stewart

AbstractWhat does a famed literary theorist have to say about the interaction between ‘literature’ and ‘philosophy’? Well, if he's Garrett Stewart, the celebrated agent of pyrotechnic style in the service of durable insights across disparate disciplines and media, then we have much reason to lean in and listen. Stewart is the author of 20 books that range with uncanny competency across Victorian narrative, contemporary American fiction, written auralities, poetics and prose stylistics, cinematic evolution from silver oxide to screen pixel, book art, scenes of reading in painting, and most recently, the vocal drama of Barbra Streisand. The distances between his disciplinary terrains are as vast as his close readings of them are coordinated and trenchant. Here, sitting down before a shared conversational canvas, Stewart fields questions from David LaRocca, who asks how he, if he, thinks about the program of literature and philosophy. LaRocca, editor of the recent Attention Spans: Garrett Stewart, a Reader (Bloomsbury, 2024) and the forthcoming Bandwidths: Reading Across Media with Garrett Stewart (Bloomsbury), tracks the urgency of our moment—in which literature and philosophy are independently besieged and yet may concede little rapprochement. Where does philosophy happen in literature (a philosopher's question) is turned around by Stewart such that we see literature conjuring philosophy at the level of the sentence. We are not peering ‘in’ so much as looking ‘at’ the art of literature teaching philosophy through refined reading and the analytical inquest of the syllable and the sayable. Anyone who works at the fraught fissure of these realms will benefit from the ways Stewart makes literature and philosophy sensible to one another—even as he productively unsettles the terms and conditions of their affiliation.

ART BOOKS IN CONTEMPORARY CULTURAL SPACE

A study on art books is necessary to understand their role in contemporary cultural spaces and how to create a great book on art that contributes to enriching cultural landscapes. The article highlights the relevance of printed books in today's context, focusing on art themes, emphasizing the significance of art literature in the digital age, pointing out its ability to offer a deeper engagement with art phenomena. The aim of the article is to explore the types of art books and their significance in contemporary cultural spaces. Research methods include theoretical approaches involving the exploration, compilation, and analysis of relevant scientific and professional literature and sources. A survey, conducted through structured interviews, involved questioning cultural and art experts about the significance of art books in today's cultural spaces. The results of the study demonstrate that the relevance of books, including art books, will persist; their publication in print format will not disappear as art books possess added value created by the physical, tangible format of the book, its design elements, material properties, and diverse culturally significant content.

Border lines

Author and artist Jaumes Privat lives in Aveyron in the south of France. His first creations date back to 1968. From 1971 to 1975, he became close to Lutte occitane, a political movement against the extension of the Larzac military camp (Aveyron). Since then, he has created his own artist books, exhibited, performed, and worked with musicians. He is an important author from the south of France. Dans les deux textes choisis ici, la source poétique occitane est rayée pour laisser place à une langue dominante (français ; anglais). Ces lignes frontières évoquent l’histoire linguistique de tout un territoire.

Thinking with traces: A posthumanist reading of human and nonhuman agencies in Zhu Yingchun’s The Language of Bugs

The Language of Bugs by Zhu Yingchun (2018) is an art book wavering between the linguistic and the bodily, visual arts and literature. Consisting of thousands of traces left on paper by real-life insects and their bodily movements, it does not contain any text traditionally readable for humans, but claims to be a book written entirely in the language of insects. The traces indicate nonhuman agency for the insects and present writing and literature as subjects of nonhuman actions and messy interspecies collaboration. At the same time, the book rises questions on insect “language” and the possibility of ethical representation originating from a very human point-of-experience. In this article, I reflectively explore different crossings of human and nonhuman agencies in The Language of Bugs, as well as how the book engages with questions of representation and materiality, writing and literature in the framework of posthumanist reading. I analyse the book as participating in the attempt to notice more-than-human ways of being in literature and culture, which are traditionally only perceived through human agency. The context of my reading is threat posed by ecological crises and especially the decline in insect populations for the future of the planet. I argue that Zhu Yingchun’s book represents a wider shift in thinking about the natural world and humans’ place in it. Ultimately, the book articulates one very basic question: can literature widen to include traces of nonhuman movements?

Bibliophile, Bibliologist, Researcher of the Book Art (on the 60th Anniversary of Mikhail Vadimovich Seslavinsky)

The article is devoted to scientific, exhibition and collecting activities of Mikhail Vadimovich Seslavinsky, candidate of historical sciences, full member of the Russian Academy of Arts, leader of the modern Russian bibliophile community, Chairman of the Council of the National Union of Bibliophiles. His scientific and popular science works in the field of book history, bibliography, art of the book, history and modern state of Russian bibliophilia are analyzed (in total — more than 40 book publications, including major monographic works, about 300 articles, reports, notes, publications of documents, as well as interviews with figures of the book and bibliophile world). The scholar has made a significant contribution to the study of the history of bookbinding, Russian children’s books, the work of Russian artists-emigrants in France, the book heritage of poets and artists of the Silver Age (O.E. Mandelstam, M.I. Tsvetaeva, A.A. Akhmatova, A.N. Benois) and many other topics. He also proposed original approaches to the definition of book rarities that came out from under the printing press in the twentieth century.Large-scale exhibition projects prepared on the basis of his personal bibliophile collection were considered. The role of M.V. Seslavinsky as the creator and head of the National Union of Bibliophiles, chairman of the editorial board of the journal “About Books” was noted.

Bibliophile, Bibliologist, Researcher of the Book Art (on the 60th Anniversary of Mikhail Vadimovich Seslavinsky)

The article is devoted to scientific, exhibition and collecting activities of Mikhail Vadimovich Seslavinsky, candidate of historical sciences, full member of the Russian Academy of Arts, leader of the modern Russian bibliophile community, Chairman of the Council of the National Union of Bibliophiles. His scientific and popular science works in the field of book history, bibliography, art of the book, history and modern state of Russian bibliophilia are analyzed (in total — more than 40 book publications, including major monographic works, about 300 articles, reports, notes, publications of documents, as well as interviews with figures of the book and bibliophile world). The scholar has made a significant contribution to the study of the history of bookbinding, Russian children’s books, the work of Russian artists-emigrants in France, the book heritage of poets and artists of the Silver Age (O.E. Mandelstam, M.I. Tsvetaeva, A.A. Akhmatova, A.N. Benois) and many other topics. He also proposed original approaches to the definition of book rarities that came out from under the printing press in the twentieth century.Large-scale exhibition projects prepared on the basis of his personal bibliophile collection were considered. The role of M.V. Seslavinsky as the creator and head of the National Union of Bibliophiles, chairman of the editorial board of the journal “About Books” was noted.

Book studies in Poland between 1945 and 2015: The sources of theoretical inspiration

The aim of the paper is to picture a retrospective panorama of the theoretical legacy of post-war Polish book studies. Of key importance to the author is the question of the object of the discipline and, consequently, its scope. The author discusses directions in book studies and the bibliological process making up — starting in the 1930s and with Jan Muszkowski’s concept — the core tradition and foundation of book-studies theories: the theories built around the paradigm of ‘life of the book,’ looking at it as an integrally defined process of production, dissemination and consumption; Karol Glombiowski’s functional theory, thanks to which ‘systemic’ and ‘functional’ approaches became a commonly accepted methodological premise in book studies; the concepts formulated by Janusz Dunin, who linked the bibliological tradition of historical source studies of editorial forms of books to the functional theory and to ‘communication’ perspective; the theory formulated by Radoslaw Cybulski, who, in combining the established morphology of the book with a semiotic and communication perspective, adopted ‘book consumption,’ that is, an ‘integrated system of satisfying the needs of book users,’ as a functional category to describe the behaviour of participants in the book market; the concepts focused on the ‘social communication situation’ as a research concept and perspective stemming from the sociological and semiotic reorientation of humanistic thinking. At the end, the author discusses the trends which have considerably expanded research perspectives in recent years: books in the media space; the ‘culture of the book’ paradigm, which is conducive to an ‘anthropologisation’ of the bibliological process, perceived no longer only institutionally, from the perspective of social communication, but also through relations, interactions and value judgements of people participating in it, which shifts research priorities towards the questions of reading and often also towards ‘regional’ approaches; and the theory of book art and research into book aesthetics. At the various stages of the development of bibliology and in relation to respective research approaches, the focus shifted from the book as a cultural artefact and its ‘life,’ that is, the bibliological process with its institutions, to the functions of the book with regard to the public in the process of social and cultural transmission, and, finally, to the public as the creator and user of the culture of the book, whose actions are ‘recorded’ in bibliological documentation.

V.A. Favorsky’s Theory of the Book and the Problem of Artistic Interpretation of Literary Content

The article is devoted to the actual problems of the theory of the book, created and largely practically implemented by V.A. Favorsky and his associates in the 1930s —1950s. This theory was based on the principle of perception of the book as a synthetic art, which is confirmed by the tradition of handwritten books, relevant to the era of printing. The main contradiction faced by those who largely follow the work of V.A. Favorsky remains the correlation of the aesthetic concept of the book with its literary content. There are many dark places in V.A. Favorsky’s theory connected with this problem. Different approaches to this problem, characteristic of such a complex, synthetic work as a book, are analyzed, including issues related to the psychology of creativity, with a deep study of literary material when working on a book. The ambiguous experience of V.A. Favorsky, associated with immersion in the material of the book, with the study of the cultural context of the work, is considered. The article also highlights the important problem for V.A. Favorsky of the perception of a literary text in connection with the ideology and historical context of various epochs.The theoretical legacy of V.A. Favorsky does not lose relevance in our time, when the art of books is in need of pioneering approaches related to electronic publications of various types, including on the basis of the principle of “relay race of arts”, developed by the director and art theorist S.V. Obraztsov. Taking into account the current state of book publishing and its prospects, an updated appeal to the legacy of V.A. is proposed. Favorsky, which would solve the task of creating books at a high artistic level, taking into account the educational and informative functions of the book, without contradictions with the literary content of the work.

Refiguring comic book imagery in a post-digital moment: conspicuousness, hybridity and ontological strangeness

ABSTRACT While today’s mainstream comic books confront us with the replacement of hand-created images with computer-driven techniques and styles, the aesthetic dimension of the use of digital tools in the creation of comic art has received limited critical attention. This article addresses this lack by reflecting on a tension between conspicuous uses of computer colouring and hand-colouring. Furthermore, I discuss a hybridity that relativises distinctions between ‘digital’ and ‘traditional’ comic book art. Drawing upon the writings on media scholars Lev Manovich and D.N. Rodowick and examples from works associated with comics auteur Frank Miller, I argue that digital tools have augmented comics creation with new properties. Furthermore, I propose that these properties test our confidence in knowing what these images ‘are’ from an ontological perspective. The analysis is set against the backdrop of how thinking in terms of ‘digital’ versus ‘analogue’ has become secondary in a present post-digital moment. I conclude by suggesting that we need to move the discussion beyond the ‘newness’ of the digital to build a better understanding of the ontological uncertainties and the genealogies surrounding digitally created comic book imagery.

Astoņstaru zvaigznes Niklāva Strunkes grāmatmākslā

Representations of the eight-pointed star have played an important role in the history of Latvian culture. They were present during the national revival movement at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, widely represented in the visual art of the first half of the 20th century and played an important role during the Third Awakening in the late 1980s. By analysing the depictions of the eight-pointed star using the historical method, comparative analysis, and connecting the images with the text, it is possible to create a context-based interpretation of the depictions and to express insights about the role of ethnographic ornament elements in interwar Latvian culture. The eight-pointed star appears in many of Niklāvs Strunke’s (1894–1966) illustrations and on covers of books, periodicals, and other printed editions. The meanings of the eight-pointed star in his work vary: it can be a symbolic representation of a celestial body or Latvian ornament, a decoration of the palaces of ancient Latvian rulers, or reflect the “star ornamented blanket” found in folk songs. Strunke’s book art is always related to the text, deriving from it, but also giving additional connotations to the text itself. In Strunke’s book graphics, the eight-pointed star is considered an expression of Latvian style, which appears to be a creative use of ethnographic ornaments in the context of decorative art and indicates the Latvian position of the author of the text or the national nature of the publication. The depictions of the eight-pointed star, which played a prominent role in Strunke’s book art, are part of wider cultural processes in interwar Latvia. These processes involve the new nation differentiating itself from previously dominant cultures, strengthening its myth of shared history, supporting the idea of national awakening, and bringing to life the symbolism characterising national identity in everyday life.

I’m Not a Hero, I’m Just Drawn That Way: A Review of Super Bodies: Comic Book Illustration, Artistic Styles, and Narrative Impact

This article discusses Super Bodies: Comic Book Illustration, Artistic Styles, and Narrative Impact by Jeffrey A.Brown (University of Texas Press, 2023).  The book covers six modernartistic styles prevalent in American superhero comics, as well as providingbackground on the historical reception of comic book art.  The review concludes that, while the text maybe less approachable for non-specialists, the book highlights a comparativelyunderexamined aspect of the field of Comics Studies and is a valuable resource.

The Development Instructional Media Pop-Up Art Book with Internal Stand Mechanism Technique on Early Chilhood Recognizing Concept

This research is research and development with the aim of developing instructional media Pop-Up Art Book with internal stand mechanism on early chilhood recognizing concept in Smart Eduplay Institute, Terong Tawah, Labuapi District, West Lombok Regency, West Nusa Tenggara. with 15 respondents. The approach on the research is instructional development with class and product oriented. The research method refers to the development of the J. Moonen and Rowntree prototype model. Learning evaluation is carried out in stages, such as a review by experts consisting of learning design experts, material experts, and learning media experts, and followed by face-to-face and large group trials. Formative evaluation was carried out to obtain learning outcomes from pretest and posttest. Reviews shown that the quality of learning media is in the “very good” category, on average 3,30. Trial result in “very good” category, on average 3,41. Trial product effectiveness shown pretest average is 52,76 and posttest average is 82,07. The average range is 29,3. Therefore, developing instructional media Pop-up Art Book with internal stand mechanism on early chilhood recognizing concept makes a positive contribution in achieving learning goals optimally

The Visual and Conceptual Role of Paper in an Artist's Book

The Visual and Conceptual Role of Paper in an Artist's Book

Knižní práce ve sbírkách oddělení knižní kultury Knihovny Národního muzea a jejich zpracování

The article deals with the collection of illustrations in the Book Culture Department of the National Museum Library and its professional processing. The text describes the handling of new acquisitions, their sorting, and the processing of original book and magazine illustrations and their subsequent digitisation. The second part of the article provides specific examples of the literary estates of various book artists which have been acquired for the collections of the Book Culture Department. The article concludes with a summary of the most effective ways of handling new acquisitions.