Art Books Research Articles

An Investigation in Terms of Binding Art of Printed Books Dated 1830-1840 in Marmara University Library

As in many branches of art within the Ottoman Empire, very valuable works have been produced in the field of book arts. When it comes to the arts of the book, the bookbinding art is understood as well as the arts such as calligraphy, illumination and miniature. Making covers that surround a book or even protect the book is a practice that has been going on since ancient times. These covers, called bindings, are known to vary depending on the material reached. Books are bound with materials such as leather, fabric, marbling, cardboard. It is seen that such a functional application is subjected to various ornaments with aesthetic concern. Although the bindings of carefully prepared manuscript books are decorated with unique ornaments, the same care has not been taken in many printed books. Nevertheless, aesthetics is not abandoned and decoration is included in printed book covers. Printed books belonging to the years 1830-1840 in Marmara University Library were examined in terms of binding arts. It is seen that the binding of the books is mostly made of leather. In addition, there are works with fabric, marbling and cardboard bound. Again, in these books, the decorations are generally formed in the form of central medallion, pendant, bracket and borders on the lower and upper covers. Ebru art has also been used both as a cover and as an ornamental element in bindings, as well as being used as inner covers and side paper of books.

Recent Articles

Recent Articles

Urgent Publishing After the Artist's Book: Making Public in Movements Towards Liberation

Urgent Publishing After the Artist's Book: Making Public in Movements Towards Liberation

Twórczość jako adaptacja? Sztuka zagrożona wyginięciem…

In this paper I try to defend contemporary art (avant-garde and post-modern) from the criticism of evolutionary aesthetics. Referring to selected theses put forward by Jerzy Luty in his book Art as Adaptation. Universalism in Evolutionary Aesthetics (2018), I propose an alternative to them in the form of philosophical anthropology (Gehlen) and evolutionary theory considered as bricolage (Jacob). Above all, I challenge the hypotheses of the evolutionarily and biologically adaptive function of art and the condition of pleasure it must necessarily provide.

Tracking the Loving Gaze

Abstract Tracking the Loving Gaze is a futile attempt to follow, map and capture the way cherished personal photographs are viewed. The authors asked 30 survey subjects to use an eye tracker while looking at a preselected photograph that held a special meaning for them. The raw visual data from this process—heat maps, focus maps and scan paths—became the foundation of a body of work that includes darkroom prints, short videos and a limited-edition artist book. Apart from exploring the invisible viewing processes of personal photography, this article introduces the concepts of the detached and the invested viewer as well as the corresponding concepts of the cold and the loving gaze.

In the Making: Queer Publishing and Transpedagogies

Handbook: Supporting Queer and Trans Students in Art and Design Education is a practical guide and a collaborative intervention in art and design pedagogy. Handbook is also a collaboratively produced artist book with a hand-printed letterpress cover. Here I consider processes of studio production, physical “objectness,” and distribution of Handbook as models for pedagogy-in-the-making. The handmade is a methodology and an orientation, a connection point between publishing, transpedagogies, and embodied art practices. I argue that artist publishing and printmedia offer demanding and multifaceted forms of production for trans and queer pedagogy. I center on the studio as a site that both intertwines with and exceeds equity work. To see these methods of studio-based and collaborative work in action requires reading Handbook beyond its written content; a closer look at the materiality and processes of artist publishing reveals useful daily practices of support and survival of trans and queer life in academia and beyond.

AHMET HAŞİM’İN ŞİİRLERİNDE MEKÂN

Ahmet Haşim, Tük edebiyatının önemli isimlerinden biridir. Önceleri Tanzimat sanatçıları olan Abdülhak Hamit ve Muallim Naci’nin şiirlerinin etkisinde kalan şair daha sonra Servet-i Fünun sanat anlayışına uygun şiirler yazar. Fransız şiiri ise onun sanat anlayışını derinden etkiler. Şiiriyle bireysel sanat anlayışını kendi döneminde koruyan şair ilk şiir kitabı olan Göl Saatleri’ni 1921’de çıkarır. Daha sonra Piyale’yi 1926’da kaleme alır. Modern Türk şiirinin kurucularından biri olan Ahmet Haşim, kendisinden sonra Cahit Sıtkı Tarancı, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, Ahmet Muhip Dıranas ve Necip Fazıl Kısakürek gibi birçok sanatçıyı etkiler Sanatçının şiirleri üzerine birçok çalışma yapılmış ve kitap çıkarılmıştır. Aynı zamanda onun bireysel odaklı sanat anlayışı dönemin sanatçıları ve kendisinden sonra gelen sanatçılar tarafından da tenkit edilmesine neden olur. Özellikle Haşim’in “hayal havuz”u gibi mekânsal çağrışımları bu eleştirilerin hedefidir. Genellikle mekân, daha çok roman ve hikâye unsurlarından biri olarak görülmektedir. Ancak mekân kavramı son yıllarda çeşitli çağrışımlarla yeniden anlam kazanmakla beraber şiirde de yerini bulur. Mekân ve insan karşılıklı bir etkileşime sahiptir. Dolayısıyla mekân ile şair de etkileşim içindedir. Ahmet Haşim’in şiirlerinde ise zaman kavramı öne çıkarılır. Hâlbuki zaman dışında ve zamanla birlikte şiirde vücut bulan, gerçek ve hayal ile iç içe geçmiş bir mekân meselesi Ahmet Haşim’in şiirlerinde mevcuttur. Çalışmanın amacı, Ahmet Haşim’in şiirlerinden hareketle mekân unsurlarını tespit etmek ve mekân unsurlarının sanatında nasıl kullanıldığını incelemektir. Mekânın şair için ne anlamlar ifade ettiğini -biyografisinden hareketle- ortaya koymak çalışmanın esas amacıdır.

Samuel Beckett's The North

This essay closely inspects the manuscript cluster relating to The North (held by the Beckett International Foundation, University of Reading) to provide insight into Beckett's collaboration with Enitharmon Press and its publisher, Alan Clodd, on an eponymous livre d'artiste illustrated with three etchings by Avikdor Arikha. It outlines the intricate publication details of a short excerpt from (then unfinished) Le Dépeupleur, which was the first part of the late prose text to be translated by Beckett into English. With the help of Beckett's published and unpublished correspondence with Clodd, Arikha, and Barbara Bray in particular, the essay traces the translation process of both The North and what was to become The Lost Ones. Extending over several months, the translation of the short novel gave Beckett considerable trouble and, as appears from his letters to Bray, her involvement in it was tangible. Beckett's linguistic choices surrounding the image of a crouching woman at the centre of this limited-edition artist's book and the English title of the master text, The Lost Ones, are also considered in relation to other art forms, namely Auguste Rodin's Dante-inspired La porte de l'enfer and the statue extracted from it, La femme accroupie. In addition to that, the publication particulars of the Calder & Boyars edition of The Lost Ones (1972) are discussed in parallel to those of Clodd's The North (1973), unearthing the differences between the two translations as well as contractual obligations that shaped them.

American as Apple Pie

Abstract This brief tribute to Carolee Schneemann examines her self-conception as an American artist, considering how it intersects with the disruptive performance of gender norms in Americana I Ching Apple Pie (1972). The work was originally staged for the camera in Schneemann's London kitchen in 1972, during a period in which the artist was living in voluntary exile. She published a performance score for the piece in her artist's book Parts of a Body House (1972) and reprinted it in Cezanne She Was a Great Painter (1974–75). This essay reads Americana I Ching Apple Pie as an unruly reenactment of the highly gendered role that the filmmaker Stan Brakhage cast Schneemann to play in his short experimental film Cat's Cradle (1959). It considers the way she understood home and homeland as two interlocking fronts in the ongoing battle over how gender is encoded and enacted. It concludes by briefly considering the reception of Schneemann's work by a younger generation of artists, including Sondra Perry, who staged an homage to Americana I Ching Apple Pie in 2015.

News, Events, Publications, and Awards

News, Events, Publications, and Awards

Phonography Culture

Phonography Culture

Visualizing Superman: Artistic Strategizing in Early Representations of the Archetypal Man in Comic Books

In 1933, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, two Jewish teenagers from Ohio, fashioned an ideal personality called Superman and a narrative of his marvelous deeds. Little did they suspect that several years after conceptualizing the figure and their many vain attempts to sell the story to various comic book publishers, their creation would give rise to the iconic genre of comic book superheroes. There is no doubt that the Superman character and the accompanying narrative led to Siegel and Shuster, the writer and artist, respectively, becoming famous. However, was it only the appealing character and compelling narrative that accounted for the story’s enormous popularity, which turned its creators into such a celebrated pair, or did the visual design play a major part in that phenomenal success? Recent years have seen a burgeoning interest in the comic book medium in several disciplines, including history, philosophy, and literature. However, little has been written about its visual aspect, and comic book art has not yet been accorded much recognition among art historians. Since the integration of storyline and art is what allow the comic book medium to be unique and interesting, I contend that there should be a focus on the art as well as on the narrative of works in comic books. In the present study, I explore the significance of the visual image in the prototype of the Superman figure that Siegel and Schuster sold to DC Comics and its first appearance in the series American Comic Books. I argue that although the popularity of Superman’s first appearance was due to the conceptual ideals that the character embodied, the visual design of the ideal man was also an essential factor in its success. Accordingly, through a discussion of the first published Superman storyline, I emphasize the artistic-visual value of the figure of this protagonist in particular and the comic book medium in general.

Peanuts minus Schulz: Distributed Labor as a Compositional Practice/Le travail distribué comme pratique organisationnelle

Peanuts minus Schulz: Distributed Labor as a Compositional Practice/Le travail distribué comme pratique organisationnelle

“Zinc Boys” and “Chernobyl Man” in Svetlana Alexievich᾿s Documentary-Artistic Anthropology

The article considers the anthropological content of the documentary and artistic books by Svetlana Alexievich “Zinc boys” (1989) and “Chernobyl prayer” (1986– 2005). “Zinc boys” and “Chernobyl man” are presented in the work as symptomatic socio-psychological phenomena of our time, spread far beyond the historical circumstances risen by them.

Interactive Storytelling through LEDs and Paper Circuits: Tapping into Materials and Technology in Children’s Literature Education

How can interactive technology enhance children’s literature? How can new materials and technology be incorporated into courses on children’s literature at the university level feeding upon the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)? What is the best way to embed new materials such as paper circuits into a children’s narrative? This article offers a review of an experiment conducted at a liberal arts college where students were provided the theoretical and practice-based knowledge for designing children’s picturebooks, then asked to introduce circuit technology to their picturebook design. The upper-level course admitted students from all disciplines, such as computer science, psychology, literature, medicine, and media and visual arts, which resulted in lively exchanges in a group of people from diverse academic backgrounds. Regardless of their strengths, students participated in the hands-on workshop supported by a designer and the course instructor to learn about electric circuits, copper tape, and LEDs, and seek ways to adapt them into the page structure and the narrative sequence. They explored how to fuse light to text and image to tell a story and facilitate engagement in a children’s book. This study builds upon the Maker Movement and borrows technology from HCI, fusing the two movements into children’s books. As such, students were asked to assess the potential uses of HCI technology in art and design, book arts and seek ways to apply those technologies to enrich children’s engagement during reading. Students revealed that this request motivated them to think creatively as they explored ways to transform children’s literature. Thus, the course brought theory and practice together with electric circuits to offer a novel way to contemplate children’s literature.

Levantamento de obras de arte em chapa acrílica em coleções Portuguesas

Acrylic sheet, also known by the commercial names Plexiglas or Perspex, consists of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA). Attractive to artists since its development in the 1930s, it became especially popular during the 1960s. In Portugal, knowledge about its use by artists and its condition is scarce. In this work, the main Portuguese art collections were surveyed with the goal of gaining an overview of the use of acrylic sheet in the Portuguese art context and its current condition. The paper describes the methodology used and the results obtained regarding 137 artworks by 69 different artists registered as containing acrylic. Results show that this material is being used by Portuguese artists at least since the 1960s. It has been used in several artistic forms, from painting and sculpture to photography, installation, objects/reliefs, and artist books. Most of the artworks were in good or fair condition. The main problems observed were dust and dirt deposits, abrasion, and scratches.

Влияние конструктивизма на дизайн башкирских национальных печатных изданий 20-х – начала 30-х гг. ХХ в.

Introduction. The article discusses the features of Bashkiria’s printed matter as of the 1920s–1930s through the lens of typographics and artistic design. Goals. The work analyzes design patterns, features of font compositions, and identifies the influence of Constructivism on the shaping of their stylistic essentials through specific examples of book covers, magazines, and posters published in the 1920s–1930s in the Republic of Bashkortostan. The authors show how the synthesis of European trends and national traditions of Arabic writing determined the originality of the then Bashkortostan’s graphic designs. Results. The article shows how the ornamental character of Arabic script was transformed into dynamic compositions of covers and title pages characteristic of Constructivism. Conclusions. Nowadays, the public are again trying to outline ways to develop the national book art. Therefore, the experience and traditions from the printing art of early 20th-century Arabic and Cyrillic editions are again in demand. Nobody doubts the significance and greatness of the national cultural heritage, the need to develop it, the need to understand what happened through the prism of national consciousness. The appeals to artistic and aesthetic ideas, creative experiments of the Russian hinterland, traditions that existed in other republics and peoples at the beginning of the 20th century do enrich the history of domestic graphic design. All these together serve sources of inspiration for contemporary art experts, book artists and design practitioners.

“Admirable Facsimiles”: Coffee Tables, Copying Contexts and Helen Tongue’s Rock Art Book c1909

ABSTRACT What can we learn from studying and comparing the methods by which early researchers approached the practice of rock art reproduction? In this paper, we look at examples of painted reproductions made during the opening decades of the twentieth century. We suggest that a focus on the formal qualities of such copies and the intricacies employed by copyists in their work of translating the rock art from its multidimensional many-hued rock surface onto a flat, one-dimensional paper surface offers potential for reinvigorating rock art displays at the Origins Centre. In addition, this approach offers an opportunity to craft a narrative that affirms the contribution of individual creativity and embraces the nuance and uncertainty that remains at the heart of scholarly research and knowledge-making. We suggest that displays of copies and artworks produced by copyists, showing how these are part of an historical trajectory of art making and research production, allows an enriched engagement with how we understand the art itself, as well as how artistic practice may be recast as scientific method.

El libro como presente continuo

Review of the exhibition “The book as a continuous present. Artist's books around conceptual poetics”. Tecla Sala Art Center, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat (Barcelona). Framed in the Arts Libris Fair in Barcelona.

WOMEN AS A SYMBOL IN CONTEMPORARY ILLUSTRATIONS INSPIRED BY THE WORKS OF ORIENTALISTS, THROUGH (AN ARTIST BOOK)

The East was and still carries with it many sources of inspiration for the West, which was embodied in the works of European artists, and they came with different intentions and visions, and the trend of “Orientalism” became a historical reality that shows the extent of the influence of the magic of the East on Western and Arab art, past and modern. There is no doubt that “Women”, with their features and life, occupied the first place in the subjects of “Orientalist” works, until they became a symbol of life in the East. And the image of the eastern woman was formed in the minds of Western society through the artistic spread of that movement, and it sparked controversy and views differed. The research deals with an artistic experiment based on re-presenting the image of women as a symbol through a group of works in the field of illustrations as a creation parallel to the idea presented, namely: re-inspiring the image of oriental women drawn by “Orientalists” in the past, and changing some aspects of this image in line with the variables of thought in the modern era, The change of women's ideas in a world characterized by freedom, and the possibility of benefiting from these drawings in a work of art and a contemporary visual vision through an (Artist Book).