Is it the future yet?

I just love past visions of the future (particularly when the future is in our past).

The folks at Dark Roasted Blend, as they often do, have assembled some nice collections of retro future illustration — in this case past visions of future transportation, mostly culled from popular science magazines from the early 20th century — in a series of articles:

Retro-Future: Mind-Boggling Transportation
Retro-Future Transportation Showcase, Part 2
Retro-Future: Glorious Transportation Update

Art credits, unfortunately, are a bit spotty. In some cases links are given to image sources elsewhere on the web. They have also mixed in some more contemporary illustrations, but they’ll be outdated soon enough.

I can’t wait for 1973!

Concept art has a multitude of uses outside of the film and gaming industries, even out in the “real world” — theme parks for example, use concept art to plan attractions.

Another use is in the development of proposed space vehicles, this has been the case since Chesley Bonestell created images of potential spacecraft for an American space program that did not yet exist, working from sketches on graph paper by pioneering rocket scientist Wernher von Braun. (The concept paintings were initially used to convince Congress to fund the space program by showing them the possibilities.)

An article today by Robert Gonzalez on the excellent science fiction/science themed blog, io9, digs into the archives of the San Diego Air & Space Museum and comes up with a treasure trove of concept art from the proposal days of the U.S. Space Shuttle program in a Flickr set of Space Related Images from the museum.

The concept art, which shows many preliminary and alternate designs, is mixed in with photographs of actual launches, tests and related subjects, but there is enough art to make flipping through the thumbnails well worthwhile. The io9 article also showcases some highlights with links to large versions. These images are in the public domain.

You’ve probably seen images recently of the last Space Shuttle’s last flight atop a carrier plane as it was moved to its resting place in a museum. The image above, top, was a concept for how the spacecraft might be carried atop existing aircraft for transport that was created before the Shuttles existed. Concept to reality.

Here in the northern hemisphere, today is the first day of Autumn, AKA the Autumnal Equinox (and of course it’s the beginning of Spring down under, where they do everything upside backwards).

An equinox is a point in the Earth’s orbit in which the tilted axis of our planet’s rotation is neither toward or away from the sun and day and night are approximately equal length (hence “exquinox”, basically “equal night”), so I suppose we should feel straightened up and balanced at this point.

Autumn always seems a strange balance of bitter and sweet — Summer is fading, but the beautiful crisp and clear days of the season of some of the best of the year, and the dying leaves go out in a last triumphant explosion of color.

Picturing Autumn, an Equinox Celebration is the finale in a series of four seasonal posts over the course of this year by Irene Gallo, Creative Directory for Tor.com and Tor Books, in which she asked a number of artists and art directors to give their suggestions for images that picture a given season. The series started with Picturing Winter and followed with Picturing Spring and Picturing Summer.

The new post is the most extensive of the series, with nearly 100 images. Like the others, it’s a cornucopia of art and artists that is wonderful not only for looking through, but as a jumping off point for investigating artists with whom you may not be familiar. The choices cut across a wide range of times, genres and styles.

As before, I’ll suggest that you follow the links Gallo has provided not only to the artists whose images are featured, but to the sites of the artists who made the suggestions; all of them will be rewarding.

I was delighted once again to be asked to participate, and my suggestions for images associated with Autumn for the article are shown above — by Arthur Meltzer, Frits Thaulow, John Atkinson Grimshaw and George Inness.

Long time readers of Lines and Colors will not be surprised that I am an admirer the work of illustrator/writer/painter James Gurney. (Let’s see.. beautifully painted illustration with influences from great 19th century artists and Golden Age illustrators, fantastical adventure stories with lushly imaginative settings, Hudson River valley landscape painting and plein air painting, and of course.. terrific dinosaurs — what’s not to like?)

I was pleased back in 2010 to have the opportunity to see an exhibition titled Dinotopia: The Art of James Gurney at the Delaware Art Museum at which I got to see many examples of his original artwork.

In addition to surprises in scale, his work reveals characteristics up close that are not always evident in reproduction, much of it, for example, is surprisingly painterly. Another aspect that comes through in person even more than in reproduction is the degree to which Gurney’s experience as a plein air landscape painter informs and enlivens his fantasy art.

Gurney also works from life in the form of models for his compositions, and a new exhibition that opens at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum in new London, Connecticut this Saturday, September 22nd, Dinotopia: Art, Science and Imagination, not only showcases Gurney’s original art for the well known series of illustrated adventure stories, but delves into the creation of the works and the science behind them. The show includes sketches, preliminary versions, maquettes, photos used for reference and plein air studies.

This show is more extensive than the already large show I saw in 2012; it features 135 works, most of which are not the same as in the previous exhibitions and much of which has not been on public display before.

Unfortunately, the museum’s website, as is usually the case with museum websites, is not good at generating any visual excitement about the show.

Fortunately, as is also often the case, artist and blogger Matthew D. Innis steps in and does a superb job of just that, with an extensive post on his blog Underpaintings that includes links to much larger versions of many of the images I’ve shown above.

You can also see more of Gurney’s work on the Dinotopia website, as well as Gurney’s own website and his blog, Gurney Journey.

The latter has developed over the years into one of the best go-to destinations for art instruction on the web, much of which has been condensed into two superb art instruction volumes (so far), Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn’t Exist and Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter (links are to my reviews, the books can be purchased directly from Gurney’s shop).

Two volumes of Gurney’s classic Dinotopia adventure stories have been rereleased in deluxe, expanded 20th Anniversary editions by Dover Publications’ Calla Editions imprint. I reviewed the Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time 20th Anniversary Edition in 2011.

The new Dinotopia: The World Beneath 20th Anniversary Edition has just been released this month and I was delighted to receive a review copy from Dover.

In themselves, these Dinotopia editions have reframed my impression of Dover books, which used to be “terrific because they were inexpensive art books with fairly decent reproductions”. Now they are making inexpensive art books with very good reproductions.

The new version of The World Beneath, in fact, is better looking than my copy of the original edition — the colors richer and more vibrant, and, according to Gurney, truer to the original artwork.

If you’re not familiar with these books, they are wonderful adventure stories, profusely illustrated (I love that phrase) with Gurney’s lush and imaginative portrayals of a fantastical city atop a waterfall (which served as an uncredited inspiration for the the city in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace), adventure heroes, engaging steampunkery and, of course, a cornucopia of dinosaurs.

Adventure stories, yes — but heavier on illustration than text, they also serve as coffee table art books, showcasing Gurney’s terrific paintings in large spreads.

The new edition, in some ways analogous to the current exhibit a the Lyman Allyen, features an additional 25+ pages of behind the scenes drawings, painted sketches, photo reference, maquettes, and other goodies. The book also features an introduction by noted paleontologist Dr. Michael Brett-Surman.

I will take some consolation in this edition for the fact that I don’t know if my schedule this season will let me get up to the exhibition, though it runs to February 2, 2013. For those who can make it, you’re in for a treat.

John Picacio is an award winning science fiction, fantasy and horror illustrator that I first wrote about in 2006. He has been the recipient of the Locus Award, the International Horror Guild Award (x2), the Chesley Award (x5!), the World Fantasy Award and, just recently, the Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist.

For those not familiar with the field, the Hugo Award, in particular, is highly prized. Picacio has just added a post on his blog in which he pays tribute to those who preceded him, and it’s a heady list — reaching back to 1955.

Picacio works in both traditional and digital media, at times combining the two by scanning a work painted in physical paint into the computer for further development in digital painting applications.

He has an unusual approach to color in many of his works, utilizing loosely defined bands or waves of high chroma color across the composition within which the image unfolds and other colors blend from one area to the other. This is contrasted by other works in which he utilizes muted limited palettes accented with smaller areas of more intense color.

Picacio’s compositions sometimes utilize areas of patterns or design elements, and often are richly textured.

His online portfolio is arranged by year. You can find additional image on his blog, On the Front. Picacio is also a contributor to the San Antonio area group science fiction, fantasy and horror blog, Missions Unknown.

There is a sub-genre within Victorian painting, Golden Age illustration and contemporary fantasy art that is sometimes called faerie art or fairy art. It dwells on those imaginary miniature denizens of woodlands and fields who are often portrayed with pointed ears and gossamer wings.

As much as I like some of the former two categories, largely because I like Victorian painting in general and artists like Edmund Dulac and Arthur Rackham no matter what their subject, faeries as a subject for paintings have never been a particular draw for me — dragons and goblins, yes — faeries, not so much.

Contemporary fantasy artists who specialize in faerie art tend to leave me cold, their subjects often over rendered, and at times cloying in the attempt to portray the “magic” of faeries.

So I’m simply not one predisposed to like faerie art.

This is the point of view from which I express my admiration for the work of Jean-Baptiste Monge, a contemporary illustrator who I have featured previously and who is known primarily as a faerie artist.

Though the pointed ears are prevalent, and translucent wings occasionally make an appearance, Monge’s gritty faerie world has more in common with the pirates of Howard Pyle and N.C. Wyeth, or the goblins and trolls of Gustaf Tenggren and John Bauer, than with the pastoral fantasies of most contemporary faerie illustrators.

Monge also has more in common with the style of the Golden Age illustrators than with his contemporaries, both in his superb draftsmanship and his judicious application of color and texture.

His masterful use of texture is one of the aspects of his work I find most appealing. Even in his simple pencil drawings, there is a feeling for the visual textures and tactile surfaces of the real world that informs and enlivens his fantasy settings.

Since I last wrote about Monge back in 2010, his website has been revised and expanded, with galleries of illustrations from all of his major books.

Monge now also has a blog, on which you can find not only more art, but occasional articles on process and technique.

There is a nice video showing his process for his digital illustration “Thief” on YouTube, and an Interview on Character Design Notes, part 1, and part 2.

Monge will be a featured guest at this year’s CTN Animation Expo in Burbank, California in November.

There is currently a spectacular exhibition at the Allentown Art Museum in Allentown, PA called At the Edge that combines some of the finest contemporary fantastic art with some superb examples of art from the 19th century that is part of the legacy on which the contemporary genre is based, and puts one in context with the other.

This show would be excellent were it simply one group of paintings, but the combination is ground breaking.

Almost 40 of the 160 pieces on display are from before 1940, with an emphasis on the Golden Age of Illustration. The museum’s website mentions some of them, but as is the incomprehensible usual for museum websites, does an appallingly bad job of giving you a sense of what’s actually in the exhibit.

I’ve listed some Lines and Colors posts in the links below for some of the artists included in the show, both historic and contemporary.

Unfortunately my hope of seeing the show and bringing you a first hand report is fading, as the end of the show is fast approaching on September 9, and my overloaded schedule has not abated.

I’m remiss in not telling you about this earlier, but as of this writing you still have week to catch the show.

In lieu of my hoped for personal report, I will recommend an excellent overview of the show by Mathew D. Innis on his always superb blog, Underpaintings.

The report by Innis is actually better and more extensive than an overview I could have provided in the limited space I allow for articles. It includes not only nice reproductions of some of the pieces in the show (click on them for larger versions), but photos of the galleries showing the works hanging in context. Museums should hire people like Innis to write their exhibition previews.

At the Edge is on display at the Allentown Art Museum to Sunday, September 9, 2012.

The Allentown Art Museum is a little over an hour from Philadelphia and less than two hours from New York (Google Map).

Get there if you can.

(Images above: N. C. Wyeth, James Gurney, Edmund Blair Lighton, J.C. Leyendecker, Justin Sweet, Tom Kidd)

Ilene Meyer was a painter who created stunning magic realist, fantastic and visionary works, often involving continued themes of checkered planes, geometric objects, animals, sea creatures, flowers, fruit and other aspects of the natural world, real and imagined, swirled into cascades of looping forms as if pulled by strands of liquified gravity.

Unfortunately news is going around the net today, in a way it apparently didn’t at the time, that Meyer died in 2009. There is a remembrance on the Spectrum Fantastic Art site by Cathy and Arnie Fenner, who were the editors of Meyer’s printed collection (if there is a “front door” link to this page from the Spectrum site, I can’t find it). There is also an obit on the Seattle Times.

Meyer was self taught and played with the influence of other artists and various genres in her paintings. She wore her fondness for the work of Spanish Surrealist Salvador Dalí on her sleeve, making playful homages to many of his themes, particularly from his later “Atomic” period. She became internationally recognized, and her work is exceptionally popular in Japan.

Unfotrunately, Meyer’s official site, Meyerworld, which is still a good place to go for information about the artist and an overview of her paintings, has never been updated with larger images or images of her later work. As often happens when that is the case, others have stepped in to fill the void and we must turn to other sources for larger and later images.

There are a number of Tumblr posts of her work, but for the larger images necessary to really do justice to the detail and visual richness of Meyer’s work, there is an unofficial gallery on the Russian fantasy art collection site, LoNeLy CrazZy, which has an extensive gallery of large images.

To see her work in the best light, however, I’m happy to say the print collection of her work, Ilene Meyer: Paintings, Drawings, Perceptions, is still available. Parka Blogs has a nice visual review.

Another volume, World Below, was a children’s story about survival and change in an ancient civilization that has parallels in modern environmental issues, and is more difficult to find.

For more, see my previous posts on Ilene Meyer, and here.

[Notice of Meyer's death came courtesy of William Askew. See his comment on my original 2007 post on Ilene Meyer, and his brief personal remembrance on AskArt]