I’d like to talk (well OK, rant) for a minute about copyright and the principle of public domain.

“Public domain” is a term referring to works that have passed out of copyright, or have been deliberately assigned to the public domain on creation (for example when created for the U.S. government), and therefore now belong to the public, i.e. all of us.

This is an excellent idea and has been part of US copyright law from the beginning. Copyright laws vary, sometimes confusingly, by country, but I think most or all allow for works to pass into public ownership over time.

As a creator and copyright holder myself, I will be the first to say that copyright is basically a Good Thing, allowing legal protection for the creator of a work from unauthorized use and distribution of their creation for their lifetime — and some years beyond. However, the U.S. Founding Fathers viewed ownership of intellectual property as a kind of monopoly, and felt that it should be limited for the good of the public.

The basic idea is that once the creator of a copyrighted work has died, and his or her heirs (who did not actually create the work) have had a sufficient time to profit off of their relative’s efforts, the work passes into the public domain and belongs to all of us — to copy, rework, disseminate and create variations of to our hearts content, and much to the enrichment of the culture.

Some public domain characters, for example, would include Robin Hood, King Arthur, The Three Musketeers, Snow White, Jack and the Beanstalk, Alice in Wonderland, and so on. Think of all of the inventive variations and stories we have from just those few examples.

Most artwork from history is in the public domain (though photographs of the artwork can be copyrighted by the photographers who took them or institutions to whom copyright for photographs has been assigned).

The copyright/public domain balance is a pretty good arrangement — the creator is protected for their lifetime, the relatives get to ride their coattails for a while, and then we all benefit from a richer public culture when ownership eventually passes to us.

Unfortunately, copyright laws that were originally meant to protect creators can be twisted into tools for advancing corporate power and greed, and the legislators who create and revise our laws seem easily manipulated by those with money and influence.

The large international media conglomerates (the same ones who have been trying to push the U.S. congress into ceding control of the internet to them with travesties of legislation like PIPA and SOPA), are also doing their best to defeat the original intention of the copyright laws, and keep pressuring legislators into extending the “sufficient time” that copyright extends past the creator’s death, to protect and advance their corporate profits.

Originally “life of the author plus 50 years”, the provision was extended to “life of the author plus 70″ years by the 1998 Copyright Extension Act, not coincidentally just before the copyright for Disney’s Mickey Mouse was due to move into the public domain. Many referred to it as the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act”.

Those who are cynical about this process, myself included, assume that the time that copyright extends past the creator’s death will be extended again, not coincidentally before the profit making power of Mickey Mouse can be threatened with passing into public domain under the 70 year limit, with pressure applied to legislators by the same monied interests that extended it the first time (and it’s not just Disney that wants this, it’s all the big media conglomerates).

This would effectively mean that nothing that is not deliberately put into the public domain by its creator will ever again pass into ownership of the public, and that the principle of public domain as envisioned by the framers of the U.S. system of government has effectively been defeated.

There have even been a number of attempts by media corporations to claim ownership of public domain material, effectively stealing from us.

The history of the publishing, recording and other media industries is littered with cases of big companies stealing copyrights or copyrighted material from the original creators, or forcing them to give up their rights in order to be paid.

It’s another shameful example of wealth and power trumping the public good, and something that should always keep us wary of the intentions of these corporations (particularly when they’re promoting legislation to “protect creators” — cough cough).

That said, we still have an extensive backlog of material already in the public domain that we can share and enjoy; which, having had my little rant, brings me to the actual subject of the post, The Public Domain Review.

The internet (at least for the time being) is a cornucopia of public domain material; sites like Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, The Internet Archive, Project Gutenberg and hundreds of others offer a bounty of public domain material.

The Public Domain Review seeks to be a kind of curated guide to some of this material; its contributors offer articles on interesting finds and good sources of material. There is a page on the site about The Public Domain Review, that also talks about the principle of public domain.

There are sections for collections of topics, one of which is images. Though not yet extensive, as the site as just one year old, the collection is promising and will likely continue to grow. The selections are already nicely eclectic, as the examples above demonstrate.

(Images above: Giovanni Paolo Pannini, Eugène von Guérard, Rick Guidice (NASA), image from book by Frederik Ruysch (uncertain of the artist), Limbourg brothers (for Très Riches Heures), Arnoldus Montanus, Harry Clarke)

[Link via MetaFilter]

UK artist Mary Jane Ansell has been a finalist in the prestigious National Portrait Gallery BP Portrait Award in 2004, 2009 and 2010 (see my post on the 2011 BP Portrait Award).

Her portraits and other figurative paintings are elegant and highly refined, both in their paint handling and in her use of light to reveal form and texture. They can also feel intimate and, when she has her models engage the viewer directly, as she often does, they can be subtly piercing.

Most of her subjects are young women, though her formal portrait commissions are sometimes of men and she occasionally takes on still life subjects.

In all of her work she has a keen ability to use light and subtle color to focus your eye exactly where she want it and carry you through the composition in a very deliberate manner.

Many of her paintings have an narrative undercurrent, hinting at a story behind the moment.

Ansell’s website offers galleries of her work both current and from previous years, as well as a small selection of etchings. Though there is some discussion of her procedure for commissioned portraits, there is little information about her approach as a painter, save that she works in oil on panels.

Ansell is represented by the Fairfax Gallery and is a member of the PRISMA Artist Collective.

Boston based painter Sam Vokey paints still life, landscapes and portraits in a crisp, clear, realist style.

Though the surface of his paintings often looks refined, he never crosses over into the stiffness of photorealism, and maintains a painterly edge.

His palette ranges from muted to bright as the subject warrants. His still life paintings, in particular, have a wonderful quality of calm contemplation and careful observation. Vokey will often rearrange the same simple still life subjects into different, fresh compositions, playing with reflections and highlights in reflective objects.

I also admire the elegant simplicity of his handling of water in his landscapes. In those, as well as in his still life paintings, Vokey plays with value, at times choosing strong contrasts and at other times narrowing the value range to beautifully restrained effect.

On his website you will find several categories of paintings and prints, including portraits. Some of those combine elements of room interiors as well.

Vokey occasionally leads workshops, though it doesn’t look as though the page for those has been recently updated.

There are step-through demos of two still life paintings here.

[Via Jeffrey Hayes]

Becky Cloonan is an American comics artist and writer known for her recent unique take on Conan the Barbarian with writer Brian Wood, as well as her own self-published titles and other work for Dark Horse, Vertigo, Marvel and other publishers.

Cloonan started out self-publishing her own mini comics and then moved into more mainstream work for various publishers, but still continues to write her own titles.

She has a direct, open style, conveyed in brush and ink linework, that one might easily associate with the more personal approach of independent comics, but she has utilized it to wonderful effect in her mainstream titles.

In spite of her atmospheric and forceful work on projects like WOLVES and her take on the classic Dracula story, most people (myself included) would not have associated her relatively spare style with a title like Conan, but the result is brilliant and perfect, giving the book a streamlined storytelling power and a nice visual feel in line with European comics albums (images above, top two).

There is an 8 page preview of Conan #1 on the Dark Horse site.

Cloonan is also noted for her work on titles like Demo and American Virgin, as well as her contributions to the Flight anthologies. She has also become in demand as a cover artist.

In addition to her website and blog, she also maintains a Tumblr blog and a deviantART gallery.

Heartbreak Comics, to promote their new “graphic novel” (by which I think they mean “anthology”) has placed Cloonan’s contribution, a story titled 1989, online in its entirety (images above, third down). The story can also be downloaded as a PDF.

Cloonan has just made her newest mini comic, The Mire, available for pre-order. This is essentially a self-contained short story and a follow-up to her well received WOLVES.

Arizona artist Matt Smith paints en plein air in locations across the Western U.S.

Smith studied in the Fine Arts program of Arizona State University, but somewhat disenchanted with the abstract emphasis of the program, pursued independent study of American Western artists like Maynard Dixon, William Herbert Dunton, and Edgar Payne. Smith has also studied with contemporary artists Michael Lynch, James Reynolds and Clyde Aspevig.

Smith finds particular fascination in the craggy, intricate forms of wind sculpted rocks, weatherbeaten trees and other highly textural aspects of natural erosion. He approaches these with a controlled palette accented with higher chroma passages, and deft handling of light and shadow.

Smith teaches for several weeks out of the year, and conducts workshops at the Tuscon Art Academy. There is a brief video of a 2011 workshop on YouTube.

He also offers three location painting DVD’s on his site.

Royalists to Romantics: Women Artists from the Louvre, Versailles, and Other French National Collections is an exhibition at the National Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington, DC that offers a chance to view paintings from European collections by women artist who were active from 1750 to 1850.

Unfortunately, the museum’s website doesn’t feature a preview, but Salon has both a review and preview slideshow. The artists bear further investigation should you care to research them on the internet (particularly Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun and Constance Mayer, two favorites of mine that I have not yet featured on Lines and Colors).

Royalists to Romantics is on display until July 29, 2012. There is a catalog accompanying the exhibition.

(Images above: Constance Mayer, Antoinette Cécile Hortense, Adrienne Marie Louise Grandpierre-Deverzy, Rose Adélaïde Ducreux, Adélaïde Labille-Guiard)

Two very short animations by Cyril Calgaro.

The Train (images above, top two) is devoted to the painter Mondrian’s simplification of forms.

SINCE… is a mini essay on the history of communication, told in animated icons.

[Via Parka Blogs]

Bittersweet nostalgia; and/or my attic and basement…

[Via Dave Gibbons]