I am perpetually a fan of poster art, but this one seems especially topical. (This poster and many others are in this PDF file.)
2020-02-05 14:30
Tag: poster art
NASA (space) travel posters!
I’m both a huge fan of poster art and a huge geek about travel to fantasy locations, so I’m doubly entertained by this batch of posters from the fun-loving artists at NASA advertising a bunch of possible travel locations in our solar system and beyond, available in resolutions high enough for printing at poster size:
Source: Visions of the Future
Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech.
Great retro posters by Timothy Anderson
As a huge fan of poster art, I’m delighted that Jay Lake linked to Timothy Anderson’s Art site, full of retro posters (and retro book covers) for sf and fantasy books and films.
Wonderful, wonderful stuff.
The Italian language text is a clever way to reference the spaghetti westerns. Of course, Esperanto text would have been a much better choice.
Poster art—Exoplanet Travel Posters
I always like poster art. In particular, I like the way poster artists manage to make such effective use of a limited color pallet. Several of these are excellent examples:
[Update 2016-02-14: That link seems busted, but a search still finds the exoplanet posters: http://www.chungkong.nl/?s=exoplanet]
With just a few shades of the same color, the Chungkong paints a whole alien world.
—via Jay Lake.
Feeding the soul
I was feeling kind of glum yesterday. It was just brain chemicals, I think—the result of a gray day when I was already feeling a little discouraged about my progress on my novel. (My recent post on how I’m not suffering as much from seasonal affect disorder notwithstanding.)
I was already feeling better today (it’s sunny), but decided to do something cheering anyway. So, I went to the Krannert Art Museum, which turned out to be showing an exhibit of turn-of-the-century poster art. I’m a big fan of poster art and art deco, so it was full of wonderful stuff. By merest coincidence, I’d earlier in the day happened upon this Art of the Poster 1880-1918 site, so I got a fun double dose of poster art.
Plus, one of the posters featured a loom, which I thought Jackie would appreciate.
There was also an exhibit of student art in the lobby outside the art museum that was much more interesting than 90% of what was in the museum itself. I couldn’t find a link, which is too bad. There was a lot of good stuff—some pretty, some funny, some thoughtful.
When it comes to dealing with glumness, I think it’s basic things that really matter—nutrition, exercise, getting enough sleep, spending some time out in the sun whenever there’s a sunny day. Once I’ve got that covered, though, the best short-term response to short-term glumness is to fit something cheerful into the day; preferably something that’s not just cheerful, but also meaningful in some way. For that, I particularly like going to museums. Something that’s merely cheering is worth doing. Something that’s cheering and also feeds the soul is even better.
Eighteen Views Suffice
View of Mt. Fuji, originally uploaded by bradipo.
Jackie and her mom and I went to the Indianapolis Museum of Art’s exhibit of Utagawa Hiroshige’s “36 views of Mt. Fuji.” This was part 2 of the exhibit, and featured 18 of the woodcuts.
I’ve always liked the Japanese woodcuts of this era, for much the same reason that I like poster art: I like the use of strong, simple images and the effective use of a limited color pallet. (I also rather like the particular shade of blue that they used.)
Besides the woodcuts, we also spent a chunk of time in an exhibit on drawings together with prints, etchings, and the like. Some were source drawings prepared for the engraver. Others were copies of etchings, drawn as studies. I find it interesting to think about the differences between poster art and woodcuts, versus etching, engravings, and so on—differences in intention, technology, result, etc.
We also walked a bit on the grounds. I particularly enjoyed the tow path along the canal behind the museum.
This was just our second visit to the museum, which is too bad—it’s a great museum. It’s more than 2 hours away, though, which makes for a rather long day. We enjoyed it enough that we’re thinking about getting a room in a hotel and making a 2-day trip of it. That would mean that we could spend a whole day (or two half-days) at the museum, instead of trying to cram everything into a few hours between two long drives.