Jackalopes are fun. Jackalopes are cool. I made a pilgrimage to Wall, South Dakota to obtain my two Jackalopes. It’s amazing I’ve collected this many Jackalope postcards.
„Herrn Dr. Printzhorn, so sieht es in mir aus“: Die Sammlung Prinzhorn präsentiert erstmals in großem Umfang Selbstzeugnisse aus ihrem historischen Fundus, die den Alltag in psychiatrischen Anstalten widerspiegeln. Über 120 Exponate, darunter Gemälde, Zeichnungen, Collagen, Textilarbeiten und Briefe, bieten einen berührenden Einblick in das Leben der Internierten und zugleich einen breiten Querschnitt durch die Sammlung. Gezeigt werden Arbeiten von etwa 60 Männern und Frauen aus rund 30 verschiedenen Anstalten im Zeitraum von 1897 bis 1924.
Although one could argue that the genre dates back millennia, Samuel Smiles coined a new term when he published Self-Help in 1859 consequently opening the floodgates to authors attempting to solve the world’s problems one narcissistic step at a time. If one searches the term “self help” in Google today, almost fifty-eight million matches will be returned. An arguably large segment of the self-help phenomena involves books that assist us in specific areas such as personal finance, knitting, or sex. The “For Dummies” publisher alone has over seventy-eight thousand titles currently available on Amazon.com. This is not a modern day marvel. A vast array of how-to books was available to readers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Starting with the premise that these books purport to be the final word on the matter, examples of early manuals, templates, recipe books, diagrams, and “(...)
In der Druckgraphik der Zeit von 1560 bis 1620 findet die Vorstellung einer im Kreislauf geordneten Welt voller Wechselwirkungen einen Höhepunkt: Tugenden und Laster, Elemente und Zeiten, Künste u. Wissenschaften erscheinen als Serien von Personifikationen, aus denen auch ganze Handlungsfolgen, (...), zusammengestellt sein können. Diese Auffassung vom Lauf der Welt sah im ständigen Wandel des menschlichen Lebens unter dem Einfluß der Planeten Gesetze wirken, wie sie auch für die physische Welt gelten. Die Folgen und Zyklen entsprachen den Zahlenverhältnissen, die der Ordnung der Welt zugrunde lagen: 7 ist die Zahl der Planeten, der Tugenden, Laster und freien Künste; vier sind die Elemente, die Jahres- und Tageszeiten, die Temperamente und Lebensalter. Dieses aus der Antike überlieferte Weltbild bestimmte auch um 1600 noch die Vorstellungen von der Ordnung der Welt, wobei die druckgraphischen Serien selbst als Instrumente der Ordnung und Vermittlung von Wissen dienten.
Andrea Alciato's Emblematum liber or Book of Emblems had enormous influence and popularity in the 16th and 17th centuries. It is a collection of 212 Latin emblem poems, each consisting of a motto (a proverb or other short enigmatic expression), a picture, and an epigrammatic text. Alciato's book was first published in 1531, and was expanded in various editions during the author's lifetime. It began a craze for emblem poetry that lasted for several centuries. We use the Latin text and images from an important edition of 1621 and we give a translation into English.
Bewußtes Distanzschaffen zwischen sich und der Außenwelt darf man wohl als Grundakt menschlicher Zivilisation bezeichnen; wird dieser Zwischenraum das Substrat künstlicher Gestaltung, so sind die Vorbedingungen erfüllt, daß dieses Distanzbewußtsein zu einer sozialen Dauerfunktion werden kann, deren Zulänglichkeit oder Versagen als orientierendes geistiges Instrument eben das Schicksal der menschlichen Kultur bedeutet.
William Hogarth was one of the founders of a satire that led all the way to the modern comic book and was described as the grandfather of the political cartoon. Martin Rowson revisits Hogarth’s most political details such as Gin Lane.
The works of William Hogarth, currently the subject of Tate Britain's 'Hogarth' exhibition, provide an exceptional record of life in Hanoverian England. To complement this major exhibition, we present the biographies of some of his sitters, associates, and well-known figures from the period. Read the lives behind the portraits for a glimpse of Hogarth's world—from charity and politeness to corruption and vice.
Hogarth's Modern Moral Series: The Rake's Progress When Hogarth embarked on his second Progress in 1733, ‘the rake’ was a long established symbol of masculine waywardness and depravity. An inveterate consumer and ‘man of leisure’, the rake of convention fritters his fortune, usually inherited, on sex, drink and gambling. Along the way he amasses huge debts and seduces, impregnates and abandons at least one young woman. As with the prostitute, a literary convention had developed in which the rake starts life as an impressionable young man from the country who comes to the city after inheriting money and swiftly embarks on a dissolute life. His fate typically involved venereal disease, debtor’s prison and death.
A Harlot’s Progress burst onto the London scene just after an official crackdown on prostitution had begun, focussed specifically on Covent Garden. The most prominent figure in this initiative was Justice John Gonson, whose missionary zeal in ‘cleaning up’ the streets was regularly reported in the London press. Prostitutes working in brothels and on the streets tended to be characterised as vain, artful temptresses who were directly responsible for moral corruption and the spread of disease. By the 1730s the emphasis on blame and revulsion was partially tempered by a journalistic convention that presented the prostitute as an innocent country girl who arrives in the city, alone and vulnerable, and is tricked into prostitution by a devious brothel keeper.
Hogarth's complex approach was at once topical and journalistic and also one that made frequent reference to elevated artistic subject matter. One indication of this is Hogarth’s use of pictures within his pictures, in particular history paintings. These not only drive the narrative forward but establish a visual correlation between the sophisticated programme of symbols, allusions and gestures employed in Hogarth’s modern moral subjects and that found in history painting itself, then appreciated as the most intellectually and artistically rigorous of all pictorial genres.
London’s unique mixture of districts, communities and activities generated an exceptionally vibrant and diverse urban culture – one that Hogarth depicted and drew upon constantly in his art. Select a location on the map below to view works set in that area:
Witty, satirical, subversive and hugely talented, William Hogarth remains one of the most fascinating and innovative artists from the eighteenth century. This superb exhibition is the most comprehensive showing of the artist’s work in a generation and incorporates the full range of Hogarth’s work.
William Hogarth war ein englischer Maler und Grafiker der mit schneidender Satire die Gesellschaft des 18. Jahrhunderts kommentierte. Die Biographie von Hogarth ist genauso ungewöhnlich wie seine Grafiken.
Once upon a time, the rich, sweetly pungent smoke of tobacco offered more than dreary old diseases like emphysema and lung cancer. It promised sophistication, sex appeal, even longevity itself.