“Remarks on Rural Scenery” was created by John Thomas Smith with the support of his student John Constable. It consists of a sequence of twenty etchings that were all made “after nature” and depict the most various kinds of rural housings for the poor on the periphery of the exploding metropolis of London. The places are specified as precisely as possible, and in two cases even the names of the residents are mentioned. Furthermore, it includes an introductory essay by Smith dealing with – as the subtitles states – “Some observations, and Precepts relative to the Picturesque”.
CS: New Series. A first visual essay in the wake of the Wild Apollo’s Arrows project. What happened after the Ossianists discovered the descendants of their wild Homer among the North American tribes and Blake identified their shamans as visionary Ezekiels? Lightning strikes a curved thimble in a garden by night.
George Montbard (real name: Charles Auguste Loye) was one of the most brillant and versatile illustrators of the 19th century. The staunch republican started his career as a political caricaturist during the imperial rule of Napoleon III. He worked for “La Rue”, the legendary antiautorical magazin of his friend Jules Valles. The anarchist author assembled […]