Monday, August 23, 2010

Campi Phlegraei

Since my return to this country, in January 1773, I have continued with aſſiduity my obſervations upon Mount Veſuvius, and the many ancient Volcanick productions in this Neighborhood.

Every freſh remark confirms me in the opinion, which I have already communicated to the Royal Society, and which has been honor'd with a place in the Philoſophical tranſactions.

If the circuit I have deſcribed, can be fairly proved to owe it's very existence to Volcanick exploſions, at various, and in ſome parts at very remote periods, and be not meerly a country torn to pieces by ſubterraneous fires, as has been hitherto the generally received opinion, I flatter myself, I ſhall have open'd a new field for obſervation in this curious ſubject.

There is no doubt, but that the Neighborhood of an active Volcano, must ſuffer from time to time the most dire calamities, the natural attendants of earthquakes, and eruptions; Whole cities, with their inhabitants, are either buried under ſhowers of pumice ſtones and aſhes, or overwhelmed by rivers of liquid fire; others again are ſwept off in an inſtant, by torrents of hot water iſſuing from the mouth of the ſame Volcano, of which, in the very little we know of the History of Mount Veſuvius and Etna (the preſent active Vocanos of theſe Kingdoms) there are many examples; and the ruins of Herculaneum, Pompeii, Stabia, and Catania relate their ſad cataſtrophes in the most pathetick terms.


{Sir William Hamilton in the opening letter (May 1776) to the President of the Royal Society of London IN Vol. I of 'Campi Phlegraei : Observations on the Volcanos of the Two Sicilies as they have been Communicated to the Royal Society of London / by William Hamilton K.B. F.R.S., His Britannic Majesty's Envoy Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary at the Court of Naples'



"The area around Naples was known locally as the Campi Phlegraei,
or ‘flaming fields’, owing to the frequent and violent eruptions of Mount Vesuvius."



Map of Tyrrhenian Sea (Vol. 1)
Map of Tyrrhenian Sea
[large version] [extra large version]



Plate 3, view of Naples from Pausilipo
View of Naples from Pausilipo



Plate 4, view of Naples from sea shore
View of Naples from sea shore



Plate 7, Mt. Vesuvius
Mt. Vesuvius



Plate 5, lava eruption on Mt. Vesuvius
Lava eruption on Mt. Vesuvius



Plate 6, eruption on Mt. Vesuvius 1767 October 20
Eruption on Mt. Vesuvius 1767 October 20



Plate 38, night view of eruption of Mt. Vesuvius
Night view of eruption of Mt. Vesuvius

"A aa lava flow (recognised by the broken surface texture) passes the observer's location on 11. May 1771 and reaches the sea at Resina. Note the steep, slowly advancing front of the flow. Pietro Fabris is amongst the spectators (below left) as is William Hamilton, who explains the view to other onlookers." [source]



Plate 3, eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, 1779 August 9 (supplement)
Eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, 1779 August 9



Plate 2, top of Mt. Vesuvius
Top of Mt. Vesuvius



Plate 2, eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, 1779 August 8 (supplement)
Eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, 1779 August 8



Plate 1, sailing ships in the Lipari Islands (Vol. 1)
Sailing ships in the Lipari Islands



Plate 9, crater of Mt. Vesuvius
Crater of Mt. Vesuvius



Plate 10, crater of Mt. Vesuvius
Crater of Mt. Vesuvius



Plate 12, Mt. Vesuvius eruption 1760 December 23
Mt. Vesuvius eruption 1760 December 23



Plate 8, stratum of lava
Stratum of Lava



Plate 30, island of Ischia
Island of Ischia



Plate 34, island of Ventotene
Island of Ventotene



Plate 37, eruption on island of Stromboli
Eruption on island of Stromboli



Plate 50, rock and marble from Mt. Vesuvius
Rock and marble from Mt. Vesuvius



Plate 44, specimens from the crater of Mt. Vesuvius
Specimens from the crater of Mt. Vesuvius



Plate 49, specimens of lava from Mt. Vesuvius
Specimens of lava from Mt. Vesuvius



Plate 53, volcanic rock from Solfatara
Volcanic rock from Solfatara


[click through to large and very large versions of the images]

"Sir William Hamilton (1730-1803), perhaps best-known today as the husband of Emma Hamilton, mistress of Admiral Lord Nelson, was in his own right a skilled diplomatist, a celebrated connoisseur and collector, and a respected natural historian. In his own time he was honoured in particular for his contributions to the study of volcanoes, acquiring the title ‘the modern Pliny’ for his studies of Vesuvius.

Hamilton arrived in Naples as British envoy to the Neapolitan royal court in 1764, and became fascinated by Vesuvius. Shortly after his arrival the volcano went into an eruptive phase that lasted until 1767, giving Hamilton ample opportunity to observe and report upon its behaviour.

Hamilton believed passionately in the importance of careful, direct observation of natural phenomena, and Campi Phlegraei is intended to make the various aspects of Vesuvius’s activity available to those unable to see the volcano directly themselves.

He ensured that Fabri’s illustrations were as accurate and detailed as possible, reflecting his aim of offering ’accurate and faithfull obſervations on the operations of nature, related with ſimplicity and truth’. The desire to view phenomena directly for oneself, and to form one’s own opinion on the basis of the evidence, can be seen as a central principle of the Enlightenment."
[The Volcanism Blog]

'Campi Phlegraei' was first published in 1776 with a supplementary volume released three years later covering the 1779 Vesuvius eruption. The first volume consists mainly of letters sent by Hamilton to the Royal Society with the majority of plates appearing in volume two. The sketches by Pietro Fabris were reproduced as sixty two engravings for the publication and were assiduously hand-coloured in gouache.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Hecho a Mano

Book Arts of Latin America


Ambar Past, 1997 'Conjuros y ebriedades - cantos de mujeres mayas' pub- Taller Ditoria, Mexico
Title: Conjuros y ebriedades : cantos de mujeres mayas, 1997
Author/Artist: Ambar Past
Publisher: Taller Ditoria, Mexico
Subjects: Embossed papers; Tzotzil poetry; Tzotzil women; shamans; Chiapas



Anton Arrufat, 2008 'Manual de inexpertos, titulo provisional' pub- Ediciones Vigía, Matanzas, Cuba
Title: Manual de inexpertos, titulo provisional, 2008
Author: Anton Arrufat
Artist: Rolando Estévez Jordán
Publisher: Ediciones Vigía, Matanzas, Cuba
Series: Colección del Estero.




Gerardo Deniz, 2006 'IMDINB' pub- Taller Ditoria, Mexico
Title: IMDINB, 2006
Author: Gerardo Deniz
Artist: Roberto Rébora
Publisher: Taller Ditoria, Mexico



Dmitro Pavlichko, 2005 'Sonetos blancos' pub- Ediciones Vigia, Matanzas, Cuba
Title: Sonetos blancos, 2005
Author: Dmitro Pavlichko
Artist: Rolando Estévez Jordán
Publisher: Ediciones Vigía, Matanzas, Cuba



Cintio Vitier, 1990 'Poemas de mayo y junio' pub- Ediciones Vigía, Matanzas, Cuba
Title: Poemas de mayo y junio, 1990
Author: Cintio Vitier
Artist: Rolando Estévez Jordán
Publisher: Ediciones Vigía, Matanzas, Cuba




A Benavidez Bedoya, 1999 'Máximas mínimas para la supervivencia de los argentinos' pub- La Marca Editora, Argentina
Title: Máximas mínimas para la supervivencia de los argentinos, 1999
Artist/Author: A. Benavidez Bedoya
Publisher: La Marca Editora, Argentina
Subject: Argentina (Moral & social conditions)




Fabio Morabito, 2005 '8 poemas' pub- Taller Ditoria, Mexico
Title: 8 poemas, 2005
Author: Fabio Morabito
Publisher: Taller Ditoria, Mexico




Omar Valino, 2001 'Escena cubana actual - Oscilaciones' pub- Ediciones Vigia, Matanzas, Cuba



Omar Valino, 2001 'Escena cubana actual - Oscilaciones' pub- Ediciones Vigia, Matanzas, Cuba (box)
Title: Escena cubana actual: Oscilaciones.
Author: Omar Valiño
Artist: Rolando Estévez Jordán
Publisher: Ediciones Vigía, Matanzas, Cuba
Subject: Cuba Matanzas; 21st century Theater



Laura Ruiz, 2003 'Neoclasico' pub- Ediciones Vigía, Matanzas, Cuba
Title: Neoclasico, 2003
Author: Laura Ruiz
Artist: Rolando Estévez Jordán
Publisher: Ediciones Vigía, Matanzas, Cuba



Cesar López, 2008 'Pasos, paseos, pasadizos' pub- Ediciones Vigia, Matanzas, Cuba a
Title: Pasos, paseos, pasadizos, 2008
Author: Cesar López
Artist: Rolando Estévez Jordán, Rolando
Publisher Ediciones Vigía, Matanzas, Cuba


All images are © the respective artist, author and/or publisher

Thanks to the University of North Carolina Library for allowing these images to be posted here.

You should definitely check out their Hecho a Mano: Book Arts of Latin America collection for more similar goodness.

Previously: Bookart

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Ancient Designs - Mexico + Peru

"The beautiful designs in this book come from a variety of sources. The Maya and Aztec from ancient Mexico once used them in hieroglyphs and pictograms. They survived as wall paintings, and on excavated pots, figurines and clothes from mummies. The Inca adorned their pottery with geometric decorations or abstract depictions from everyday objects. The much older Nazca were known for their fine textiles and colourful pottery with motifs that appear to depict their pantheon, including a variety of creatures, some hybrid and some fanciful. The Moche on the other hand made beautiful objects from gold, silver, copper and other metals."



bird-man native art
Mexico - Teotihuatecan Knight-Eagle



skeletal figure
Mexico - Maya Death God



Eagle
Mexico - Toltec Eagle



Maya Art & Civilization
Mexico Maya Kukulcán




South American native drawing
Mexico - Quetzalcoatl as Wind God



MesoAmerican calendar glyph legend
Mexico - Aztec Day Signs



claw-handed figure
Peru - Moche Crabman



south american indigenous art
Peru - Moche Boat



stylised warrior bird
Peru - Moche Eagle Warrior



dragon
Peru - Moche Dragon



Mesoamerican glyph
Peru - Mohica God of the Foxes



The images were scanned from 'Native Designs from Ancient Mexico & Peru', 2006 and are posted here with permission.

These images & rendering are © Maarten Hesselt van Dinter / Mundurucu. But the actual designs, being ancient and traditional Maya, Aztec and Inca cultural and mythological pictograms, are in the public domain. Many of these designs can be seen in book and manuscript scans among previous related posts: Mesoamerica.

Also previously: Native North American Designs; Celtic Designs; Indian Designs.

Monday, August 16, 2010

The Toy Box Ballet

"The toy is the child's earliest initiation into art, or rather for him it is the first concrete example of art, and when mature age comes, the perfected examples will not give his mind the same feelings of warmth, or the same enthusiasms, or the same sense of conviction."
{Charles Baudelaire in his essay, 'A Philosophy of Toys'}

"[Toy-boxes are] really just like towns in which toys live like people - or
maybe towns are really just toy-boxes in which people live like toys."
{André Hellé, illustrator of 'La Boîte à Joujoux'}


Debussy - La Boîte à joujoux o


Debussy - La Boîte à joujoux p



Debussy - La Boîte à joujoux e


Debussy - La Boîte à joujoux c



Debussy - La Boîte à joujoux b


Debussy - La Boîte à joujoux a



Debussy - La Boîte à joujoux i


Debussy - La Boîte à joujoux j


Debussy - La Boîte à joujoux k


Debussy - La Boîte à joujoux m


Debussy - La Boîte à joujoux h



Debussy - La Boîte à joujoux d


Debussy - La Boîte à joujoux n


At first blush, one might suppose that the 1913 ballet music Claude Debussy's composed for his daughter Emma - 'La Boîte à Joujoux' (The Toy Box) - would be a fairly benign conceptual piece. But the last great masterpiece from the French composer is said to resonate beyond evoking the imagination of a child in a simple four act story of character conflict where toys come to life.
"..the music and the ballet that emerged from it is a revelation. The Toy-Box offers a corrective to the grinding dissonance and ideological heaviness that characterized artistic trends outside of France. It was, in short, a riposte to German Expressionism and Soviet avant-gardism, an effort to define modernism in a positive rather than a negative way.

"For one thing, the characters in the original conception derived from the Italian tradition of commedia dell'arte; for another, there were various visual and narrative allusions to silent film, circus, and vaudeville."

The score was charmingly sketched in watercolours by the French children's book author and illustrator, André Hellé, who shared Debussy's fascination for toys and his desire that the ballet be performed by children. Alas, the war intervened and the first production of the ballet (by adults) did not occur until the year after Debussy's death in 1918.