NoRelevance.com » outsider art

Ernst Haeckel and the Unity of Culture via the Public Domain Review

Art — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 19:58:03 +0000

Renegade Darwinist/zoologist and truly “mesmerizing” illustrator Ernst Haeckel may have caused quite a stir when he posited organic matter as originating from inorganic matter through spontaneous generation. However, he’s most surely better known for his incessant visual chronicling of our planet’s oddest lifeforms and their myriad variations of form and color. In his article on the Public Domain Review, Dr Mario A. Di Gregorio, professor of the History of Science at the University of L’Aquila and author of From Here to Eternity: Ernst Haeckel and Scientific Faith, offers insight into the origins of Haeckel’s theories and the mind-bending art that came from his obsessive depictions of the Kunstformen der Natur, or “the Art Forms of Nature,” which Haeckel published in 1904. You’ll stumble upon copies of this book in just about every format (Dover paperback with CD-ROM, for example, since its contents are in the public domain) in almost any new or used bookstore and should be a staple of your visual junk collection if there ever was one.

Also, keep your eye out for a documentary fill made in 2004 called Proteus, about the life and work of this strange and gifted man.

Hand-Painted & Hand-Made Signs – Antigua BWI

Art — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 22:15:09 +0000

JUST UPLOADED: Feast your eyes on over 20 beautiful, ugly, tattered and torn, hand-painted & hand-made signs from Antigua BWI. Signs from St. John’s, English Harbor, Rotten Hill and beyond are here for your drooling pleasure. View the thumbnail gallery or the slide show. Enjoy!

Sketch Swap

Art — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 04:27:45 +0000

Can’t afford an over-priced masterpiece? Then get a virtual drawing by a potential art star in exchange for one of your own at Sketch Swap, where it’s “Draw 1 to get 1.” As the site’s description reads: “you draw something on the screen, and when you’re finished, you hit “Submit drawing”… to receive a random drawing from someone else.” All submitted drawings require approval before being added to the pool of available drawings to be swapped, so get those dirty thoughts out of your head.

Alesha Sivartha: Visionary Typographer

Art — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 17:30:52 +0000

Though it may not have been his intention, Dr. Alesha Sivartha’s masterpiece of mysticism and typography, The Book of Life: The Spiritual and Physical Constitution of Man, is truly a work of art. While difficult to follow at first, the often densely worded drawings and diagrams created in the late 1800s do eventually begin to make sense—if only on a per-page basis. Nevertheless, rarely have form and function been so perfectly melded, ala Edward Tufte—though way before his time. Sivartha, a.k.a. Arthur Merton, MD, was allegedly the illegitimate son of the Rajah Ram Mohun Roy, a prominent Indian scholar and reformer. While little is known about his life or why he chose to dedicate it to mapping out the physical and spiritual nature of our higher brain functions, his apparent relation to the Raja may have been the impetus. An online version of the book maintained by the author’s great-great-grandson, complete with his own interpretations, is located here.