Category: {architecture}

Architecture

The art of Agostino Arrivabene

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Lo psiconauta (2006).

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Capriccio con ruderi di città ideale (2003).

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Vanitas su zolla di viole (2006).

I’ve tagged this as “gay” since the first painting is featured in the controversial Arte E Omosessualita’. Da von Gloeden a Pierre et Gilles at the Palazzo della Ragione, Milan. That exhibition has caused as stir with Catholics who demanded that Paolo Schmidlin’s Miss Kitty, which shows the current Pope in drag, be removed.

Whatever Agostino Arrivabene‘s sexuality he’s no slouch with a paintbrush, and all the sections on his site are worth looking at. The “Paesaggi” section features some architectural caprices, there’s a section of vanitas works and a fair amount of artistic quotation; I spotted references to Piranesi, Boulée and George Minne, among others.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The fantastic art archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Vanitas paintings
• Giant Skeleton and the Chocolate Jesus

Architectural renderings by HW Brewer

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Birds-eye view of Birmingham in 1886.

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Rome in 1890.

There’s little information online about HW Brewer, a Victorian illustrator who specialised in depictions of cities viewed from the air for magazines such as The Builder. He also imagined how cities might have looked in times past, as with these views of London in the sixteenth century. Always fascinating to see the lack of development south of the river in the days when there was only one bridge available for traffic over the Thames.

Update: bigger copy of the Birmingham picture here.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The etching and engraving archive
• The illustrators archive

Luther Gerlach’s Los Angeles

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Contemporary Los Angeles via Luther Gerlach’s wet-plate photography.

Using antique cameras he restores himself, and a wet-plate photographic process dating from 1851, Luther is completely immersed in this compelling method of vintage process. Gerlach says, “Quite often I feel as if my soul is in the past and my mind is in the future.” His ability to combine past and present becomes even more evident as he transports glass-plate film, restored cameras, lenses, precious metals and solutions to each photo location via his converted van. His unique use of the wet-plate process, combined with his contemporary style and provocative subject matter has propelled his work on the covers and featured editorial in respected publications, such as; View Camera, Celebrated Living, Shutterbug, and Montecito Journal to mention a few.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Bradbury Building: Looking Backward from the Future
• Downtown LA by Ansel Adams