#preparatory study

[garadinervi]

Séverine Pierron, 40 years after, the secrets of a now-iconic logo, Centre Pompidou, Paris, November 10, 2020

«Five black bands, two zigzags—and a building turned into a symbol. Born in 1977, the Centre Pompidou logo distils the architecture's most radical feature—the "Caterpillar" escalator—into a pure graphic sign. No outlines. No ornament. Just a play of void and solid. Today inseparable from the museum's identity, this modern icon was anything but a foregone conclusion. An exclusive look back at a graphic adventure as audacious as it was improbable, with its creator, Jean Widmer (1929–2026).»

(image: Jean Widmer, Logo Centre Georges Pompidou, (water-based marker on tracing paper, cut into vignettes, and glued onto vellum paper), 1974-1977. Centre Pompidou, Paris. © Adagp, Paris. Photo: Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI / Philippe Migeat / Dist. GrandPalaisRmn)

[didoofcarthage]

The Temple of Janus, perhaps by Sir Peter Paul Rubens, a preparatory study for the engraved frontispiece by Lucas Vorsterman to Volume III of Franciscus Haraeus’ Annales Ducum Brabantiae (Annals of the Dukes of Brabant)

Flemish, c. 1620-1623

pen and brown ink with brown wash over black chalk 

Royal Collection Trust

[artthroughtime]

Auguste Rodin - Study of a Hand, last quarter 19th-early 20th century.

Rodin was fascinated by the expressive possibilities of hands: hands gesturing in anguish as in The Burghers of Calais, small studies of hands pulsing with life, giant enigmatic hands sufficient unto themselves. The poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926), who was for a time Rodin's secretary, wrote: "There are among the works of Rodin's hands, single small hands, which without belonging to a body, are alive. Hands that rise, irritated and in wrath; hands whose five bristling fingers seem to bark like the five jaws of a dog of Hell."

Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Art Through Time

[garadinervi]

Ootje Oxenaar, Kleurstudie voor postzegels Nederland 1964 Kinderpostzegels, Maskerade, 1964 [Postzegelontwerpen, postzegels en affiches, Nationaal Archief, Den Haag]

[garadinervi]

Ootje Oxenaar, Schetsontwerp voor postzegels Nederland 1992 Technische Universiteit Delft, 1991 [Postzegelontwerpen, postzegels en affiches, Nationaal Archief, Den Haag]

[garadinervi]

Jiří Rathouský, Italo Calvino: Kosmické grotesky. N: ČS, n.d. [Moravská galerie, Brno]

[garadinervi]

Jiří Rathouský, Italo Calvino: Kosmické grotesky. N: ČS, n.d. [Moravská galerie, Brno]

[garadinervi]

Jan Sluijters, Drukproef voor de Kinderpostzegels Nederland 1928, H.A. Lorentz, October 1928 [Postzegelontwerpen, postzegels en affiches, Nationaal Archief, Den Haag]