Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Case Study No. 1085: The Librarian (Giuseppe Arcimboldo)

librarian
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Promo for Worldwide Books approval plans, with tribute to librarians.
Tags: Worldwide Books approval plan library art
Added: 1 year ago
From: worldwidebooks14850
Views: 6

["Worldwide 1962-2012" appears on screen]
["Italy, 1566" appears on screen]
["Giuseppe Arcimboldo captures the essence of the librarian" appears on screen]
[cut to a still image of Arcimboldo's "The Librarian" (a painting featuring books and papers arranged to resemble a bearded man)]
["Since 1962" appears on screen]
["Worldwide Books has been capturing the essence of" appears on screen]
["The art librarian" appears on screen]
[cut back to Arcimboldo's painting, as the image becomes increasingly pixelated]
["Worldwide Books Approval Plans ... A stroke of genius" appears on screen]

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From worldwide-artbooks.com:

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Worldwide's library clients automatically receive favorable discounts on most of the American trade and university-press publications that we offer; titles from university presses and most small presses are routinely discounted 10%, while those from major American trade publishers are discounted 20%.

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From artcyclopedia.com:

Artist: Giuseppe Arcimboldo
[Italian painter, 1530-1593]

Title: The Librarian

Date: ca.1566
Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 38 x 28 inches (97 x 71 cm)
Location: Skokloster Castle, Sweden

Arcimboldo is well known for several famous images of a man's face created out of plants and vegetables. This is a slightly different effort - a librarian created out of anthropomorphic pile of books.

While it recalls certain visual tricks of artists like Salvador Dali and New York Times illustrator David Suter, this painting reminds me very strongly of many whimsical technological illustrations that Boris Artzybasheff painted as Time Magazine covers during the 1940s, 50s and 60s.

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