"Japanese Contemporary Illustrators meet Old Master Painters", published by Side Ranch

2016-05-31 : previous : next : index : [books]


"Japanese Contemporary Illustrators meet Old Master Painters", published by Side Ranch. A collection of 43 classical paintings, remixed by modern illustrators.

People familiar with classical art might find the cover girl highly resembling Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring", but of course the facial features are styled by the more contemporary Kazuharu Kina. A piece of art I like done by an artist I like got me to immediately buy this book, whoever planned the cover for this book is a genius! Most pages in this book follow a similar pattern of showing the new and old paintings side by side, with some notes describing the original work. The excellent selection of artworks and artists makes this book very enjoyable.

Upon a closer look, you might also realize that the original "Girl with a Pearl Earring" did not show the girl's hands. This is really the main feature of this book: while all pictures resemble the original paintings' compositions to varying degrees, all of them have their share of new twists. For example, the optically incorrect layout in Manet's "A Bar at the Folies-Bergère" is faithfully reproduced in Shigaraki's version, while the bottles of wine have been replaced by colorful magic potions. The entire book is really a game of spot the differences, it was more fun than I expected.

I might not be completely familiar with all artists in this book (old and new), but seeing their works side by side gave me new appreciation for these art.

Some page samples are available in the official press release:
http://www.sideranch.co.jp/issue/mb8.html


Previous (2016-05-17): "Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo!" volume 3 by Akatsuki Natsume
Next (2016-06-02): "Harem e no Kiyoki Tadashiki Route" by Nomura Mizuki, volumes 0 and 1

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