Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Johann Theodor de Bry's "Emblems"












































See more here.. 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5

I discovered this collection of Emblems by Bry from a book titled "Proscenium vitæ humanæ sive Emblematum Secularium" in this post over at Giornale Nuovo awhile back. The first thing that stood out to me was that many of these works were direct copies of prints by Peter Bruegel. An example of this can be seen in this original version by Bruegel and the nearly complete (there are a few details that are off if you look closely) copy of this work by Bruegel.
So many of these are copies but it is still a fascinating collection with all manner of surreal imagery. The piano with small dogs or cats instead of keys in the third picture down is hillarious. And the picture below it with the man wearing some type of alchemical device on his head that is dropping out tiny rodent like creatures through a snout like opening, it just doesn't get any weirder!

You can see more works from this book by browsing the links in the left sidebar here.
Learn more about Bry here.
More info Here.
View artworks made by Bry of the Indians from North America here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Aeron, De Bry did some amazing prints of cannibalism I have in a book "Discovering the New World" by Michael Alexander.
If you google image search "blemmyae" you will find at the British Library a picture which I have seen credited to De Bry of those monsters with faces on thier chests that were in your previous post "Book of Nature"
Paul.

Anonymous said...

An excellent book with de Bry illustrations is "The Golden Game", Alchemical Engravings of the Seventeenth Century, by Stanislas Klossowski de Rola.(It has the de Bry illustrations for "Atalanta fugiens" by Michael Maier).
Stanislas Klossowski de Rola is the son of the artist Balthus, (Balthasar Klossowski de Rola). The brother of Balthus is the writer and artist Pierre Klossowski who does surrealist erotic drawings. Paul.