Thursday, October 12, 2006

Giovanni Battista Nazari





















This page contains the woodcuts from Nazari's allegorical book "Three Dreams on Metallic Transmutation". There's only a small handful of works on display there but the images are incredibly strange. One showing a circle of chicken like creatures wearing masks dancing around a large mule, another image shows a hydra like creature or instrument with human heads attached from over a dozen places. Then there is the creature above, many strange animals.

An extended summary of the book they are illustrations from can be read here.

Woodcuts found thanks to BibliOdyssey

2 comments:

peacay said...

Beinecke Library have a colour version [looks like a painting without wooduct actually]. I've always wanted to see the original of that photocopied woodcut. I seem to recall tearing my hair out looking for other versions.
{if that link doesn't work for some reason, look up 'snips' at Bib}

Aeron said...

Thanks for the pic! I saw a few much smaller and cruder colored versions of this on google and didn't bother linking to them. This one though looks fantastic!