Balloonist's-Eye Views

         In doing the research for a rubber block I’ve been working on recently, I discovered a number of nineteenth century aerial views of cities in the UK and USA, and I am absolutely smitten with them.  Panoramic views of cities had been around for centuries and you can see an epic aerial map of Venice from 1500 in this previous post Venice in Relief.  Usually these images were based on views from nearby high ground or from a handy steeple or other tower.  The development of hot air balloons in the 1820s, however, contributed enormously to the genre, which really took off (get it?) in the middle of the nineteenth century.  (To be clear, most of the actual drawing of these maps was done on the ground, using older techniques of mapping and perspective, but ballooning allowed artists to get an actual birds-eye view for the first time, and patrons to be excited about this new-fangled technological marvel.)

        One of my favorites is this giant map of Liverpool from 1865.  I’ve included the full view of one panel to give you an idea of the scope of the thing, in addition to a zoomed-in detail.  The map actually has two of these full panels, and was published as a supplement in the Illustrated London News.  It’s when I look at the detail, however, that I find myself utterly mesmerized.  I’m appreciating the stories implicit in all these buildings with all their windows, the ships, the carts, the tiny people… and I’m simultaneously appreciating the carving of all those precise lines, the choices of pattern and texture, and the technical expertise of the wood engravers.  I used these elements of carving as inspiration for my own block, which seems very complex and detailed to me, but is the equivalent of probably less than 1% of this piece.

        The most deluxe versions of these maps were carefully hand-colored, which you can see in these details of Glasgow and Manchester.  Many of the maps in this genre are (copper) engravings or lithographs, which are much easier ways to produce the detail and accuracy required.  Naturally I’m most excited about the wood engravings like Glasgow and Liverpool, but I included the engraving of Manchester because it’s such a fun image to look at.

        Every map has an agenda, and in the case of these aerial panoramas it’s all about national pride in the glory of great cities mushrooming in the rapid expansion of industrial progress.  There’s a focus on all those ships and warehouses symbolizing trade, while the smoky blocks of mills, which we might consider eyesores, are treated with as much respect as churches and other civic buildings.

        As for my own block I'm working on, it too is inspired by the mills of the early industrial revolution (somewhat earlier than these depictions), and I’ll share it with you before too long!

[Pictures: View of Liverpool from the Mersey, wood engraving from Illustrated London News, 1865 (Image from Historic Liverpool);

Bird’s Eye View of Glasgow in 1864, hand colored wood engraving by Thomas Sulman from Illustrated London News, 1864 (Image from University of Glasgow);

A Bird’s-Eye View of Manchester in 1889, hand-colored engraving by Henry William Brewer from The Graphic, 1889 (Image from The University of Manchester).]

Autumn Birds

         Each year I like to post a few autumnal block prints, and this time around I’ve found a collection that feature birds.  Because wherever I go I do love spotting the local birds!  (Want a few more autumn birds?  How about turkeys by Walther Klemm (c. 1906), or my own Magnolia Warbler?)

        First up is a Nuthatch by Nina Sage (UK).  With a background in biology and ecology, Sage has a keen eye for the natural world.  This little nuthatch is quite carefully detailed, but I think I love the leaves and bark of the tree even more.  This is a reduction print, and it looks like it has 5 layers of ink.  That's certainly quite complicated, but I appreciate that it retains a look of carving and inking by hand.

        Next up is a piece that celebrates the autumn migration of swallows, by Cathy King (UK, b. 1967).  This is more stylized, with a mid-century modern aesthetic.  It looks like it was printed with multiple blocks, maybe 4 or 5.  I especially like the grass and seedpods, and also how the birds capture the look that swallows always have of absolutely delighting in the lightness of flight.

        For a very different style, here are two pieces by Imao Keinen (Japan, 1845-1924).  He specialized in kachō-e woodblock prints, which are pictures of birds and flowers.  These come from the Keinen Kachō Gafu, 1892, four volumes of bird-and-flower prints, one for each season.  Both of these little birds look somewhat similar, and in this case I picked the images more because of the plants.  We have both the flamboyant glory of a bright red maple, and the subtler autumn beauty of berries and mushrooms.  These woodblock prints look particularly delicate when compared with today’s bolder images.

        Finally, another piece by Nick Wroblewski (USA), whose work I’ve featured several times before.  This goldfinch looks a bit scruffy, and I especially like the leaves filling the space around him.  This is described as a three block reduction woodcut, which I take to mean that it involved three different blocks, and at least one involved multiple carvings.  It might be that a background block and a black key block were not reduction-carved, while the middle block was carved four times successively.  But I’m not sure that explains the touches of grey on the bird’s tail, so the process may have been even more complicated than I’m seeing!

        In any case, these are wonderful evocations of the beauty of the season, and they’re reminding me that it may be time to refill my bird feeder.

[Pictures: Nuthatch, reduction linocut by Nina Sage (Image from VK Gallery);

Migration Autumn, multi block linocut by Cathy King, c. 2025 (Image from Cathy King Prints);

Shijukara and Yamagara, wood block prints by Imao Keinen, 1891 (Images from Internet Archive, Smithsonian Libraries);

The Golden Thread, three block reduction woodcut by Nick Wroblewski (Image from Nick Wroblewski Woodcuts).]

No Kings!

         “No Kings” should be the one thing every single person in the United States agrees on, regardless of political affiliation.  After all, that’s kind of our thing; we’ve been rejecting the unchecked power of kings for the past two hundred and fifty years.  So in honor of this perfectly straightforward and non-controversial sentiment, people all across the nation will be gathering for rallies this weekend, to celebrate the USA’s king-free state.  I mention this today because printmaking actually played an important role in the American Revolution and its lead-up.  Remember “Join or Die” and Paul Revere’s version of the “Boston Massacre”?  But when I was looking around for block prints on the subject to share, I found something much more fabulous.

        In 1861, after Japan had been forcibly “opened” to the west, author Kanagaki Robun wrote Osanaetoki Bankokubanashi (Children’s Illustrated International Tales) which is a history of America, illustrated with wonderful wood block prints by Utagawa Yoshitora.  In this version of the

American War for Independence, the idea of a “republic” without a king was something our author struggled to get his head - and his language - around, but he didn’t let that cramp his style.  Let’s start with George Washington, who famously refused to be made king, or even to be president for a third term, knowing that a too-powerful “charismatic” leader wasn’t in the best interests of the nation and its people - just sayin’.  The first image above shows Washington shooting an arrow from his place beside the Goddess of America.  Nothing too crazy there, on an allegorical level.  The second image, however, is fantastic in every way as

Washington punches a tiger.  I regret that I can’t read Japanese because I really wish I knew a little more about what was going on here!  (Thanks to Japanese historian Nick Kapur for the information I do have.)

        Next we have John Adams stabbing a giant snake in a spread that merits breaking out the red ink.  Apparently there’s a whole subplot in which Adams is out for a picnic with his elderly mother when - surprise!- along comes another giant serpent and devours her!  Adams asks for assistance from a mountain fairy (shown in the next image), who summons a giant eagle to help Adams slay the monster…  I don’t remember learning that part in US history!

        In a slightly less fantastical image, Adams directs Benjamin Franklin where to fire his hand-held cannon.  There are also a number of other illustrations that include monsters, and I really wish I could read what’s going on in them.  I mean, what’s going on aboard this ship?!?

        These wood block prints are mostly black and white, with just a few featuring red and blue ink.  That means they’re relatively low-budget efforts, but nevertheless the actual carving is very detailed and full of verve.  I enjoyed them enormously, and I hope you do, too!

        I myself will not be at a No Kings rally because instead I’ll be at Roslindale Open Studios this weekend (details here: come see me if you’re in the area!)  But I will have a couple of little items to signal my solidarity with Washington, Adams, Franklin, (a mountain fairy?), and all the others who have worked so hard through two and a half centuries to keep the democratic experiment alive and moving forward - staying strong against the attacks of metaphorical tigers, serpents, and other monsters.

[Pictures: Six wood block prints by Utagawa Yoshitora from Osanaetoki Bankokubanashi by Kanagaki Robun, 1861 (Images from Waseda University).]

New Classic of Mountains and Seas

         I need to start this post with the old Classic of Mountains and Seas.  Shanhai jing is a Chinese text from the early Han dynasty (about 200-1 BCE), although the earliest versions may have been started as long ago as the fourth century BCE.  It takes the form of a geography book describing the strange creatures that can be found in areas spreading across more than 500 mountains and 300 waterways.  As such it functions much like a medieval European bestiary: the creatures are described primarily in their use or danger to humans, with many magical properties and a lot of ancient Chinese mythology.  As such, I’ve referred to it many times in my posts about fabulous creatures, including quite a few of them listed in Y is for Yonder.

        With that background, let me introduce New Classic of Mountains and Seas, which is a project by artist Qiu Anxiong (China, b. 1972).  Apparently Qiu has worked on this idea in multiple media over many years, including an ink animation film, as well as paintings and wood block prints.  The concept in all of them is to describe modern technologies as if they were mythical creatures.  I encountered some of his wood block prints, made to mimic the

look of early printed editions of the original Classic of Mountains and Seas, at the Philadelphia Art Museum and was quite taken with them.  Just like the texts which they mimic, these pieces come with a description of a creature along with the illustration.  The first one above says, “To the west of the great wasteland there is a kind of bird with four wings and a tail.  A single toe grows on each of its four feet that are connected to one another.  It makes a loud sound like thunder.  It is called ‘Xuanbei.’”  That name means “swirling bird” and it represents a whirlybird helicopter.

        Ten years after the set of twelve wood block prints (which was about 12 years after his first animated films on the same theme) Qiu continued to explore the idea with paintings.  Here’s a fun one with text that says “It moves at the speed of electricity,  It storms off like a rolling thunder;  It travels thousands of miles in the wind;  Unfettered between heaven and earth.  New Classic of Mountains and Seas; Ha Lei.”  The name of the creature, “Ha Lei,” is a phonetic approximation of “Harley.”

        Qiu’s 2008 portfolio had a particular emphasis on weapons, and some of them are quite poignant.  The “Bitu” bird, for example, is described “On the American continent there is a kind of giant bird with no head.  Its wings are long and large, suitable for flying high above

the clouds.  It does not rest anywhere but its nest.  Rarely can people see it.  It lays eggs in the sky, which strike thunders when hitting the ground and turn everything they touch into ashes.  It is called ‘Bitu’.”  This is the B-2 bomber.  Like all the best fantasy, Qiu prompts us to look again at our own world with fresh eyes and hearts.

        On the other hand, I also like the pieces that are simply whimsical.  Here is the “Kang Pu Si Shou” (computer) from the 2008 series.  And among the more recent paintings I particularly like the Moon Walker, and this tiny bee helicopter, “Ke Feng,” whose name I don’t know how to interpret.  It’s a lovely image, though.

        I love the whole concept of these works because they bring their meaning in two directions.  On the one hand, they use an ancient format to shed light on our modern world, and at the same time they shed light back on the ancient world by reminding us that those people, too, were trying to make sense of their world.  It’s also an excellent reminder that descriptions that sound crazy and fantastical to us often make a lot more sense when we realize what people were actually trying to describe.  If you like how this twists your brain, you may enjoy my game of Guess That Medieval Beast.  

You can play at

     Episode 1                    Episode 6

     Episode 2                    Episode 7

     Episode 3                    Episode 8

     Episode 4                    Episode 9

     Episode 5

[Pictures: Xuan Bei (Whirlybird), woodcut by Qiu Anxiong from New Classic of Mountains and Seas, 2008 (Image from MoMA);

Ha Lei (Harley), ink and color on paper by Qiu from New Classic of Mountains and Seas, 2018 (photo by AEGN at Philadelphia Art Museum, on loan from collection of Beningson and Arons);

Bi Tu (B-2), woodcut by Qiu from New Classic of Mountains and Seas, 2008 (Image from MoMA);

Kang Pu Si Shou (Computer), woodcut by Qiu from New Classic of Mountains and Seas, 2008 (Image from MoMA);

Moon Walker, ink and color on paper by Qiu from New Classic of Mountains and Seas, 2019 (Image from Artsy);

Ke Feng, ink and color on paper by Qiu from New Classic of Mountains and Seas, 2019 (Image from Artsy).]

Charles L. Marshall, Sr.

         Charles Leroy Marshall, Sr (USA, 1905-1992) hailed from Kansas.  Today I’ve got a cache of small linoleum block prints all made within a few years around 1929-1933.  I have actually shared one of Marshall’s pieces before at my post “Let There Be Light,” but that was hardly a representative example.  Today I’ve got a pleasing collection of scenes, all with a focus on architecture.

        I’m starting with a greeting card from 1931, partly because it might be my favorite, and partly to mention this orange ink.  Marshall seems to have printed many if not most of his pieces in both black versions and orange versions.  I have no idea whether he just really liked orange, or whether he got a great deal on orange ink cheap, or what.  It’s an unusual choice and I generally prefer the black versions, but I did want to include one in orange just to show you.  As for the subject, I’m a sucker for little, magical-looking towns in scenic locations.

        Next is the City Hall of Albany, NY, which I like for its spare composition and its gorgeous bare-branched trees.  I love the balance of having very little detail, but it’s exactly enough to express the scene.  I admire this style in part because I’m not very good at it.  In my own work I have no confidence about deciding what to include and what to leave out.

        The construction scene is certainly busier.  It reminds me of Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, which was published not too much later than this piece, in 1939.

        The next two pieces have, by contrast, more of a look of loneliness or solitude.  Lighthouses often tend to be isolated, and I like the way Marshall’s sky emphasizes the lands-end openness of the location.  The border of dark sky at the top also balances the dark land low in the picture.  The lighthouse is not the kind that’s usually considered picturesque, but its framework makes an interesting geometric pattern in silhouette against that spacious sky.

        Finally, here’s a “Construction Camp” that also emphasizes a wide sky, but this sky seems heavy.  Perhaps it’s just the grey paper, but it gives me almost a gothic vibe of hunkering down beneath a windswept drizzle.  I’d expect a construction camp to be busy, but this one looks deserted - perhaps everyone’s elsewhere, hard at work.  I also like the choices of cutting strokes that make up the hillside below the buildings, and the power line that ties them all together.

        All of these pieces are quite small, generally in the neighborhood of 3x4 or 4x5, and I like how much they express with their relatively simple lines and shapes.  Since they’re all from such a brief period in the artist’s life I now want to see whether I can find out what Marshall did later.

        And what are your feelings about orange ink?

[Pictures: Untitled holiday card, linocut by Charles Leroy Marshall Sr., 1931;

Albany City Hall, linocut by Marshall, ca. 1932;

Untitled (construction), linocut by Marshall, ca. 1932;

Light House at Marblehead, linocut by Marshall, 1929;

Construction Camp, linocut by Marshall, ca. 1933 (All images from Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art).]

Okapis and Nightingales

         I’m very excited to announce that two of my poems were published this month.  I’ll send you to the publications to read the poems, and today’s post is the background behind each of them.

        First, my poem “Okapis” appeared in 4LPH4NUM3R1C, episode 3, “Florid Fauna.”  The call was specifically for poems that are all about how they sound read aloud, and you can hear my poem as well as reading it here.  I was particularly excited to have this poem find a good home because it’s admittedly a bit of an oddity.  I wrote the first version back in 1996 as an exercise in playing with the sound of language.  I think I chose okapis as my subject primarily because I liked the sound of the word.  This is all about the alliteration and assonance, rhythm and repetition, and of course the use of luscious and lovely words like “languorous,” and “saunter.”  But yes, it’s also

a love poem to the mysterious and beautiful okapis, which have lots of wonderful traits including their gorgeously striped haunches and their indigo tongues.

        In 1998 I sketched okapi legs at the Harvard Museum of Natural History while I was on an assignment to collect things that attracted me, and for many years I had okapis on my list of things I’d like to make into a block print.  In 2024 I finally got around to it.  Meanwhile I had reworked my okapi poem, but there weren’t a lot of places to send it that seemed like a good fit.  It’s not deep, or emotional, or political, or even, despite the last line, philosophical!  But it pleases me, I’m so glad it pleased the editors of 4LPH4NUM3R1C, and I hope it pleases you.

        The second poem, “Jorinde Remembers,” was published in the September 29th issue of Strange Horizons.  In celebration of the magazine’s 25th anniversary they chose pieces with themes of memory and time for this issue, which you can read here.  I wrote this poem in April as part of my National Poetry Month poem-a-day practice.  It’s about “Jorinde and Joringel,” one of the lesser known (or perhaps medium-known) fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm.  For this I was not reimagining or changing any of the details of the story; rather I was imagining how it would really feel to live such an experience of being transformed into a nightingale.  If you’re not familiar with this fairy tale and want to read it, you can find it here.  For me much of the appeal of the fairy tale is the strange, melancholy atmosphere, and I wanted to keep that in my own poem.  I’m really proud that my poem found a place in such a wonderful magazine.

        As for the illustration, it’s a collage of two other block prints: the owl in the forest comes from my block print “Midnight,” and the castle comes from “Castle on a Bay.”  I collaged the two together to illustrate the lines “Until suddenly the castle walls loomed from the weird shadows / And the owl came circling three times with its nightfall wings.”  (The owl is the wicked witch in the fairy tale, but I pictured it as a creature of spiritual beauty in my original piece.  To be fair, the castle was subject to the same treatment: in the fairy tale it’s a cursed place, while my original block print depicts a place I have a great deal of affection for!  You can also read more about the block prints Midnight and Castle on a Bay in past blog posts.)  I created an illustration for this poem because it’s one that will be included in my upcoming book Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns.

        The Kickstarter campaign for Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns is over, but late pledges are now a thing on Kickstarter, so if you’re curious you should go check it out.  You can still get all the special pledge rewards if you want.

[Pictures: Okapis, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2024 (image from NydamPrints.com);

Illustration for “Jorinde Remembers,” from rubber block prints by AEGNydam (Castle on a Bay at NydamPrints.com).]