Mola Designs: 45 Authentic Indian Designs from Panama Book

I have a number of Dover collections of art and architecture, with Dürer, Da Vinci, and Doré prominent among them. Maybe it's because Parrish's last name doesn't begin with a D, but this volume didn't work as well for me.

My secret purposes in getting these collections is to learn about the artist, and to use them as inspirations for my writing. This volume is nearly useless in the informational sense, as Menges gives only a seven-paragraph introduction, and there is no commentary whatsoever on the plates. On the inspiration side, I found most of these to be a bit off-putting and artificial, so ideas did not leap to mind as I went through the images.

I guess the girl-on-a-rock doesn't much speak to me.

The aesthetic is that which gave us Hearst's castle, and which is often called Romantic, but isn't really related to the Romantic Era of literature, though it feeds off it. The clothing is a mixture of Classical and Renaissance, usually Northern Italian and Venetian Renaissance, with late Medieval architecture. The ladies look British and American, in those settings. The men are mostly old, long-nosed, and ugly, or round-faced and oafish. The settings are rather like theater, with characters in a narrow band in the foreground, and a painted backdrop behind. A lot of the silent films looked like this, and the early Robin Hood and Ivanhoe-ish movies. People are in costume, rather than in clothes. Everything is spotless, even on those rocks. It's a Fantasy.

The vibe is similar to that of an auto garage tool company calendar, Arted up so that it will be acceptable in the family kitchen. But there is the saving grace is that the females mostly look like they have inner lives that don't revolve around men. These are flappers, at heart. Not the made-up dolls of the Victorian era. That's subversively interesting.

I learned (not from this book) that the figures were often painted separately and then pasted onto the background, which pops them off the plane of the painting. Hence the feeling of characters in front of a backdrop. It does provide an interesting effect.

Hmmm.