Old Book Illustrations
Cool! I've been listening a lot to the Draftsmen podcast lately and one thing that they keep mentioning is "studying the (old) Masters". I'm not sure if these qualify as "Masterworks" per their definition but it's from the same era, i.e., when drawings/engravings/art had to be planned and executed carefully because a mistake is not as cheap as a CTRL + Z.<p>Another thing Draftsmen made me realize is the actual art (or at least <i>craftsmanship</i>) of comics. They may be mass entertainment (i.e., we're talking mainstream here, not your charming indie series) but even in their early incarnations comic art was still grounded in solid art principles. A lot of the works here exhibit that thesis:<p>- Prints like <a href="https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/illustrations/dreams-lucian/" rel="nofollow">https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/illustrations/dreams-lu...</a> remind me of Marc Hempel's work on <i>The Kindly Ones</i> arc of Gaiman's <i>Sandman</i>.<p>- Kind of a cheap shot to mention Charles Vess but look at prints like <a href="https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/illustrations/many-beatiful-shells/" rel="nofollow">https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/illustrations/many-beat...</a> and you really see the movements that influenced him.<p>- The range of <a href="https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/illustrations/woman-parrot/" rel="nofollow">https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/illustrations/woman-par...</a> might as well be 80s-90s pop art, if not for the finer details in the shadows.<p>- Like Vess, Frazetta might be too easy an example but I fancy he took his technique of theatrical lighting and exaggerated dynamic ranges from old black and white engravings.