Voyage a Moscou et Leningrad A concertina book conceived, planned and executed by Jean Hugo.Published by Editions Cercle d'Art. Paris 1953.   Each page has an illustration and measures 14 x 17cms. The journey begins with the flight from Orly airport to Moscow and the train journey to Leningrad. Hugo returns to Moscow and then flies back to Paris. Although giving the appearance of a production of a private press, the book is volume produced in offset litho by Imprimerie Moderne de Lion in Paris in 1953. There is a real feeling of travel - scenes of towns interspersed in paintings of the sky and airports.

 

THE BOOK COMPLETE



Going on a Pilgrimage :the prescribed route A pilgrim is one who journeys to some sacred place as an act of devotion, and normally by a determined route. There are specified places for worship, usually in the presence of some relic. See Marie Madeleine Gauthier, Highways of the Faith , Alpine Fine Arts, London 1987. There are many published accounts of the rituals enacted and the privations endured on a pilgrimage. Here is a favourite - a pilgrimage in Brittany in 1911. The religious ceremonies of the Breton people were of abiding interest to scholars and artists. Gauguin and Wyndham Lewis looked on with a sense of awe. In Lewis' case his interest was tempered by a fascination with their quaint and intuitive ways which he mocked/analysed in a set of short stories as early as 1909.


"Just as England has her Cornwall, so has Brittany her Cornouille, viz. Amorican Cornwall.... " Every sixth year a 'pardon' was held in honour of the sixth century saint S.Ronan. The Grande Tromenie is held on the second Sunday of July, and is a mass procession that follows the route taken by two oxen who, on the saint's death, were allowed to wander of their own accord from his place of death to a place of burial ( the hill outside the village of Locranon). After a service in the church nearly 15,000 worshippers climb the hill with their relics, past crosses and other memorials. The author complained that he could only find refreshment at the summit in drinking syrups, each stickier than the last. How different, he complains, from the Godless hordes of England's Epsom and Derby Day.
 
 


The Procession  M.Titsingh, Illustrations of Japan... , Ackerman, London, 1822. A panoramic spread illustrating a Japanese funeral procession. One of the earliest books to record Japanese design and the trappings of everyday life. The author was Chief of Settlement for the Dutch East India Company in Nagasaki. A penitential procession at the funeral of the French King, Henry III,from a collection of instructional engravings for children, c183012 x 38cms.

 

A print called a Vue D'Optique of Florence Cathdral and a stately religious procession. c1760.and to be viewed through a stereoscope. The design and implementation of processions is a fascinating matter, involving


sequence,
etiquette
figure and ground
characterisation and

the ability to orchestrate a multi-figure composition.


Look at the Mantegna Triumphs , the section in this database on Petrarch's Triumphs, and the choreography of the Festival Floats during two revolutions, the French and the Russian.
 Bartoli's engraving after Mantegna's Triumph of Caesar.


Through the Landscape
These are images from Thomas and William Daniell's A Voyage Round Great Britain, undertaken in the summer of the year 1813 , "and commencing from the Land's End, Cornwall", 8 volumes, 1814 - 1825 and being 308 hand coloured aquatints. The prints gives a unique visual account of the appearence of the coastline - assembled in geographical sequence.

 

Torbay, Devon

Clovelly on the Coast of North Devon.
 

Fowey, Cornwall


The Townsend Mill, Liverpool
 

Seacombe Ferry, Liverpool.


The Clyde Near Dumbarton


Hull, Yorkshire


Brighton Sea Front


Rye in Sussex


 
William Daniell had accompanied his uncle Thomas to India in 1784, an experience to find publication in the Oriental Annuals starting in 1808. In 1814 they set out to assemble coastal views of Great Britain begining on the northern coast of Cornwall and travelling through Wales and Anglesey, up the north west coast of the UK to Scotland. They were accompanied by Richard Ayton, a topographical writer of great talent and style, who died after seeing his first descriptions in print. The text to the eight volumes of prints was taken over by William himself.
Over the period of publication, the Daniells would travel during the summer and prepare the prints over the winter in colours of brown and grey . The prints were then handcoloured by the firm of William Timms of Hampstead Road, London.


Ronald Russell, Guide to British Topographical Prints , David and Charles, Newton Abbot 1979.
Geoffrey Grigson, Britain Observed , Phaidon Oxford 1975.


Michael Clarke, The Tempting Prospect; A Social History of English Watercolours, Collonade, London 1981.

SINGLES

VESPUCCI'S TRAVELS, MILAN 1508