view full text

A tsuba is the small metal guard at the end of a sword’s grip, which sits between the hand and the blade itself… and that’s it. A humble object basically. Shaped by 14 centuries of Japanese sword culture and metalworking, however, you’d never know it.

Quote: “The tsuba served as the most important functional fitting and, due to its size and location, also had the greatest symbolic importance. It protected the hand, helped to balance the sword, and was the most visible decorative object when the sword was worn. Inasmuch as the samurai usually wore two swords at all times, and would not be seen without them, the kinds of tsuba worn often depended upon the day’s activity. One might, for example, prefer an iron guard for battle and a highly decorated soft metal guard for court use. although these distinctions were not invariable. The samurai usually owned several tsuba and matching fittings for each blade, and changed them to suit mood or occasion. -From the Introduction of the exhibition catalogue, Tsuba, put out in 1980 by The Cooper-Hewitt Museum.











The tsuba evolved with advances in technology and to accommodate the needs of changing forms of warfare. The earliest examples were disks made of bronze or copper. In the 12th century plain iron disks, patinated to a “pleasing black color,” or allowed to rust slightly prior to stabilization to achieve a redish tint, were the norm. Inlayed, gold leafed, chiseled, complexly perforated, carved soft metal, and other decorative forms evolved later.











The perforations, punched or forged, visible in many tsuba began as a purely functional consideration. Iron tsuba could be made lighter with a few well placed perforations. Over time these perforations became more and more decorative in nature, to the point that functionality actually suffered. Some of the most ornate and complex examples were almost certainly used for formal or ceremonial occasions only.











Quote: “The use of alloys such as shakudo, shibuichi, as well as copper, brass, bronze, gold and silver together allowed color and contrast to become an overiding factor in decorative techniques toward the end of the fifteenth century.” —knives.com











Quote: “When peace came, however, tsuba making was carried out by rapidly proliferating schools of technically expert artisans whose production was seldom intended for use in warfare. The decorative styles of eighteenth-century tsuba matched their peaceful use; ornamentation of the tsuba became an end in itself and the art deteriorated. Although a few individuals and schools maintained the high standards of previous eras and produced magnificent works even in the twentieth century, a general conversion of art to artisanship continued until the wearing of swords was banned by Imperial decree in 1871, and the blades and fittings largely passed into the province of the scholar and collector.” -From the Introduction of the exhibition catalogue, Tsuba.

The images in the post (which were adapted and placed in my own desired groupings) were taken from the following sources-
Japanese-tsuba.com
George’s Tsuba Pictures
Ricecracker.com
Choshuya.co.jp
Aoi-art.com
Nihonto.com
Nihonto Kanji Pages
Japanese-swords.com
Shibuiswords.com
Tsuba.jyuluck-do.com

All of those sites feature a wealth of tsuba for your viewing, and in most cases, purchasing pleasure, and these are only the tiniest sampling of what’s available out there. Beautiful stuff.

Hope you enjoyed.

hide full text

view full text

The reigning young-bloods of the world love to needle the hippies. This, I surmise, is because the hippies are now their parents, grandparents, weird uncles, and, worst of all, their dick-head corporate bosses. The words Haight-Ashbury are as likely to induce a lemon-faced cringe as be met with a blank stare I would guess.

Not that most of us have been allowed to forget it for a single instant, but I’ll gently remind you anyway that there was a time when hippies were the avante-garde. A time when there were few personages thought more “happening” on planet Earth.

In any case I have no interest in discussing the hippies’ utopian experiments or their eventual backslide into the big black boots of the establishment… no, as is the norm in these parts, I simply want to share some pretty pictures with you, and as it happens, The Diggers quest for a “free city” did yield quite a bit of quality printed matter.

Quote: “The commune’s founder brought his printing presses to San Francisco in the summer of 1968, inspired by two fellow Diggers who suggested a free publishing venture. Over the next several years, the Free Print Shop published a variety of materials including flyers for other communal groups, for free services, ecology groups, free arts groups, and the occasional political protest. In the spring of 1969 the Sutter Street Commune began publishing an intercommunal newspaper, Kaliflower, named for Kaliyuga, the Hindu name for the last and most violent age of humankind and the Hindu goddess Kali. Each Kaliflower was printed and bound by hand. The binding used the Japanese method of yarn overstitched on either the top or side. Every issue was a different color, and offset printing was the method by which the issues were printed. Kaliflower became an important mode of communication among the communes.” –Patricia L. Keats.

Below you will find 20 examples of printed Digger ephemera, mostly culled from Kaliflower, but also including content from Free City News and a few leaflets and posters. Have a look.

(I love that last one so much.)

Digger output in the form of Kaliflower and related items from the Free Print Shop were only produced for a few years it seems. Before long the mock-funeral for the “Death of the Hippies” was staged, the communes began disappearing, and well… we know how the rest turned out.

For a ton of information and many many more examples of The Diggers’ work look no further than The Digger Archive which is packed with avant-of-yore goodness.

Meanwhile, if you’re in the mood for some related reading you might try Manhood in the Age of Aquarius By Tim Hodgedon, which goes into considerable depth.

Note that the image which began this post is not by Diggers, but of them, I adapted it from a photo of the famous free food giveaways.

Hope you enjoyed.

hide full text

view full text

The issue begins with an introduction by Charles Rosner which I’ll spare you the bulk of. It does strike me as disrespectful and lazy somehow to not at least offer a few words, however, for context’s sake. So here is a single paragraph to get light your way forward.

Quote: “As for the impact [of advertsising] on society: the economic implications are closely linked up with deep-rooted inferences. The ‘social function’ of advertising is to stimulate wants, to make people dissatisfied with the little they have, and to work harder and earn more. Yet this function—to stimulate dissatisfaction—is relatively recent, for the goods people want, the auto, the washing machine, the radio, the television, electric iron, dishwasher, are all products of the lasty forty years or less. All this is part of the transformation, of the Western world at least, to a high-consumption society. There is more advertising in the United States not because salesmanship is a peculiar American virtue, or vice, but because of the comparative opulence of the country. As Professor Galbraith has written, A hungry man could never be persuaded that bread that is softened, sliced, wrapped and enriched is worth more than a cheaper and larger loaf that will fill his stomach.” —Charles Rosner, Graphis annual ‘57/58.

I only wish these older volumes had more plates printed in color!

Lastly I’d like to leave you with a final paragraph from the annual’s introduction. In our internet age with Tumblr and Flickr and Ffffound it seems as relevant as ever, weather some of us like it or not.

Quote: “The public is demanding more pictures and fewer words. American housewives want a lot of pictures and little copy. They want the picture to tell the story. Ideas expressed in art can do more and reach more people than any other form of communication. Witness the picture magazines, the great decrease in text in all advertising, the outdoor poster, television. The eye has a far better memory than the ear and the advertising man who is in tune with the times will seldom want for an idea.” —Charles Rosner, Graphis annual ‘57/58.

So there you have it. Until next time.

hide full text

view full text

The oldest form of watermarks are today referred to as “wire watermarks.” These were made by bending pieces of wire into filigree designs, tying them onto the mesh of the paper molds, and impressing them into the paper pulp while it was still damp. The comparative thinness of the areas which were pressed under this wire formed an image which only revealed itself when the paper was held up to light. Scholars seem to agree that watermarks of this kind are very nearly as old as papermaking itself.





The first known watermarks appeared toward the end of the 13th century, originating with the Albigensian papermakers of Southern France and Northern Italy. (Though papermaking as an industry is said to have first taken root in Spain ⊕ the first great center of the papermaking industry in Europe was actually in Italy, specifically in Fabiano in the marquisate of Ancona, where mills were set up in 1276.) Their use spread very quickly all throughout Europe.





The purpose of watermarks at the moment of their invention is unclear. My guess is that they were invented accidentally and initially used in the service of kings or nobles seeking to secure the provenance of their communications (or, thinking more imaginatively, possibly to embed secret messages). Alternately they might have initially served a more noble cause still- amusement.





More qualified postulators think that perhaps they were a means of distinguishing between papers made by different workmen within “factories” who were paid by the sheet. Other theories, of course, abound-

Quote: “The first watermarks… were artless in design, the emblems were so mystic in character that it is reasonable to believe that they were meant to convey a meaning or signal among the workers who fashioned them. It has been suggested that these old devices may have been used solely as marks of identification for sizes of moulds and the paper formed thereon, or, as they are used today, simply as trademarks of the papermakers. Other writers have advanced the theory that they may have been employed in a purely symbolic sense… employed by the heretical papermakers as symbols of religious propaganda… embodying a hidden meaning understood only by the people of medieval times.

It might be suggested that the old watermarks were little more than a capricious notion of the papermakers who may have created the designs to satisfy their own artistic feeling. Another supposition… was that since the workmen could not read or write it was essential to appeal to them by means of pictures. Simply to have marked a mould with letters or numerals would have conveyed but slight meaning to the illiterate artisans of the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries; it was necessary to convey the meaning to them through the use of illustrations. For the same reason the signboards of inns and shops were of a pictorial nature inasmuch as the untutored populace could not have deciphered the lettered name had it been painted upon the swinging signs. -From THEOSOPHY, Vol. 53, No. 9, July, 1965.

Regardless of their origins watermarks were eventually adapted to be both trademarks (of a sort) for different paper-makers and a means of demarcating different types of paper, and batches, within their inventories. Today the oldest of watermarks are mainly used by conservators for dating documents and artworks. ⊕





The forms that these marks took were myriad and largely in-line with the common symbologies of the day, which is to say they were images commonly used in other spheres with meanings that were probably well understood by people of the time. Among them were all the expected animals (both terrestrial and fantastic), celestial objects, all manner of fruit and vegetable, tools, insects, flowers, crests, weapons, and symbolic bits–or indeed full on representations–of the human anatomy. By 1600 they had multiplied to the extent that individually identifiable watermarks numbered in the tens of thousands.





Though watermarking technology advanced quickly to allow for shades and complexity and greater detail I am personally most fond of these simple and somewhat naive forms which read like ancient pictograms or distracted doodles. They are infinitely more mysterious and, to my mind, more fittingly evocative of a craft practiced by skilled artisans utilizing callused hands.





For many many more examples and more information on the history of watermarking see the following-

Databases:
The Piccard watermark collection
Wasserzeichen des Mittelalters
Watermarks in Incunabula printed in the Low Countries
Watermarks in Incunabula printed in España
Mairie De Toulouse

Other:
Watermarks.info’s collection
British assoc. of paper historians
Motherbedford.com
Georgia Tech
Bates.edu
Theosophy, Vol. 53, No. 9
Whistler’s watermarks
Dürer’s watermarks
Dante’s watermarks
Make your own watermark.

Hope ye seekers, emphmeraphiles, and iconography thieves find something of interest in all that. 

hide full text

view full text

As longtime readers are no doubt painfully aware, when it comes to certain items I have the tendency to objectify, to glaze over purpose and function and context and just splash about in the shallows of aesthetics. The recent post on microscope slides is a good example. Well, I should warn you straight off that I’m about to indulge that tendency yet again, because every bit of practical and thoughtful background information I plan to relay was contained in that first paragraph.

Believe it or not LDEF, somewhat humble punching-bag though it may be, is gorgeous. More specifically the neatly arranged trays which cover every inch of its surface are, as a group and individually, some damned handsome items. Visually they represent the confluence of so many things I’m partial to that the LDEF might in some ways represent the perfect object for my ogling pleasure.

For me it brings to mind the abstraction of certain painters, a gridded and measured minimalism in graphic design, failed utopian architecture, and the shapes and surface textures of every science fictional interior ever put on film. Add to that the subtle color palette peppered here and there with super saturated counterpoints, the unintentional, almost accidental, nature of its beauty, and (having been well battered during its 32,422 Earth orbits) the indelible stamp of decay… and, well, what can I say?

The images which follow are each of individual sections of the LDEF’s exterior. I have cropped them where I thought necessary but they are otherwise exactly as they were photographed in 1990. Have a look.

Beautiful no?

Now, imagine all that visual goodness, and a whole lot more just like it, packed onto a 30 foot by 14 foot cylindrical surface, hurtling silently 275 nautical miles above the Earth, and our heads…

Yup, that’s the stuff. I hope you enjoyed these even a smidgeon as much as I do.

If you’d like to know more about the mission, the craft, the experiments, or the results of those experiments you can view NASA’s page here.

hide full text