This will be an image of a historic home in Montclair. I took some artisitic license with the fence out front - its actually just a hedge. Although the home is on the NJ Register of Historic Places - its only listed as "Representative Architecture". I'm off to the library to examine the tax registers and see if I can dredge up the names of some of the owners and see what they did for work and their impact on the community.
A friend told me recently that maybe I'm not so much an artist interested in history, but more of a historian with artistic skills. Its an intriguing idea - along the lines of the gentleman naturalists of the 19th century (Audubon for example). 
I admire these works for the stylized realism and also that they strive to introduce the visual richness of the world. I want my images to have the same quality and serve the same purpose. Since the research is important to me - I'm on a mission to find a suitable way to share the historical information beyond the imagery.
The naturalists often composed stunning notebooks filled with detailed descriptions that complemented the images. I'll be visiting the Morgan library in NYC to see if there are notebooks that I can view. Or maybe illuminated manuscripts.
1 comment:
I kinda love this with the house as a silhouette - it looks like a graphic designed piece. If this were the cover to a book, it's the perfect place to put typography.
Love your new(ish?) profile pic, too!
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