On traveling, wandering and seeing the world differently

If you find yourself returning to a bookstore more than three times with the intention of looking at a particular book, you should probably buy it. It was springtime in Paris, it was raining every day, and I had many solitary afternoons to while away in friendly corners of the city. One of my favorite destinations was the Centre Georges Pompidou, or Le Beaubourg, an easy ride on the 11 to the center of the city and a beautiful, multi-level cultural mecca protected from the rain.

I’d make a couple of espresso stops in the environs, because I had probably recently awoken or been released from a long, plodding class on Romantic philosophy. Newly energized, I threaded my way through the vast crowds, the tawdry entrepreneurialism, the fashionably down-at-heels that picnicked in the wide slanting plaza in front of the building. A quick bag check, and I was inside the great entrance hall, watched over by sharply glowing signs and a multi-story revolving prayer wheel.

I realized here that a museum’s bookshop can be equally or as engrossing as what hangs in the gallery. Part of this has to do with volume, I’m sure, but it’s also the inherently satisfying nature of looking through the pages of well-made books to find something to linger on, an image a foot or so in front of your eyes that can come back again and again. This is especially true for illustration, a medium that relies less on hermetic spectacle than simple, two-dimensional flirtation with the visual cortex.

Jason Brooks (links to site)

Illustrations were meant to thrive on close, glossy pages. Until recently, I hadn’t thought very much of “illustration,” associating it with antiquated production techniques and the kinds of doe-eyed three-quarter portraits you find on the backs of colored-pencil boxes. Of course, it’s right out there in front of us every day, in the form of advertisements and messages. If they are ugly, we ignore them. If they are beautiful, we tend to associate this with our perception of the brand or product, or we gaze at the beautifully balanced visual fantasies and ask ourselves, “where is that magical place?”

As it happens, it’s right here. There is more exciting work in illustration and hand-drawn art going on than I could have imagined. One book led me to this realization again and again, startling me with impossibly lovely images that betrayed the loving influence of a human mind. The book is called Illusive: Contemporary Illustration and its Context.

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