"Spring in the House"

This collection of miniature penjing in a bogu frame, by Li Yunlong, is titled Spring in the House. Photo borrowed from Penjing: The Chinese Art of Bonsai by Zhao Qingquan (Better Link Press, 2012).

Previously, I posted other penjing photos here & here.

A book full of these would be pretty nice.

This is what i heard #36, by Le Quoc Viet

this is from Le's works at Art Vietnam Gallery. I'm uncertain whether it's best described as calligraphy or calligraphic art. Le Quoc Viet (or Quoc Viet LE) is a member of the Zenei Gang of Five calligraphy group, who held an exhibition titled Wordless Vô Ngôn at Art Vietnam in 2010.

they're less like comics, but you might also enjoy the superb abstract ink works by Dang Anh Viet (not in the Zenei group) or the trippy calligraphy by Tran Trong Duong, Nguyen Duc Dung, Nguyen Quang Thang & Pham Van Tuan.

if anybody knows any more examples of approaches between abstract comics & Asian brush calligraphy or other ink arts, or perhaps arrangements of scholars' rocks, please share them.

composition by Paul Klee

gedicht in bilderschrift / poem in picture script by Paul Klee, 1939.

scanned from a Thames & Hudson book titled Klee.

pages from Apeiron, by Miroljub Todorović

a couple of pages from Todorović's unfinished verbo-visual novel (verbalno vizuelnog romana) Apeiron or Apejron, created from 1973 to 1975. In an email, he told me that some pages had been published in literary magazines in the 1970s & '80s. 2 more pages are visible here & here (12th one down).

Miroljub was the founder of the Yugoslav avant-garde movement Signalism (or Signalizam), & was active as a visual poet, mail artist & publisher, as well as wearing other artistic hats. More information: >>>***>>>.

I'm interested in the idea of a visual novel, which is a cousin of the graphic novel, but emerging from somewhere other than comics.

[Added on 9 May 2013:
 Mycelium samizdat publishers has published excerpts from Apeiron here, including verbal sections translated from Serbian into English by Sibelan Forrester. With the verbal sections included, it has a feeling of poetic science fiction.

According to Wikipedia, the term visual novel is used in Japan to describe digital graphic novels which include some minimal sections where you play a game, & sometimes including non-interactive moving images.]

book cover, with Viennese artists' monograms

a selection of monograms from artists in Vienna at the beginning of the 20th century. copied from Amir Brito Cadôr's wonderful blog gramatologia.

a couple by Mirtha Dermisache

from an exhibition catalogue for Libros (04/10/08 ➨ 20/12/08) at cdla (Centre des livres d’artistes), prepared by Florent Fajole.

comics by Jodorowsky

not quite abstract, but nearly.

this is one of Alejandro Jodorowsky's Fabulas Panicas (Panic Fables), published in Mexico in the 1960s. more at *. the others look different.

he is better known for his movies El Topo & The Holy Mountain, & his collaborations with bandes dessinées artistes such as Moebius.

The Epic of Gilgamesh, for apes

here's a page from Wilfried Hou Je Bek's translation of parts of the ancient Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh into the pictograms used by ape researchers. (he had to invent new symbols for the characters Gilgamesh & Enkidu.)

obviously not abstract, being a translation of a story originally in words. but if you took the subtitles & IS & HAPPY away, very few humans could read it, therefore bringing it back towards abstraction.

this work might sound like a completely crazy idea, but Wilfried explains himself in a few free-to-download e-books: http://www.socialfiction.org/primatepoetics.html

Asian aesthetics

this is a photo of a frame full of penjing (Chinese miniature tree and rock landscapes), by Cao Hua, which was part of an exhibition by the Singapore Penjing and Stone Appreciation Society. (scanned from the book Bonsai Master Class, by Craig Coussins [D & S Books, 2006]).

which way does the energy flow in this composition? is there a sequence, comparable to abstract comics?

there's a sensibility in Asian artforms such as penjing, bonsai, bunjae, gongshi, hon non bo, tieu canh, suiseki & so on, which could be incorporated into abstract comics.

a quote from Craig Coussins, comparing bonsai to penjing:
it is generally thought in the West that if a styling is an abstract form, as opposed to a recognized form, the tree is a penjing.

a process/poem | uma poema/processo

here's a visual poem, which I think was quoted at http://blogdogutemberg.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html on 12 Março 2007.

haven't worked out who it is by, or when it was made. will probably have to write a letter to the gentleman who posted it.

postscript: Gutemberg Cruz sent me an informative email. apparently, this one's by Almandrade, & probably from the 1970s. obrigado, Gute.

book cover by Michael Cope

here's the cover of Michael's novel Spiral of Fire (Africasouth, 1987), painted by the author.

apparently, this is the only thing he's done in this particular style.

he's an author, poet, painter, karate instructor, jewellery maker & Father.

the painted graphic music scores at http://www.cope.co.za/FineArt/Brush/brush%20music%20colour.htm are also close to the realm of abstract comics.

graphic poem by Michael Farrell

a page from Michael's book BREAK ME OUCH (3 Deep Publishing, Melbourne, 2006)

Chinese dreamstones arranged in panels

this item is listed here: http://www.trocadero.com/ruyistudio/items/626346/item626346store.html

a pity about the poor quality photo.

dreamstones are pieces of polished marble which resemble Chinese landscape paintings. they are part of the Chinese literati tradition, along with scholars' rocks, furniture made of gnarly tree roots & calligraphy materials (inkstone, ink stick, brush & paper, as well as ornamental brush stands).

I'm not sure how common this kind of assemblage of many dreamstones is.

to me, it feels close to the more calligraphic abcomx, such as Andrei's & Draw's.

a bit of Lettrisme

alain satié entassement 1964-1967