Home / Matthias Buchinger: “The Greatest German Living”
Issue No. 129
HOME – A QUIRKY ODE TO THE MANY STRUCTURES WE LIVE IN ACROSS THE WORLD
Home
by Carson Ellis
Candlewick
2015, 40 pages, 10.2 x 12.1 x 0.4 inches
Home, the quirky triumphant solo debut of Carson Ellis, might look oddly familiar. You’re not mistaken – you’ve seen this charmingly wholesome artwork before. And it’s not because it looks as if it fell out of a Wes Anderson movie set and into your lap. Carson Ellis is the illustrator for children’s classics like Lemony Snickett and The Benedict Society. She’s also well known for her artwork in Wildwood, a children’s fantasy novel written by her husband, Colin Meloy, the lead singer for the Decemberists. You’ll recognize Carson’s contributions on the band’s album covers and merchandise, full of blossoming colors and quaint patterns.
Home is an ode to the many structures across the world that we dwell in, from the messy riotous nest of a sparrow to the peaked roof of the artist’s own humble abode. Carson gives a nod not only to the cheerful graffiti and clustered bricks of urban sprawl but also the domed turrets of white marbled eastern palaces and the cozy cottages of the countryside. She indulges in the silly and the fantastic at every turn, with houses fashioned out of shoes that spill mischievous children across the yard or the Spartan spatial quiet of a lunar landscape. Peculiar characters people her pages; knights in armor astride seahorses, a Norse god in a winged, gold helmet, and a Slovakian duchess peeking grimly from beneath her hat while anchoring twins in her iron grasp. The final page is a culmination of the detailed illustrations that have preceded it, with an element from each scene included as a component of the artist’s own studio. – Kaz Weida
ONLY 29 INCHES TALL, MATTHIAS BUCHINGER’S ARTISTIC ACCOMPLISHMENT WERE GIGANTIC
Matthias Buchinger: “The Greatest German Living”
by Ricky Jay
Siglio
2016, 160 pages, 8 x 9.8 x 0.8 inches
When Matthias Buchinger was born in 1674, he arrived without arms or legs. As an adult, he was under 2.5 feet tall. He lived to the age of 65, outliving three wives (his fourth wife outlived him, and he was rumored to have as many as 70 mistresses), and he sired 14 children. Most remarkably, Buchinger was an accomplished artist, magician, sharpshooter, and calligrapher. Buchinger’s specialty was micrography: the art of writing tiny letters. He was famous throughout Europe. According to Wikipedia, “Buchinger’s fame was so widespread that in the 1780s the term ‘Buckinger’s boot’ existed in England as a euphemism for the vagina (because the only ‘limb’ he had was his penis).”
The author is Ricky Jay, a famous magician, performer, historian of unusual performers, and writer. Jay’s biography of the extraordinary Buchinger includes many reproductions of Buchinger’s exacting pen and ink drawings, which he made holding a pen in his small fin-like appendages. Jay is a longtime collector of Buchinger original art, and this book includes several entertaining chapters about Jay’s personal interest in collecting Buchinger’s work and his interactions with other Buchinger-philes. – Mark Frauenfelder
Books That Belong On Paper first appeared on the web as Wink Books and was edited by Carla Sinclair. Sign up here to get the issues a week early in your inbox.
08/4/26
