meganbmoore | xXxHolic art(2)

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xXxHolic art(2)

I remain obsessed with the art in xXxHolic. Typically, I'm neutral on the art front. All I really require of art in sequentially illustrated storytelling is that it not hurt my eyes and competently tell the story. I think this comes from reading comics since I was 12. With over half my life spent with good art randomly being replaced with art so bad it hurts to look at, I can be generous as long as it does the job and is consistent, I'm good. Besides, after Skottie Young, manga art can do nothing to me.

I make an exception, though, when the art style and execution is central to the book, such as in xXxHolic and Blade of the Immortal. The art in xXxHolic is an extreme study in black and white and negative imaging. There are no greys and no shading. Where there would usually be shading, there is either pure linework with some blacks and a bit of the condensed "shading" lines(as opposed to the full shading of most manga art), heavy blacks, or thin black lines of varying density to create the illusion of shading, all of which adds to the mythical and otherworldly feel.

Compact lines to create the illusion of shading:

Negative imaging:

Negative imaging AND fake shading:

Extreme blacks and whites:

Amazing linework;

Random pictures(which I could probably put somewhere above if I wanted, but I'm lazy)

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They have an excellent sense of design at CLAMP; I just wish the people didn't look like sticks with footballs attached to them o.o Beautiful design sense in everything else, though.

One day, they will draw a character with bones and I won't know what to do.

Wow, Aubrey Beardsley much? :) Though there are few better models for odd, ornate linework...

i'm not familiar with Aubrey Beardsley...

http://www.wormfood.com/savoy/

He was a queer duck, but undeniably talented!

is it worksafe?

Beardsley can be pretty UN-safe, point of fact. Looking at that site, the pieces from The Yellow Book and Le Morte d'Arthur all seem fine, but Salome is another matter, and Juvenal even more so. Here, I'll cherry-pick a few safe pieces from Salome. :)

http://www.wormfood.com/savoy/salome/141.html

http://www.wormfood.com/savoy/salome/142.html

http://www.wormfood.com/savoy/salome/148.html

http://www.wormfood.com/savoy/salome/147.html

Harry Clarke is another artist of that kind to check out, definitely of the same school, only more towards the horror side -- he illustrated Edgar Allen Poe, for instance.

Hmm...looking at those pieces, I can see what you mean.

http://www.grandmasgraphics.com/clarke1.htm

No nudity that I've spotted, but a few artfully-decayed-corpses in the Poe. Again, that amazingly decorative pure ink work for book illustration, dating about 80-100 years ago -- if you know Yoshitaka Amano, you can see he's quite an aficionado of this stuff. Which was all heavily influenced by Japanese art in the first place. :D

Beardsley's stuff managed to feel kinky even when it wasn't. Very weird. The xxxHolic artwork also reminds me of Erte a bit - that's part of the reason that telophase's Yuuko pic is now in our dining room - it matches the Erte print we have on the adjacent wall.

Beardsley was a Decadent to the core, so it's really not surprising that you twigged to his stuff having a strong erotic, fetishistic component even when nothing overtly naughty is being shown. He was also notably influenced by Japanese woodblock artists, particularly shunga.

Synchronicity again -- I just read this essay (http://gayutopia.blogspot.com/2007/12/michael-manning.html) a few days ago, which details my favorite modern fetish artist's thoughts on encountering Beardsley's work for the first time. (Fair warning, this is a serious article but it is discussing visual erotica and the included illustrations from both artists include many that are elegant but very much NOT WORKSAFE. It's quite lovely stuff if one doesn't mind the explicit themes; like Beardsley, Manning primarily works in highly stylized black-and-white, with a notable influence from shunga and other Japanese art.)

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