Aerial watercolor illustrations by Yan Nascimbene

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Rich landscapes and peaceful natural scenes are delicately illustrated by the Franco-Italian artist and writer Yan Nascimbene with delicate restraint and thoughtfulness. His skillful watercolors convey an atmosphere of peace and serenity, into which one wants to plunge headlong, lost for several hours in endless fields, forests and valleys.

Unfortunately, the artist has recently passed away, but during his long creative life he illustrated more than 60 books, drew mock-ups of three hundred book covers and published countless works in such magazines as The New Yorker, TIME Magazine and The Wall Street Journal.

Nashimbene is a master of fine details and perfect, luscious washes. But the unique feature of his works, which really makes the viewer freeze with admiration, is how space is interpreted in them. The endless sky, the sea surface, the flawless surface of the snow-capped mountain peaks - this is the geographical relief of Jan Nashimbene's illustrations.

Often a tiny figure participates in the scene: the landowner surrounded by the lush foliage of a shady forest, the Horseman galloping under the shade of huge trees, or a lone figure in red wandering through the desert. It seems that there are no such nuances of natural lighting that the artist would not be able to convey.

He uses lively, bright lines and color spots that contrast clearly with each other without causing dissonance. Each image looks holistic and harmonious - a task that not every artist can cope with. Nashimbene's illustrations, without losing a sense of naturalness, have a carefully calculated composition and a certain level of symmetry.

The influence of Japanese woodcuts from the Edo period, in particular Hokusai, is evident in his work, but it is no less obvious that Nashimbene continues the tradition of the classic illustration of children's books. His drawings not only comment on events taking place in the text, but also contain their own internal narrative.

The ancient art of woodcut still influences the compositions of young illustrators. But the artistic technique itself continues to interest contemporary artists. For example, woodcuts are a trademark of the Pittsburgh-based Tugboat Printshop art studio.