The Prehistoric art of Znedek Burian amidst a motherlode of large scans of Czech art and photography

February 9, 2003 1:39 AM

Chasmosaurus, Giant Stag and Dire Wolf, Diatryma, Albertosaurus and an early Portuguese blogger--allow me to get a little Mesozoic, Creataceous and Pleistocene upon your ass with this cool archive of vintage Czechoslovakian prehistoric art: I found 11 pages of thumbnails for 258 large scan jpegs of Znedek Burian's work on the websites of the Petrs Hejna of Prague, the Czech Republic. Znedek Burian, as you will remember from my previous Vintage Dinosaur Art Archives thread, was state of the art in the 1950s. 258 scans of Znedek Burian is find enough to merit a post--But Wait! There's More! → → →
posted by y2karl (13 comments total)

Petr the Senior is a musician, photographer and painter. His photography is rather excellent: landscapes, family and a few that may make some of you want to go see what the wife is doing, if you know what I mean. We're talking tasteful nudes--but not without some high rowr factor. Click not if thou are at work, I suppose. Petr the Elder has galleries of astronomical and entomological photography. Petr the Younger also is into astronomy, plus exotic reptiles and model trains. The Father has a taste for surrealism, with a couple of huge Bosch and Breughel scans and a Bosch gallery. There are endless and various galleries of acres of thumbnails of large scans here--it's a fun place in which to dig for treasure. Here's a sort of site map. I hope languagehat is of some help here. But, in any case: Enjoy.
posted by y2karl at 1:40 AM on February 9, 2003

Photography and dinosaurs? I coo in your general direction.

Petr the Elder's photographs have an odd sort of familiarity. I don't quite know how to express it...but on nearly all the landscapes, I felt as if I had stood, long ago, where the camera now is. Visual deja vu.
posted by hippugeek at 2:10 AM on February 9, 2003

[this is good]
posted by plep at 9:00 AM on February 9, 2003

Moment of Decision: Early Portuguese blogger and mate pondering whether to drag the y2karl's assosaurus over to MeTa.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 9:38 AM on February 9, 2003

y2karl - you are my God! (At least one of them anyway).
posted by Wulfgar! at 11:07 AM on February 9, 2003

Moment of Decision: Early Portuguese blogger and mate pondering whether to drag the y2karl's assosaurus over to MeTa.

Kiddin'! ;) ;) ;) Oh, I'm going to hell...
posted by y2karl at 11:20 AM on February 9, 2003

Too bad they don't have great big piles of bandwidth.
posted by kavasa at 11:39 AM on February 9, 2003

nothing makes you more attractive to the opposite sex like a giant bosch wallpaper on your desktop. not even dinosaurs. fantastic post.
posted by steef at 12:39 PM on February 9, 2003

I came across Petr Hejna's Burian galleries via Andreas Fehrman's Jules Verne pages, a German site--here's the Google translated Home, Site Map, Zdenek Burian and this Czech link which has several Burian thumbnail galleries of the complete Burian illustrations for the works of Karel May. Karel May seems to be the German adventure writer Karl May, who, as you can see, is something of a pocket industry in Germany.

Hmm, this seems to have something to do with that quaint and charming German custom of dressing up as North American Indians and camping in the woods. It's sort of like Civil War re-enactments. This seems to have been derived from the East German Indianerfilmes, which were the popular Wild Easterns, a combination of entertainment and propaganda, wherein the Indians were the good guys and the cowboys the villains.

East German "Indian movies" are adventure movies, with "good" and "bad" guys, heroes and villains. The movies generally portray Native Americans as proud, spiritual and cultured heroes, and white Americans as greedy, power-hungry and insidious invaders. But they also feature Native American traitors, half-castes, as well as honest and sympathetic white Americans.

And these seem to have been made in response to the popular West German Karl May Western movies.

The things you learn via serendipity...
posted by y2karl at 12:49 PM on February 9, 2003

I hope languagehat is of some help here.
Your wish is my command!

ZEME A VESMÍR the earth and the universe

ASTRONOMIE: MESÍC moon BLESKY lightning SESKUPENÍ PLANET configurations of planets KULOVÝ BLESK ball lightning LUNA,HVEZDOKUPY moon, stars DALEKOHLEDY telescopes

CESTOVÁNÍ travels: POVYDRÍ along the Vydra River (in SW Czech Rep.) OSTROV HVAR Hvar Island (off Croatia) CHORVATSKO Croatia ŠVIHOV (town in SW Czech Rep) DOBRONICE (a ruined castle near Tábor) TÁBOR (town S of Prague) KRKONOŠE (mountain range on Polish border)

VÝTVARNÉ UMENÍ art: REZBÁRSTVÍ woodcarving POHLEDNICE picture postcards VÁNOCNÍ DEKORACE Christmas decorations

LITERATURA: URSULA LE K. GUINOVÁ (Note that Czech adds the -ová feminine suffix even to foreign names) LIDOVÉ ARABSKÉ POHÁDKY Arab folk tales: TISÍC A JEDNA NOC Thousand and One Nights

MÝTY A LEGENDY myths and legends: SKVRNY NA MESÍCI spots on the moon SMÍCH BLÁZNIVÉ ŽÁBY laughter of the crazy frog GALSKÁ ZVÍRATA Gallic animals (?) PEVNOST BOHU firmness/resoluteness of the gods POSVÁTNÉ JMELÍ sacred mistletoe Z NAŠICH HRADU A ZÁMKU from our castles and estates BRATRI GRIMMOVÉ brothers Grimm

HUDBA music

REPORTÁŽE A ROZ[HO]VORY S OSOBNOSTMI interviews and conversations with famous people: MUJ ÚSPECH my success

PRÍRODA nature: NOSOROŽEC TUPONOSÝ snubnosed rhinoceros ROSNICKA ZELENÁ green tree-frog KRIŽÁK PRUHOVANÝ striped garden spider ENTOMOLOGIE

ZÁJMY A ZÁBAVA interests and amusements: KARTY cards REZBÁRSTVÍ woodcarving MODELÁRSTVÍ - ŽELEZNICE model trains PREPARACE HMYZU preservation of insects (ie, specimens) TÁBORNICTVÍ camping SBERATELSTVÍ - ZÁPALKY matchbook collection KRABICKY OD CIGARET cigarette packs

ZPET NA CASOPIS back to Journal ZPET NA NECO O MNE ( informace o mé malickosti a zájmech ) back to Something About Me ( information about my trivia and interests )
posted by languagehat at 12:55 PM on February 9, 2003

Oops, forgot my Indianerfilmes link.
posted by y2karl at 12:57 PM on February 9, 2003

laughter of the crazy frog

I know this well...
posted by y2karl at 12:59 PM on February 9, 2003

And, thank you so much, languagehat!
posted by y2karl at 1:10 PM on February 9, 2003