Centenary birds

January 1910 (detail)

A couple of months ago I bought a book about Theo van Hoytema's beautiful 

lithographic Art Nouveau calendars and have been wanting to post about them ever since. 

Yesterday I finally got around to scanning some of the pictures, and then discovered that

 on the day before the beautifully curated blog Japonisme had worked on a similar idea

 (BTW, these intriguing web synchronicities are occurring very often these days... 

I wonder if other bloggers share the same experience). In fact, the remarkable and ambitious

 project of Japonisme is to upload the entire series of 17 calendars that van Hoytema produced

 between 1902 and 1917 (the 1918 calendar was published after his death). I encourage you

 to check out the first post with the complete 1902 edition, including the image below

 surrounded by its beautiful snowy decorative frame. I'll limit Animalarium's contribution

 to the subject to these gorgeous birds, one of van Hoytema's favorite subjects.

December 1902 (detail)

January 1905 (detail)

As an adolescent Theo van Hoytema loved animals, and was fascinated by illustrated books on

 entomology and natural history. Having noticed this, in 1888 his uncle A.P.M. van Oordt, a publisher

 and typographer, commissioned him to draw some illustrations for scientific publications on zoology.

 To accomplish the job, Theo went to study and sketch the animals at Leiden's Museum of Zoology

 and perfected his lithographic technique. This experience marked the beginning of his career

 as a serious artist, and in a few years' time, he became internationally known as one of

 the most original interpreters of the Nieuwe Kunst, the Dutch version of Art Nouveau.

July 1905 (detail)

March 1906 (detail)

June 1908

van Hoytema was also a celebrated children's books illustrator,

and you can see some of the lovely artwork from his 1895 book Uilen-Geluk here.

September 1908 (detail)

April 1910

February 1915

The book from which these images are taken is Theodoor van Hoytema – Calendari by Ezio Godoli. 

It was published in 1989 by Cantini Editore, a Florentine publisher who in the 1980s–90s produced

 some really nice and well documented illustrated books about art, illustration, fashion and ephemera.

 Unfortunately, as far as I know Cantini is no longer active, but some of these out of print books

 can be found at bargain prices in used bookstores around the city and on the web.