[Image: The Age of Civilization by Jan Soucek].
Nearly three years ago, in an email I have subsequently misplaced, a reader sent in some scans he had made of a book about Jan Soucek, a Czech artist whose work consists, it seems, almost entirely of elaborate architectural fantasies.
The one image that really stood out for me, and that I’ve just rediscovered here today in the many, many files of images stored on my computer, is called The Age of Civilization: it features the ruined walls and eroding arches of a Brueghelian Tower of Babel, subsequently built over and subsumed beneath future rings of urban growth.
Very little can be found about Soucek online; from what I can gather, though, he was born in 1941 (which means he is not the other Jan Soucek who pops up a lot whilst Googling) and he has participated in “numerous exhibitions in Czech Republic, Germany, Switzerland, Yugoslavia, Rumania, Bulgaria, Austria, France, USA and Belgium.”
A slightly larger version of this very painting was also uploaded to Flickr two years ago – perhaps by the same person who initially sent me the scan (the image description, oddly, mentions BLDGBLOG).
i love the original tower of babel and this is such an awesome concept, thanks for taking the time to show it after coming across it again. Think i might rasterbate the bigger image on flickr!
It kind of reminds me of images from the Polish Pavilion at The Venice Biennale.
Hope you enjoyed Australia & Parallax
http://www.flickr.com/photos/beaufort8fg/2883943269/in/set-72157607694013600/
This is his monography:
http://www.eruditus.cz/knihy/kolektiv-autoru/jan-soucek
oh yes, finally someone who discovered this great painter. i have a book from childhood about this artist, and always loved to see his amazing concepts.
I feel like I’ve made the big time–even though my only role was to scan in this remarkable image. Thanks to Geoff for posting this–two years is a short time to wait for a post be included among such estimable company. For those who are interested, I’ve got and will gladly send very large files with an even higher-res version of the image. See http://www.pozorblog.com for contact details.
Kevin