Friday, November 27, 2015

Six Days on Luna One (1965) -Part 1





I admit that I really like all these books I post. I try not to overuse hyperbole but in this case I must.

THIS IS THE BEST SPACE BOOK I HAVE FOUND IN YEARS!

The paintings and illustrations are incredibly detailed and beautiful. The entire book is generously sized and many of the paintings are full page or double page.  I also try not to post every illustration from a book but in this case I found at least 60 different ones I wanted to share.  So I will space them out into 4 posts.  I still do not read Russian so most of my commentary is on what they might portray or simply how emotional some of these paintings are to me.


Six Days on Luna One. I. Shtuka. Illustrated by Teodor Rotreckl. 211 pp. ARTIA, Prague, 1965. Hard cloth cover, dust jacket.  24 x 22 cm.

I think this is a translation into Russian of a 1963 Czech book. The 1963 book's title was:
 Šest dnů na Luně 1 (1963) 

I quote from here:

http://blog.edenfuture.com/2011/01/six-days-on-luna-1.html
 "Maybe the most beautiful book from Teodor Rotrekl´s peak period is Šest dnů na Luně 1 (Six Days on Luna 1, 1963) written by a journalist Ivo Štuka (1930 - 2007). This book for older children combines a real history and possible future of the space exploration with a kaleidoscopic novel set in our solar system. Almost every page contains a color illustration by Rotrekl, some of them quite exciting. Here is a scan of the original artwork used for the cover of the book including a hand-drawn title."




The book starts at a "space academy" in the future. The children are learning about the history of rocketry and spaceflight.





The book basically covers many different visions of the past and future of space flight.






These illustrations remind me of the Disney "Man in Space" paintings. Also worth noting are the numbered illustrations describing the details.






So much more to share, This is only part 1 of this 4 part post. Look for more next week.

2 comments:

  1. WOW! That all looks incredibly beautiful. I look forward to the other installments!
    Pierre

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  2. Very nice....keep up the good work!

    ReplyDelete