Some Fireworks-Related Content for the Fourth of July
This should help get you in the mood for Independence Day.
Tomorrow is Independence Day here in the United States, which means there will be lots of fireworks shows. With that in mind, I have three things to share with you.
First, in case you missed it last month, Inconspicuous Consumption reader Scott Teplin has a really fun fireworks-themed art exhibit currently on display in Brooklyn. Here’s my review of it, and you can still see it through this Saturday, July 5th, at the Thomas VanDyke Gallery.
Second, the excellent podcast The Economics of Everyday Things recently did an episode about the economics of fireworks. You can listen to the episode here, or use the player embedded below:
Last but definitely not least, I want to share something really special with you. It’s an 1883 catalog from a Japanese company called Hirayama Fireworks, with the delightful title “Illustrated Catalogue of Night Bomb Shells.” Here’s the front cover:
The key word there is Illustrated. As explained in the catalog’s introductory text (which is in English because this catalog was for the export market):
The illustrations in this new catalogue are inserted merely for the purpose of giving a rough representation of the fireworks, which include many newfangled pieces, it being impossible for an artist to represent the brilliancy and grandeur of the effect produced at the time of the explosion. They are carefully prepared, and failure to explode should not occur.
Think about that for a second. If you were an illustrator, how would you depict fireworks? More specifically, how would you depict various kinds of fireworks for potential customers?
If you were the illustrator for Hirayama Fireworks in 1883, you’d do it like this:
Aren’t those great? I love how geometric they are, and how they look like flowers, or just decorations. If you didn’t know they were meant to represent fireworks, you probably wouldn’t guess. But once you do know that they’re fireworks, they make perfect sense. (Insert my usual “It’s a shame that the artist wasn’t credited, as is so often the case with commercial art” lament here.)