Signifier

@signifier.bsky.social

22 Following 200 Followers

quality writing on : art : design : media
also The Signifier : six : shot : gallery

🌐 https://medium.com/signifier

Editor & Curator: @remydean.bsky.social‬

@signifier.bsky.social Oct 11, 2026, 2:29 PM

✏️ 💭 👁️‍🗨️

A Rhinoceros-shaped Idea

"...living proof that the texts of the ancients contained knowledge worthy of continued exploration"

@kimvertue.bsky.social on why Albrecht Dürer’s fabulous woodcut still stirs the imagination

🦏 medium.com/signifier/d%...

#art #ArtHistory #illustration #history

His drawing of the rhinoceros is full of life and fills the page to emphasise its size. Dürer used his knowledge of more familiar creatures like horses and dogs, as well as his knowledge of armour from depicting Knights, to embellish the vague reports he had of the real creature. Yet many details seem astonishingly accurate, the shape of the head and presence of rib-ridges, for example. The smaller horn on its neck is often dismissed as pure invention but in some rare cases a process know as hyperkeratosis can result in a localised thickening of the hide that may grow to resemble a small horn, in exactly the position shown. Generally, the armour plates do closely resemble the fold pattern of the real life version’s thick hide, as do the warty bumps that stud them." - further description and analysis in article via link in post

@signifier.bsky.social Oct 10, 2026, 3:38 PM

🪨⛏️🔥

'Folk-Ore: Dawn of the Iron Age'

Magical Powers were attributed to ancient Blacksmiths as they mastered prehistoric #technology

@remydean.bsky.social mines some enduring stories lingering in #folklore since the cultural & #design revolution born of iron smelting

🪓 medium.com/signifier/fo...

Cross-section of raw bog-iron, or pan-iron, and smelting debris from Bryn y Castell, displayed at Plas Tan y Bwlch Stable Block Gallery during an exhibition by Remy Dean [photographs by Remy Dean, please credit]

@remydean.bsky.social Oct 7, 2026, 2:21 AMReposted by @signifier.bsky.social

another of my all-time favourite artworks: “I Like America & America Likes Me” aka 'Coyote' by Joseph Beuys (1974–1976) incorporates performance, installation, #photography & conceptual art...

my article @signifier.bsky.social asks where is the actual #art here?

🐺 medium.com/signifier/i-...

promotional poster for Coyote: in the dominant black and white photograph, Joseph Beuys reclines on a bed of straw, holding a walking cane, in the corner of a well-lit room with a coyote standing nearby looking toward the camera

@signifier.bsky.social Oct 6, 2026, 1:23 PM

💡 💭 ⚪

'Illumined Thinking'

@remydean.bsky.social recalls the first product to be marketed by the Bauhaus & how it expressed the key #design philosophies & processes of the famous design school’s formative years

🔆 medium.com/signifier/il...

#art #ArtHistory #history

photograph of faithful replicas of the first four iterations of the Wagenfeld Table Lamp (1923–1925) originally produced by Bauhaus, now made under licensed by Technolumen

@remydean.bsky.social Oct 6, 2026, 10:01 AMReposted by @signifier.bsky.social

Yaorenmao's #dance cover of ‘Calc.’ (2017) is flawless 🎸 note signal-rich choreo & precise use of background framing 🧸 & see my long-read article @signifier.bsky.social

'Home Dance & the Biting Cat' 💃 medium.com/signifier/ho...

#咬人猫 #宅舞 #Yaorenmao #HatsuneMiku #music
🎶 youtu.be/H-0u5804xjY?...

@foundworlds.bsky.social Sep 14, 2026, 8:01 PMReposted by @signifier.bsky.social

➖

"Aesthetics of subtraction (引き算の美学) refers to Japanese values & artistic techniques that involve stripping away the superfluous to highlight the essence & negative space..."

@yuriminamide.bsky.social explains how #Japanese #Minimalism differs from that of the West

🔲 medium.com/found-worlds...

@signifier.bsky.social Oct 6, 2026, 1:15 PM

⚔️ 🍺 🐲

'Beowulf versus Grendel, the Rematch!'

@remydean.bsky.social on the "oldest story in the whole group of Germanic stemmed languages, an important landmark in the development of #literature, striking in its apparent modernity

🔥 medium.com/signifier/be...

#folklore #fantasy #illustration

‘Beowulf and the Dragon’ (1931) detail of a lithographic illustration by Rockwell Kent showing Beowulf, sword and shield at the ready

@signifier.bsky.social Oct 6, 2026, 11:59 AM

👁️ 🖌️ 👩

'What the Impressionists Saw'

@kimvertue.bsky.social guides us through 3 paintings of a similar domestic subject by 3 Impressionists, revealing strands of co-operation, environment & stimulus that inspired a blossoming of talent...

🪞 medium.com/signifier/wh...
#art #ArtHistory #painitng

‘Woman at Her Toilette’ (1875–80) a painting by Berthe Morisot - further details and description in article via link in post

@signifier.bsky.social Oct 6, 2026, 11:50 AM

☝️ our editor's 'proper job' 😉 📚 support Remy = support Signifier 💝

@redsparrow.bsky.social Sep 19, 2026, 11:44 AMReposted by @signifier.bsky.social

our paperback editions are already rare collectables 🔍

...but despair not! #ThisThatAndTheOther by Remy Dean with Zel Cariad is currently an exciting live #WebNovel 😍

the 1st 16 chapters can be read with free subscription here:
🐉 threerealms.substack.com/archive #booksky

@signifier.bsky.social Oct 4, 2026, 1:49 PM

📷 🖌️ 🔲

'How David Hockney Makes Technology His Own'

"If one doesn’t understand how to use new technologies, they may well get used by them" - 'Beauty of Creation' identifies 3 patterns to help today’s creators use new media & AI with purpose & originality

🖲️ medium.com/signifier/ho... #art #history

‘Fresh flowers drawing in iPad 2010’ by David Hockney - two examples of his colourful digital works of flowers in vases - one looks like a bunch lavender and the other is a single pink rose.

@signifier.bsky.social Oct 1, 2026, 1:52 PM

🥄 ✂️ 📻

'Do You Speak Design? The ‘Ekco’ of Wells Coates'

@remydean.bsky.social tunes-in to the fluent design-language of Wells Coates who was a major influence on broadcast #design from household radios to studio #architecture

🔘 medium.com/signifier/do...

three black and white photographs: the distinctive curved facade of BBC Broadcasting House and two studio interiors designed by Wells Coates. A colour 'catalogue' photograph of his Ekco ‘AD65’ Radio in the best-selling brown Bakelite edition on its stool-like floor-stand.

@signifier.bsky.social Sep 26, 2026, 3:18 PM

🪑 🐕 🎨

David Hockney’s Dog Days

“…I realised I was #painting my best friends, Stanley & Boogie. The subject was not #dogs but my love of the little creatures.”

@kimvertue.bsky.social on how Britain’s favourite artist found solace in canine inspiration

Signifier 🐾 medium.com/signifier/da... #art

photograph showing the wall in David Hockney's studio with many paintings of his dogs hung on it - detail form a larger photograph used on the back cover of his 1998 book 'Dog Days'

@remydean.bsky.social Sep 25, 2026, 10:16 AMReposted by @signifier.bsky.social

🌕 Happy Moon-Viewing Mid-Autumn Harvest Festival🌽
🥮 祝福中秋佳节快乐 🐇 お月見を楽しみましょう 🎑

images from 'Astronomia Cards' (1829)
@publicdomainrev.bsky.social 🌃 publicdomainreview.org/collection/a...

old illustrated cards: the moon 'LUNA' - between constellations in the autumn sky, and constellations in the winter sky

@signifier.bsky.social Sep 19, 2026, 1:52 PM

🔷 🟥 🖼️

'The Power of Merz'

@remydean.bsky.social explores the collages & architectural assemblages of Kurt Schwitters that have left left a lasting legacy & remain highly relevant in #art #GraphicDesign & pop #culture

✂️ medium.com/signifier/ku...

#ArtHistory #illustration #history

two early abstract ‘Merz’ collages (c1920) by Kurt Schwitters - detailed analysis and descriptions in article via link in post

@signifier.bsky.social Sep 14, 2026, 1:19 PM

"the image is never entirely contained within the canvas & this is what makes Pellizza such an unusual painter: distance does not separate us from his subjects; it allows them to become present"

'The Device of Distance' by Michele Vigorita

🟡 medium.com/signifier/pe...
#art #painitng #ArtHistory

"A particularly clear example is Sul fienile (On the Hayloft, c.1893). An elderly itinerant labourer lies dying inside a dark agricultural interior. A young woman and a priest remain near him. Beyond them, through the opening of the building, the exterior countryside burns with daylight." - further analysis and description in article via link in post

@signifier.bsky.social Sep 14, 2026, 1:12 PM

"The relationship between line & colour becomes one of balance & interplay. The result is a dynamic composition that bypasses rational meaning, becoming directly expressive in a similar way to music."

'Driven to Abstraction' 🌈 medium.com/signifier/dr...
#art #ArtHistory #painting #illustration

music of Gunod (left) and Mendelssohn, as visualised c.1900 by Besant and Leadbeater - swirls of coloured lines and form above paintings of churches

@remydean.bsky.social Sep 9, 2026, 4:46 PMReposted by @signifier.bsky.social

#KyaryPamyuPamyu celebrates 15 years of unique, eclectic & positive #JPop #Art - here's my long-read celebration of her #kawaii career @signifier.bsky.social

Take a Bow: The Power of Kyary Pamyu Pamyu
🎀 medium.com/signifier/ta...

#PamyuFes digest vid 💃 youtu.be/BY8ClW_SC9s?...
#KPP #きゃりーぱみゅぱみゅ

@signifier.bsky.social Sep 9, 2026, 2:01 PM

🪨⚒️🪽

'Jacob & his Angels'

"the huge figures shocked many of Epstein’s contemporaries just as his first commission for the façade of the BMA Building had shocked Edwardian sensibilities in 1908"

@kimvertue.bsky.social on Jacob Epstein's monumental #sculpture of Angels

👼 medium.com/signifier/ja...

two photographs: detail pf Epstein’s sculpture of Jacob and the Angel is a larger-than-life depiction of Jacob’s all-night struggle with an unknown assailant - the grappling figures are angular, monumental. The angel wings are almost abstract, retaining the shape of the original huge block of alabaster; large bronze statue of ‘St Michael’s Victory over the Devil’ by Jacob Epstein at Coventry Cathedral (detail)

@signifier.bsky.social Sep 2, 2026, 2:26 PM

🌷 🍶 🥣

Christopher Dresser created the first objects to be known as Art Nouveau, drawing on his botanical knowledge & experiences in #Japan

@remydean.bsky.social on the first product designer who designed C19th design-think

🫖 medium.com/signifier/ch...

#design #art #ArtHistory #history #botany

Older posts