The Gaze of Drifting Skies: A Treasury of Bird’s Eye Cartoon Views

Depicting the bustling crowds of humanity from magisterial heights was once a popular visual genre among artists and the public, regularly appearing in mass-market newspapers and magazines: carnivals and circuses, cook-outs and baseball games, bustling city streets and train stations or parades and epic battle scenes... artists depicted the everyday life of urban and country settings where communities gathered for fun and revelry. Adults and children alike could spend hours delighting in the details of these marvelously orchestrated scenes of human bustle. This coffee-table collection showcases the remarkable beauty and breadth of these forgotten American classics. "If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a panoramic bird's-eye view is worth a million! Depictions of bustling crowds from magisterial heights appeared regularly in newspapers and magazines in the early twentieth century. Whether it was a carnival, a circus, a cook out, a baseball game, a city street, a train station, a parade, or an epic battle scene, artists depicted the everyday life of urban and country settings. This collection features the largest cast of characters in history. It showcases the remarkable beauty and breadth of this soon-to-be-rediscovered visual genre."--Back cover