Impressive wooden sculptures by Rex Stewart

These excellent wooden sculptures were made by Rex Stewart.  Mr. Stewart specializes in building model boats although as you can see, he also carves realistic figures from wood for his dioramas and shadow boxes.  You can see more of his work on his Flickr site and on his blog,  Hudson River Model Steamboats.

Readers of this blog know that I have an interest in the history of whaling.   It's a brutal, but fascinating topic to study.  There is no justfication for it today, but at it's peak it provided much needed lamp oil, candles and  other products.  Fortunately the discovery and proliferation of electricity made whale oil largely obsolete.    Here are a few related postings that may be of interest: 

  The Great White Whale

Janes Take on the Spouter Inn

Physeter Marcocephalus

Interesting Whaling Diorama

 The Artist at work.

The Great White Whale

Keeping with the theme of the previous post, here are some dioramas of Moby Dick, the classic whaling novel of adventure, obsession, and revenge, written by Herman Melville (1819-1891) in 1851.  The book is a bit esoteric and was not well received at the time it was published.  It was only several years after the author's death (during the Melville Revival, starting around 1917) that it received its due recognition as being a masterpiece.


Diorama by Dan Thompson

click photos to enlarge

This diorama, built inside a light bulb, was made by someone calling himself Daydreamer 4.

Interesting whaling diorama

I saw this on the Tanner Blog.  Some might think its distasteful, but its pretty fascinating.  A few years ago I got very interested in the history of whaling.  Two great books on the subject are Leviathan by Eric Jay Gould and The Whale, In Search of the Giants of the Sea by Philip Hoare (This one concerns the author's fascination with Moby Dick, and deals with his quest to know more).


From Tanner Blog: