Illustration and Thought Formulation

Source:  Amazon It's a rare week for me when I watch a film, but it happened this week. The film in question was Blade of the Immortal on Netflix. It is based on a manga of the same name. I've seen some other Japanese live action films before, such as Battle Royale (and others that I can't remember right now) and they're always strange. The acting is very different from my western point of view. I have trouble putting my finger around what it exactly is, but I know there's something weird in there. It feels overly dramatic and silly. Bearing this in mind, I also feel that there's something weird in Finnish movies as well. This I can attribute strongly to the fact that I am Finnish. And combined with the fact that I feel very little for this country, might be why Finnish movies seem sub-par to me. However, I have recently started to warm up to Finnish art, music and movies. But it is still too easy for me to make fun of Finland as a country for prudes...

Despite being Finnish, I've never actually read the Moomin books. Sure, I've seen the cartoon series, but the books are a mystery to me. I didn't even know there are so many of them: 20 in total. To remedy this I went to the Moomin museum in Tampere. The security around the museum seemed unusually strict, and taking photos was prohibited for copyright reasons. I feel the museum is actually more of an art gallery than a museum. It's chock full of beautiful (but mostly tiny) illustrations. Tove Jansson's main work medium was ink on paper over a pencil sketch. The illustrations are extremely detailed, and she knows how to bring out the light and shadow using only a black marker pen. Her illustration style brings to mind the old school botanical illustrations in the sense that she uses numerous thin lines to shade and even to suggest forms and textures, such as mist, clouds or water. There are also pieces on display by Tuulikki Pietilä - a graphic designer and ...