Pop-up book
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The epithet pop-up is often applied to any three-dimensional or movable book, although properly the umbrella term movable book covers pop-ups, transformations, tunnel books, volvelles, flaps, pull-tabs, pop-outs, pull-downs, and more, each of which performs in a different manner. Also included, because they employ the same techniques, are three-dimensional greeting cards.
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[edit] Pop-up types
Design and creation of such books is known as paper engineering, a term not to be confused with the term for the science of paper making. It is akin to origami in so far as the two arts both employ folded paper. However, origami tends to be focused on creating objects, whereas pop-ups tend to remain essentially pictorial and mechanical in nature. Some examples follow.
[edit] Transformations
Transformations show a scene made up of vertical slats. By pulling a tab on the side, the slats slide under and over one another to "transform" into a totally different scene. Ernest Nister, one of the early English children's book authors, often produced books solely of transformations. Many of these have been reproduced by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[citation needed]
[edit] Volvelles
Volvelles are paper constructions with rotating parts. An early example is the Astronomicum Caesareum, by Petrus Apianus, which was made for the Holy Roman Emperor Charles in 1540. The book is full of nested circular pieces revolving on grommets.
[edit] Tunnel books
Tunnel books (also called peepshow books) consist of a set of pages bound with two folded concertina strips on each side and viewed through a hole in the cover. Openings in each page allow the viewer to see through the entire book to the back, and images on each page work together to create a dimensional scene inside. This type of book dates from the mid-eighteenth century and was inspired by theatrical stage sets. Traditionally, these books were often created to commemorate special events or sold as souvenirs of tourist attractions. (The term "tunnel book" derives from the fact that many of these books were made to commemorate the building of the tunnel under the Thames River in London in the mid-1800s.) In the United States, tunnel books were made for such attractions as World Fairs and the New York Botanical Gardens.
Recently the tunnel book format has been resurrected by book artist Carol Barton and others as a sculptural book form. Artists are interested not only in the book's interior views, but also in treating the side accordions and covers as informational and visual surfaces.
[edit] History
The audience for early movable books was adults, not children. It is believed that the first use of movable mechanics appeared in a manuscript for an astrological book in 1306. The Catalan mystic and poet Ramon Llull, of Majorca, used a revolving disc or volvelle to illustrate his theories. Throughout the centuries volvelles have been used for such diverse purposes as teaching anatomy, making astronomical predictions, creating secret code, and telling fortunes. By 1564 another movable astrological book titled Cosmographia Petri Apiani had been published. In the following years, the medical profession made use of this format, illustrating anatomical books with layers and flaps showing the human body. The English landscape designer Capability Brown made use of flaps to illustrate "before and after" views of his designs.
While it can be documented that books with movable parts had been used for centuries, they were almost always used in scholarly works. It was not until the eighteenth century that these techniques were applied to books designed for entertainment, particularly for children.
[edit] Notable works
Some pop-up books receive attention as literary works for the degree of artistry or sophistication which they entail. One example is STAR WARS: A Pop-Up Guide to the Galaxy, by Matthew Reinhart. This book received literary attention for its elaborate pop-ups, and the skill of its imagery, with the New York Times saying that "calling this sophisticated piece of engineering a 'pop-up book' is like calling the Great Wall of China a partition". [1]
[edit] References
- ^ "A Galaxy in Your Face", The New York Times Book Review, Children's Books section, 11 November 2007.
[edit] Further reading
- The Pocket Paper Engineer, Volume 1 by Carol Barton, 2005
- The Pocket Paper Engineer, Volume 2 by Carol Barton, 2008
- The Elements of Pop-Up by David A. Carter and James Diaz, 1999.
- Paper Engineering: 3D Design Techniques for a 2D Material by Natalie Avella. Rotovision, 2003.
