Share and Bookmark
- Add to Delicious
- Add to Digg
- Add to Facebook
- Add to Google
- Add to StumbleUpon
- Add to Twitter
- Add to Yahoo!
- Send by Email
According to a recent survey by the Pew Forum, nearly 75% of Americans believe in angels. Whether you believe in them or not, angels are indeed quite a fascination for many.
These celestial beings have been described and depicted over the ages in so many different ways, from fearless warriors to tender babies.
One of the latest works of art that depicts angels has come from the work of Chuck Fischer. Chuck is a premier muralist, trompe l’oeil master, product designer and published author. He is also known today for his amazing works of art being displayed in extravagant pop-up books.
Thus today, I want to share with you my thoughts and impressions of his latest pop-up book called “Angels”.
Book Format and Structure
The book “Angels” is by Chuck Fischer and features some of his incredible art work when it comes to these celestial beings. It has just been published this past October 2009 and is currently available for sale.
Chuck’s art work is amazing on its own, but one of his specialties is giving his art a three dimensional perspective, and hence featuring it in the form of pop-up books.
As mentioned above, Chuck is a very talented artist in many domains. His paintings can be found various places all over the world. His designs have been made into books, ornaments, home furnishings and even fabrics. He is the author of 5 previous pop-up books: Christmas in New York, Christmas Around the World, In the Beginning, The White House and the Great American Houses and Gardens.
The book “Angels” is about 8 by 10 inches and about 2 inches thick to accommodate for the pop-up format. It features nine amazing scenes of Chuck’s art work, accompanied by some written parts that enhance the book even more. The written components are by Curtis Flowers.
The book features 3 main sections:
1. Messengers, which features the Origins of Angels and Biblical Angels
2. A Hierarchy of Angels, which features special content on the Archangel Michael and Archangel Gabriel
3. Secular Angels, which features the angelic connections to art, music and the New Age
The actual physical structure of the book is amazing in how the pictures spring up to life and feature incredible detail and craftsmanship. The paper engineering for this book was done by Bruce Foster.
Book Content and Personal Commentary
This is by far one of the most beautiful books I have ever seen. This is not the kind of book you would read as a novel, or non-fiction, but rather take it in as a work of art.
When I first opened up this book, I honestly felt like a kid with a brand new toy. I really feel like the book takes us back to our childhood innocence where the turn of every page features delights for our visual senses. And while this book would be greatly enjoyed by children, that would only be for visual purposes and with adult supervision, unless they are perhaps 6 or older. The reason for this is that some of the intricate designs are quite fragile and could be easily ripped and damaged.
For adults, I can see this book making an amazing collectors item, especially for those who have an extra special affinity for angels in their lives.
While I greatly enjoyed learning more about the angels from this book, it is mostly written from a world religion perspective and not a new age perspective, hence the reader needs to keep that in mind.
I personally love all things angel-related, however I do not see them as fighters of the dark forces, as they are often depicted in religious writings. The combination of “angels” and “fighting” or “wars” just seems like a complete contradiction to me, but that is just my personal opinion. I think we have personalized a great many mystical things and because we cannot understand how the higher forces operate, we endow upon them our limited physical characteristics and ways of behaving. I personally think that angels are much more evolved than to need to use any kind of violence. This idea however, did not interfere with my enjoyment of the book in any way, if anything it made me reflect on these beings and their ways even more.
Overall however, the book is just such a delight and I am glad books like this exist for adults. It is just such a beautiful way to enjoy art work and take our imagination and visual senses for a delightful journey, while we delve into the angel realm.
I am including the following 1 minute video, which shows you how this book opens and what some of the pages reveal.
The book is available from Amazon.com (link included below):
by Chuck Fischer
Price: USD 19.80
55 used & new available from USD 7.00
About the author:Evita Ochel, B.Sc., B.Ed., CHN - is the main author of EvolvingBeings.com where she writes about spiritual and personal development. She hopes to inspire people, to truly live out the life of their dreams and awaken the highest version of themselves. She is also a nutritional science and holistic health expert for optimal health and longevity. Learn more about Evita Ochel or Follow Evita Ochel on Twitter.
10 Comments to “Book Review: Angels – A Pop-Up Book”
Hi Evita — thanks for this — I enjoyed the pop-up art even from here, and I’d never thought of it as an art form that could exist outside children’s books but this definitely changed my mind.
@ CHRIS – Hi Chris, you are welcome and it is a fun book indeed. I didn’t think that adult books would ever come in pop-up form either, but it was fun to experience this one and know that they do indeed!
I love pop-up books. They have fascinated me since I’ve been 4 years old. It’s an art that is fading away and it’s one we must preserve. It helps us see life from a new angle. I pop-up book delivers the angel message completely different from a TV show or a regular book. I’m going to see if any major bookstores carry this title.
Evita,
Angels…I believe. Fighting angels? I’m not ready to go there. And when I think of pop up books, I do think of the child in all of us, coming out to be surprised at how it all unfolds.
I have heard people and authors describe situations where if wishes are made, then they are being assisted by angels or spirit helpers. For instance, if someone wants a certain parking place before they get there, they will make this intention, and since they believe it to be true, forces make it happen. So upon the battle field, if one has a … See Morecertain goal, and one surrenders fully to it, then they appear unstoppable and they feel they have been assisted by angels or gods. Everything is true and not true, from my perspective. Its a matter of symantics. Forces are streams of energy which certainly can be personified, and perhaps there is a face to everything?
@ KARL – Hi Karl you are so right, there is a totally different way in how a pop-up book delivers a particular message or scene. I never had much pop-up books when I was younger, but I did have this one that I was so in love with – I just loved looking at it over and over, and admiring each of the different details that were there. This book brought back a lot of fond memories for sure!
@ LANCE – Yeah, see this is the part of the Bible in how they are portrayed, as fighters for God…. and while that is all beautifully noble, I just don’t buy that God needs other beings to fight for God, or even fathom the word “fight”. But that is for the most part how the Bible presents the angels. Except for that beautiful scenes perhaps of Angel Gabriel with Mary and than at Jesus’ tomb. But go into the book of revelations and it is a whole other ball game…
@ BERN – Completely. I really believe that we have these beings as our guardians and that if we call upon them they are always there to help. But where I see a lot of people really giving this a wrong meaning is when they start asking the angels, or God for that matter for things to satisfy their ego. Perhaps this is why some things work and some don’t that we ask for…it all depends on where they are coming from within us.
I picked up a pop up book in the store the other day and got such a thrill out of it (was a children’s book, though, was searching for my niece/nephew!)
I don’t give too much thought to angels, personally, although I do believe that my guardian angel who protects me is my grandmother. Ever since she passed almost 2 decades ago I just “feel it”.
Hi Evita,
That is a cool statistic. I am happy to know that it is 75% and not a lower figure. Goes to show you that people are more spiritual than they let on.
And that book looks beautiful. Thank you so much for always sharing what you have discovered with all of us. It is obvious that you write from the heart and to me that is beautiful!
Merry Christmas to you and your family!
Some pop-up books are done really well, and it looks like Angels was done very well.
It reminds me of another kind of book I liked … where the cover would have some plastic thing that made the scene look like 3D. I haven’t seen one in a long time though.
@ STACEY – Pop-up books are fun, aren’t they! It is neat that you have some kids in the family that you can buy them for….as you get to enjoy them through them too :)
That is a beautiful thought too about your grandmother being your guardian angel…I don’t doubt it is so.
@ NADIA – Nadia it is so much my pleasure to share with others, whether it be life lessons, stories or any kind of valuable spiritual material that can help us evolve to become the highest versions of us that we can be. There is so much love with us all!
Thank you for the holiday wishes!
@ J.D. – Hi J.D. – yes I was really impressed with this one, especially that the content appealed to me too in that it was about angels :)