Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Art on Stamps Web Site

The Art on Stamps Web site is dedicated to the visual arts (painting, drawing, sculpting, pottery, tapestry, enamel) as they appear on stamps.

Webmaster Victor Manta of Switzerland writes, "It provides information about new issues, offers free advertisement space, a huge free database (as a free download and also on-line), an extensive art gallery, a free Paintings and Arts on Stamps Internet Club (PASIC) membership, tips for beginners, useful links, a poll, a magazine, pages dedicated to thematic collection, to postal history and to other subjects. You will also find many images, the more recent of them being of a good quality."

In 1997, Victor founded PASIC, the Paintings and Arts on Stamps Internet Club, counting at the time over 800 members from 85 countries. PASIC is affiliated since Jan. 2000 with the American Topical Association. Victor is also the founder and the president of the Philatelic Webmasters Organization.

According to Victor, "The Paintings and Arts on Stamps is a vast theme, probably the largest of all in the topical philately. There are 28,000 unique stamps and over 3,000 sheets that are listed in the present database. The first difficulty one has when she/he tries to put together a complete database (and a stamps collection too) of all stamps issues worldwide, is to define and then to identify which stamps belong to it. The task is not simple, because almost each stamp could be considered as a (kind of) piece of art. Somebody, normally/hopefully an artist, had to design it, to bring it on paper and to choose/specify the means by which his work will be 'converted' to a stamp."

Shown above, art on stamps mosaic based on the painting "The Archduke William in His Gallery in Brussels", by David Teniers the Younger (1610 - 1690).

To visit the Art on Stamps Web site, click here.
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posted by Don Schilling at 12:01 AM