The Boxart is an applied art, this is the Private collection of Sergio Tellez
The Airfix Boxart was made since the sixties, by the great Artist Roy Cross, practically every model of that brand that comes to mind was decorated with a painting of him, unfortunately, he has just died, after a long and productive life, this is a tribute, very peculiar, because it is very familiar to everyone, due to his work.
Their work can be purchased in their SITE.
Lodela's Boxart is unforgettable, for those of us who lived in that time, it was our reunion with beauty, art, and an invitation to have fun, it was not unusual for us to choose the model to buy because of the boxart
The H-1000 series was 1/144 scale models, in square boxes, the H-1006 Shoki belonged to the last era of that series, they lost the classic orange box, for colored boxes, but they remained in their shape, on one side the boxart, on the other side the instructions and on the sides, images of other models.
In this particular case, the composition is the plane is diagonal, on a blue background, with stormy clouds, which makes a perfect contrast with the natural aluminum of the plane, which is painted in the bright red colors of a fighter unit.
There was a time when Lodela produced Airfix models in Mexico under license, it must have been at the end of the 80s, and it was a peculiar time, when it was still better to produce things locally, have factories and employees, something that globalization ended, because suddenly it was cheaper to import the products and just pack them or put the import label on them, a concept, which is now being abandoned, because the international trade routes are not safe, because it caused many industries to lay off lots of people and because it is safer and cheaper, from a distribution point of view, to produce everything locally.
The boxart was the classic Airfix, only in gray boxes, with the Lodela logo, but they weren't that well done, the model name was incomplete, the information on the side was almost non-existent, the instructions were a single printed sheet, of both On the other hand, it didn't matter how complex the model was, the images were reduced until they were tiny, on the other hand, Lodela's green plastic gives a unique flavor to those Airfix models, which have always been grey, (good in the 70s for a brief time were silver, but that doesn't count)
The boxart was very good, I don't know the painter, but the composition is excellent, if we see it from the geometric point of view, the main element is in a triangle, well centered, but with its base closer to the diagonal, and the addition of the second apparatus in formation, it is magnificent, it is a similar triangle, inscribed in the main one, the blue colors, intense, à la Vermeer, as it is before the 80s, a battle is represented, but it is barely hinted at, the English fleet below, with the fighters chasing the formation, are secondary actors in this scene where the SM.79 is king.
The poor Soviet boxart has a very deep reason for its existence, it is not simply because things became ugly under socialism, but because there was a theory of art behind it, in fact a Political Theory of Art, according to the Marxist principles, Punin said:
"The element of representation is already a characteristic element of a bourgeois understanding of art."
From there to say that Art is Bourgeois and therefore contrary to the People there was only one step, and they took it, Soviet Art cannot be beautiful, because beauty is what prerevolutionary art was looking for, while art for the People seek to spread a political message, and whoever does not do so does not deserve to be done, things like Color, Composition, Form, Current, are bourgeois concepts, (even Cubism and the Most Impressive were despicable Bourgeois Art).
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| An example, two colours Boxart, |
It is true that there were attempts to get out of this rigid scheme, but unlike the West, artists who did not agree, were placated by the KGB, accused of being counterrevolutionaries, the Stalinist Terror kept at bay any type of discrepancy from the orthodox theory Marxist.
And so we have Boxart that we can hardly call Art, the old Frog models, manufactured in the USSR, only had a reduction to two colors or sometimes to one), of the Original Boxart of the British manufacturer, basically an example of Industrial Art, where the Boxart only indicated the content and was made using the least amount of materials possible.
After talking about so much Marxism, I go for a delicious Ham-Bourgeois, so that the Stalinist Marxist artists writhe in their graves.
Each decade can be identified by its iconography, and this is usually a reflection of the soul of that generation, the seventies were in the world of modeling, a great era, boxart was going through its best time, before the Laws on it, to me. The best opinion was that of Revell, but in reality there were very good painters in various brands.
Art could very well enhance emotions, unlike current decorative art, there could be explosions, combats, all those things associated with great emotional energy, that gave that Boxart a strength that others do not have.
A few samples
Matisse considered that:
"" The only audience that can claim avant-garde art is an educated bourgeoisie"
And this is absolutely true in Boxart, this type of art only has a small group of followers, even within the world of modelers, not everyone appreciates it, although in reality that is to be expected, because Modeling is a Modern Art, and the modelers, usually do, more than see, we are artists in every expression of the word, but our works are three-dimensional paintings, very attached to realistic art, perhaps the last representatives of such art.
And in the same way, we are specialists in techniques, colors, shapes, any of us could have a very good conversation with Da Vinci or Picasso, so the Boxart is only a small part of our artistic appreciation.
But in the seventies, art was superb, (now reduced to a simple decorative art, by law); But at that time we could hang a framed Steele's boxart painting and feel the deep emotions of the painting, in fact I remember having in my room the boxart of the USS Essex and some Lodela planes, along with a poster of Turner's Storm and a photo of a mural by Siqueiros; I liked art, because it makes you're live more complete, it makes your day to day more beautiful and profound.
