November 08, 2017

Ninth anniversary of this blog

Bonjour aux promeneurs
Hello walkers
picture of a sculpture by Fernand Chatelain

When on holiday in France in the late 1990s, by chance I visited Picassiette's mosaic decorated house in Chartres. Never heard about such a type of artwork, but very impressed, I started a search for similar creations, first those in France, later those in other Ruropean countries.

In 2008, I thought it was time to publish my findings on the internet. So on November 11, 2008, nine years ago, I published my first post in a weblog, named Outsider Environments Europe.

Today this blog exists for nine years and it now includes an inventory of over 400 art environments in a variety of countries in Europe

As in previous years I will relate here some data (as of November 10) about numbers and origin of visitors and about art environments that were most viewed.

Number of visitors

On November 10, 2016 the all time number of visitors was 583287. On November 10, 2017 it was  697157, an increase of 113870, or on the average 312 visitors a day. Over the period 2015-2016 the average was 346.

All time page-views by country

As in previous years here is the all time rank of top ten countries as regards page-views:

   1. United States 246640 (rank 2016 idem)
   2. Netherlands  70480 (rank 2016 idem)
   3. France 63440 (rank 2016 idem)
   4. Germany 52103 (rank 2016 idem)
   5. United Kingdom  45788 (rank 2016 idem)
   6. Ukraine 21140 (rank 2016 idem)
   7. Russia 19902 (rank 2016 idem)
   8. Spain 13897 (rank 2016 idem)
   9. Italy 11637 (rank 2016 idem)
 10. Poland 6244 (rank 2016 idem)

The top ten list includes the same countries as in 2016, even in the same order. To my satisfaction the interest from Russia and Eastern Europe is lasting.

Most viewed sites all time

These are the sites with the most all time views (as on November 10):

   1. Abbé Fouré, Sculpted rocks  6308 (rank 2016: 4)
   2. Bill and Elisabeth Charge, Shell garden  6032 (rank 2016: 1)
   3. Joseph Ferdinand Cheval, Palais Idéal  5441 (rank 2016: 2)
   4. Robert Garcet, Tour Eben-Ezer 5127 (rank 2016: 3)
   5. Jose Maria Garrido, Shell decorated interior  4607 (rank 2016: 6)
   6. Robert Tatin, Singular architecture  4392 (rank 2016: 5)
   7. Bodan Litnianski, Decorated garden 3987 (rank 2016: idem)
   8. Chomo, Préludian art 3699 (rank 2016: idem)
   9. Francisco Grajera, Decorated house 3440 (rank 2016: 11)
 10. Joseph Pujiula i Vila, Labyrinth 3284 (rank 2016: 8)

The second place for Bill and Elisabeth Charge just as in 2016 has to due with a one time event. End October 2016 the husband of a granddaughter of Bill and Elisabeth posted a message on the Watford Memories and History page on Facebook, asking -with a link to the relevant post in this blog- if anyone remembered the decorated garden. Thousands of people did remember the site and this resulted in over 5000 hits of the post in a few days time, which meanwhile has grown to over 6000.

For the rest, the top ten contains a slightly variable set of names, with Abbé Fouré, Facteur Cheval, Bodan Litnianski and Chomo from France, José Maria Garrido, Francisco Grajera and Joseph Pujiula from Spain, and Robert Garcet from Belgium. 

Erich Bödeker (Sculpture garden) from Germany (13 in 2016) is now on 11 and Karl Junker (Decorated interior), also from Germany,  left the top ten and is now at 12.

Willem van Genk (Arnhem bus station) from the Netherlands, in 2016 on 12, is now on 13. 

On 14 is Jean-Daniel Allanche (Decorated interior) from France. His decorated interior is new in this yearly review. My post about this art environment from end December 2015 was one of the first in the field that introduced his decorated interior on the internet. 

Stephen Wright  (House of dreams) from England is on 15 and Robert Vasseur Mosaic decorated house, garden) from France is on 16. Both already ranked high in former years.

On 17 is Julius Klingebiel (Decorated hospital room) from Germany. He is new in this yearly review. Reports about his decorated room in a closed hospital ward became public in the early months of 2015 and resulted in a lot of interest.

The other most viewed posts relate to Maria Rodriguez (Shell decorated garden, Spain, on 18), Raymond Isidore, also known as Picassiette (Mosaic decorated house, France, on 19) and Yves Floc'h (Kinetic art, France, on 20) 

Eastern Europe and Russia

The past two to three years I have focused my attention on searching art environments in Eastern Europe and Russia west of the Urals. which so far delivered 54 sites.

These are the sites with all time views above 1400 (as on November 9):
   
Eastern Europe
   Bogdan Ziętek, Interior with sculptures, Poland   2238   
   Václav Levý, Sculpted rocks, Czech Republic, 2166
   Stanislav Sartsevich, Sculpture garden, Ukraine, 2091
   Nicolas Golovan, Decorated house, Ukraine, 2005
   Boguslawa Iwaneskiego, Sculpture garden, Poland, 1587
   Felicja Curylova, Decorated house, Poland, 1577
   
Russia
   Alexander Ladogina, Singular architecture, 1973
   Alexander Emelyanov, Naive architecture, sculpture, 1840
   Pjotr Zhurilenko, Sculpture garden, 1606
   Sergey Kirillov, Decorated house, 1431
   Yevgeny Malakhin (=Bukashkin), Frescoe decorated walls,  1418

Creating art environments is not a kind of competition of course, so above listings are just meant to give an idea of the focus of the visitors who visit this blog.

Pages

This weblog includes a number of pages (a general introduction, a time line, referrals to books, expositions and museums). The all time most viewed pages are the index of sites by region/countries (some 10900 views) and the index of sites by name of artist (some 5500).

A new year of research begins. Let's see what new discoveries it will bring 

1 comment:

  1. Writing from San Miguel de Allende, Mexico to say i so enjoy your blog posts and the outsider environments that you find from your research. I've collected outsider art and visited outsider environments both in Mexico and the USA for about 30 years. Thanks so much.

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