Drawing Illustration Tapestries
Description: An octopus is a soft-bodied, eight-limbed mollusk of the order Octopoda. The order consists of some 300 species and is grouped within the class Cephalopoda with squids, cuttlefish, and nautiloids. Like other cephalopods, an octopus is bilaterally symmetric with two eyes and a beaked mouth at the centre point of the eight limbs. The soft body can radically alter its shape, enabling octopuses to squeeze through small gaps. They trail their eight appendages behind them as they swim. The siphon is used both for respiration and for locomotion, by expelling a jet of water. Octopuses have a complex nervous system and excellent sight, and are among the most intelligent and behaviourally diverse of all invertebrates.
Description: Alphonse Mucha 1860 - 1939, painter and illustrator living in Paris during the Art Nouveau period. He was known for his distinct colourful decorative posters. The 'Precious Stones' poster shown here visually describes four different precious stones, Ruby, Amethyst, Emerald and Topaz in female form.
