(No title) from Sadao Hasegawa 01 (1990). It’s good to be able to finish the year with another artistic discovery. I’d not come across Sadao Hasegawa’s work before but this page has an extensive (complete?) selection of his paintings and drawings. This is gay erotica with a twist, being Japanese in origin yet incorporating figures [...]
Philosophy from The Metropolis of Tomorrow (1929). I’ve procrastinated for an entire year over the idea of writing something about Hugh Ferriss and now this marvellous Flickr set has forced my hand. Ferriss (1889–1962) was a highly-regarded architectural renderer in the Twenties and Thirties, chiefly employed creating large drawings to show the clients of architects [...]
Proving once again the centrality of James Bond to contemporary British identity, the Royal Mail releases these stamps on January 8th, 2008, the 100th anniversary of Ian Fleming’s birth. If a misogynist state assassin seems an awkward choice of cultural ambassador, Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill present a more iconoclastic view of the super spy [...]
La folie Lovecraft | The Maison d’Ailleurs exhibition profiled in Libération.
Looking for Mother (2002). Gourmand (2002). • Official site • Williams Gallery pages Elsewhere on { feuilleton } • The fantastic art archive
A Little Christmas Dream (Punch Magazine, December 26th, 1868). Mr. L. Figuier, in the Thesis which precedes his interesting work on the world before the Flood condemns the practice of awakening the youthful mind to admiration by means of fables and Fairy Tales, and recommends in lieu thereof, the study of the Natural History of [...]
French Girl. One of the snow sculptures at the 20th International Ice-Snow Sculpture Expo in Harbin, China, which opened on Thursday. Exotic France in Harbin is the theme this year although this “French Girl” looks more like the kind of heroic revolutionary sculpture favoured by Communist regimes than anything that might originate in France. More [...]
The Unlimited Dream Company | Sam Scoggins’ 1983 Ballard film unearthed at Ballardian!
A selection of Christmas card designs by American illustrator Antonio Petrucelli (1907–1994). There’s more of these at VTS among a series of pages showing his wonderful magazine art and Fortune covers. See also Phil Beard’s centenary tribute from earlier this year. Elsewhere on { feuilleton } • The illustrators archive
Midvinterblot by Carl Larsson, showing the sacrifice of King Domalde. If you were in Brighton, England today, you could celebrate Burning the Clocks.
‘We’ve killed a lot of animals’ | The Coens again, discussing That Film.
Even cigarette lighters aren’t immune from the Japanese desire to robotise the world, one object at a time. These are real gold versions of the Lightan, robot characters from an Eighties anime series, Golden Warrior Gold Lightan, and are currently on display at The Great Robot Exhibition in the National Museum of Nature and Science, [...]
A moody riff on the Flandrin pose entitled Melancholy. From this Flickr page. Elsewhere on { feuilleton } • The recurrent pose archive
The Giant Lantern Festival is an annual festival held in December (Saturday before Christmas Eve) in the City of San Fernando in the Philippines. The festival features a competition of giant lanterns. Because of the popularity of the festival, the city has been nicknamed the “Christmas Capital of the Philippines”. Lots of Flickr photos and [...]
An ad from The Queen magazine, November 28th, 1896, showing what lucky children in London and elsewhere might expect to receive for Christmas. (Close-ups follow below.) Those children would have needed wealthy parents since many of these toys cost half a week’s pay or more for the average worker. Scanned from Victorian Advertisements (1968) by [...]
Dans la Lune (2007). Dans la Lune (2007). “Il est dans la lune” can be translated as “He’s got his head in the clouds,” or “He’s on another planet.” Dans la Lune is a perfect title because in my work I try to create an imaginary place that relates to our longings for a better, [...]
A Pictorial Sequence by RH Ives Gammell Based on The Hound of Heaven (1956): left: Panel II—I Fled Him, Down The Nights and Down The Days. right: Panel XI—Would Clash It To. I mentioned Francis Thompson’s poem The Hound of Heaven in the Stella Langdale post a couple of days ago. There don’t appear to [...]
An Invitation to the Electric Seance | A posting by yours truly at Yahoo Music’s Arthur blog.
Because there aren’t enough pictures of naked men with swords… One of an excellent collection of photos by holdmycoat on deviantART. Elsewhere on { feuilleton } • The men with swords archive
Complete scans of War of the Worlds (1955) and The Time Machine (1956), both adapted by Lou Cameron. Previously on { feuilleton } • The night that panicked America • The Door in the Wall • War of the Worlds book covers
Secular Europe’s Merits | Get thee behind me, God.
It’s taken a while but the DVD format has slowly followed the CD with the reissue of obscure works that have been out of circulation for far too long. Robert Altman’s blandly-titled Images has been on my “When The Hell Will I See That Again?” list for about 25 years, having been shown a couple [...]
Nocturne (aquatint; no date). One of Callum‘s recent book postings alerted me to the work of Stella Langdale, an artist and illustrator I hadn’t come across before. Judging from online listings her obscurity would seem to be a result of not having being as productive as some of her contemporaries, and her drawings are a [...]
Another delivery of work of mine this week with this new design for Savoy Books. Horror Panegyric is a small volume examining David Britton’s Lord Horror novels, writer Keith Seward being the founder of the web’s best William Burroughs site, RealityStudio, and also an author of avant garde erotic fictions which can be found at [...]
Upright Camera Obscura Image of the Piazzeta San Marco Looking Southeast in Office (2007). Two of Abelardo Morell‘s photographs of Venetian rooms turned into camera obscuras. These look like slide projections but were made by covering the windows with black paper, leaving a pinhole which creates the view on the opposite wall. This always results [...]
A chiaroscuro piece by photographer Brian Riley. Previously on { feuilleton } • Daniel Nassoy • Dylan Ricci
Karlheinz Stockhausen, 1928–2007
Kirking shawl design (1850). December is a month when I normally shun the secondhand shops so as to avoid being taken for a cheapskate trying to save money while Christmas shopping. Sometimes it pays to break your own rules, however, as with this discovery, Paisley Patterns: A Design Source Book (Studio Editions, 1989) by Valerie [...]
Metamorphosis (2006). One of a series of “surrealistic digital portraits” by Almacan aka Kazuhiko Nakamura. Previously on { feuilleton } • The sculpture of Christopher Conte • Pierre Matter’s cyborg sculpture • Insect Lab
top left: Hawaii; Dance Characteristic (1897). top right: Cannibal Island (1920). bottom left: Zanzibar; Oriental Song (1919). bottom right: Nagasaki (1928). Samples from the wealth of covers at the Hula Pages, not all of which show palm trees and beach scenes. One nice thing about these is the diversity of illustration and design styles which [...]
Dr. Strangelove titles (1964). There’s less of his work around than there should be, unfortunately. Saul Bass is justly celebrated for his title sequences and poster designs yet Pablo Ferro—whose titles were equally innovative and memorable—is rarely heard of even though you’ll have seen a lot of his work. Bullitt titles (1968). Ferro’s advertising films [...]
Fat type | The New, New, New (etc) Typography puts on some weight.
Voyage de Nuit (etching/engraving; no date). Michael Goro’s etchings and engravings are rich with the kind of gritty urban verisimilitude I love. His site has several more examples and there’s a good interview with the artist here. Michael Goro, a prominent intaglio printmaker, has lived and worked in Russia, Europe, Israel, and the U.S. His [...]
Dancer Javier de Frutos (1998). Dance photography by Chris Nash. Bread—Bedlam Dance Company. Previously on { feuilleton } • Peter Reed and Salomé After Dark • Felix D’Eon • Dancers by John Andresen • Youssef Nabil • Images of Nijinsky • The art of Hubert Stowitts, 1892–1953
Dragonfly woman corsage ornament (1897–1898). Gold, enamel, chrysoprase, moonstones, and diamonds. Seeing as dragonflies emerged as a theme this week I can’t resist mentioning my favourite of all, this bizarre confection by glass artist and jeweller René Lalique (1860–1945), a dragonfly with female torso and gryphon claws. This was owned by wealthy Armenian collector Calouste [...]
A belated shout of appreciation for this film whose distribution appears to have been so limited that everyone missed it, me included. That’s a shame as Roman Coppola’s debut (he’s the son of Francis) has a lot to commend it although it helps if you’re familiar with pulpy European spy/science fiction/horror movies of the late [...]
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