{ feuilleton }

Further flotsam from the wilds (so to speak) of the web. The above portrait is a collage constructed by this Flickr user with pages from The Picture of Dorian Gray as the raw material. A remarkable work. Wilde’s face in the collage portrait comes from one of the famous photographs taken by Napoleon Sarony on [...]

Yet another Internet Archive discovery, examples from a small book collection from 1907 of ex libris plates by Art Nouveau illustrator Louis Rhead (1857–1926). Rhead’s brightly-coloured poster art is often represented in Art Nouveau design books, less visible is his black-and-white work, some of which, like the example below, owes a clear debt to Aubrey [...]

Self Portrait as Great Scout Leader III (2010). In which the artist changes sex on canvas for a new series of self-portraits and an exhibition aptly titled Boy, O Boy at P·P·O·W, New York. Three new paintings are on display all of which continue Heffernan’s fascination with self-portraits, miniature landscapes and accumulated objects, each presented [...]

All Of Us by Nirvana (1968). Every now and then the web’s great proliferation of images serves a useful purpose by solving some minor artistic conundrum. All Of Us is the second album by UK psychedelic band Nirvana (no relation to Kurt and co.) and the striking cover painting—a long line of emperors and warriors [...]

The Adam Kozik Studio was in touch earlier this week with news of Danseur Noble, a photo-series of male dancers posed indoors and out. See the rest of the series here. Previously on { feuilleton } • The tights have it • Torero • Eonism and Eonnagata • Tiger Lily • Chris Nash • Peter [...]

Simulation No. 136 (1973); From the Archigram Revival Project. • Scientific American looks at DMT: “the only psychedelic known to occur naturally in the human body”. Related: Hofmann’s Elixir: LSD and the New Eleusis, a book from the Beckley Foundation Press. • “People weren’t quite sure what this guy was doing.” Colin Marshall talks to [...]

It wouldn’t surprise me if the web’s image-hoarders have already found Pratt Libraries’ huge collection of ex libris plates at Flickr but I hadn’t seen these before. A great variety of different designs from artists known and unknown. The one at the top left is by American illustrator Franklin Booth. Elsewhere on { feuilleton } [...]

The beat Engelbrecht had drawn for the early morning rise was a stretch of jet black water between the Jubilee Gasometer and the Municipal Slaughter House. A dank mist lay over the canal. The vampire bats were out in swarms. The bot-fly waltzed in virid clouds. You could hardly have had a better surrealist fishing [...]

left: Jan Toorop (1898); right: no designer credited (1904). A search this week for work by Dutch designer Chris Lebeau (1878–1945) turned up another collection of fantastic decorated covers and prints from the Netherlands, running from the Art Nouveau period through Art Deco up to the 1940s. I found some Lebeau pieces but the big [...]

Nikola Tesla and Mark Twain, 1894. Mark Twain died 100 years ago today, April 21st, 1910, and the anniversary is being marked in America by a variety of events throughout the year, some of which are listed on this dedicated site. I’ve always been grateful to Twain for cheering a portion of my dismal school [...]

Sadko in the Underwater Kingdom (1876). This painting by Russian artist Ilya Yefimovich Repin (1844–1930) is included in one of my Symbolist art books despite its pre-dating the Symbolist period and there being little else in the artist’s career which might suit the label. It’s a curious picture, however, illustrating a medieval folk tale and [...]

The Exposition entrance at the Place de la Concorde. Yes, films of the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900. This week I’ve been reading Philippe Jullian’s book about the Exposition (more about the admirable Monsieur Jullian later) and it was only when he mentioned early cinema screenings as one of the entertainments that I realised I [...]

Panneaux decoratifs (1900) by Manuel Orazi at NYPL. • Ghostsigns: “a collaborative national effort to photograph, research and archive the remaining examples of hand painted wall advertising in the UK and Ireland.” • Golden Age Comic Book Stories posts some Alphonse Mucha. • Voyage Fantastique – An illustrated guide to the body and mind at [...]

The White Album by Flickr user Fab.C. April 17th is Record Store Day in the UK and the US, a celebration of the importance of small record shops. In the spirit of this {feuilleton} encourages you to show some love to your local music merchant if you can. There’s a website for the US side [...]

The Biblical bad girl returns in three pictures from an illustrated edition of Oscar Wilde’s play, published as a limited run in 1930. Manuel Orazi (1860–1934) was a French artist whose work has appeared here before, and no doubt will do again very soon since I’ve been finding further examples of his illustrations and designs. [...]

Projet pour la couverture Revue d’art (1899). French architect and designer Hector Guimard (1867–1942) is most renowned today for his entrances to the Paris Metro but his work extended from architecture to interior and graphic design, much of it a superior application of the Art Nouveau style. Le cercle Guimard is a site devoted to [...]

First Love Inferno (1968). There’s very little web information available for Aquirax Uno, a Japanese artist active in the 1960s and 1970s who really ought to have a dedicated site. Much of his work seems to be poster art for cinema or product advertising, and, as usual on the web, what there is tends to [...]

The Tower at Charles Bridge, Old Town. More panoramas of Prague from 360 Cities by Jeffrey Martin, a photographer who’s made a speciality of capturing the city in 360º views. Among his collection are a number of photos taken from Prague’s many towers and steeples including a few where he’s managed to remove the supporting [...]

Continuing the delve into back issues of Jugend magazine, the German fin de siècle periodical of “art and life”, this post covers the year 1899. The earlier years of the magazine are replete with a variety of elegant and often bizarre graphics, as well as some classic examples of Art Nouveau graphic design. 1899 is [...]

One of a number of vintage ads and ephemeral items at this Flickr set. • From 1971: The Anthony Balch/William Burroughs/Jan Herman video experiment. • The NYT reports on World on a Wire, a neglected science fiction drama by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. • “While some of the technology industry’s brightest minds were inventing the first [...]

Mayuri means “peacock” and although this splendid instrument doesn’t look like a European lute, a lute it is, albeit styled for Indian court performances. Via Wunderkammer. Popular at nineteenth-century Indian courts, this bowed lute borrows features of other Indian stringed instruments, such as the body shape of the sarangi and the frets and neck of [...]

A double helping of that pose today. The photo above was a tip from commenter Jeremiah Q. Oxterwhiff and is credited on its Tumblr source as being by gay photographer Fred Holland Day (1864–1933). I can’t definitely confirm this but I’m fairly sure I’ve seen it credited to Day before. It’s also the case that [...]

Storm Thorgerson, he of the great design partnership Hipgnosis, has some of his album covers and other work in exhibition this month at the Idea Generation Gallery, London. The exhibition runs to May 2nd. This Sunday (April 11th) he’ll be signing copies of his books at the gallery from 2pm. Alongside some of the most [...]

Monstre from The Witch (1950). If this squid-headed costume design by Surrealist artist Dorothea Tanning isn’t a unique creation in the history of ballet then I’d like to know what challenges it. These paintings form part of an exhibition of Tanning’s designs for ballet companies which go on display at The Drawing Center, New York [...]

More Wildeana. It’s taken me over two decades to watch this film and while I can’t really say it was worth the wait it was more entertaining than I expected. Salome’s Last Dance was directed in 1988 by Ken Russell and is his own typically mannered adaptation of the Wilde play. It appeared around the [...]

When Oscar Wilde arrived in America to begin his lecture tour in 1882 the excursion provoked considerable comment on both sides of the Atlantic. Wilde was there in his capacity as an ambassador for Aestheticism, a position which had already made him a figure of fun in the pages of Punch magazine while the Aesthetes [...]

Own a copy of Arthur #7 (October 2003) with my swirling cover pic featuring cosmic jazz maestro Sun Ra. Lots of good stuff inside, details here. • Spinetingler Magazine announced their nominees the 2010 Spinetingler Award this week. Jeff VanderMeer’s Finch is one of the titles in the Best Novel category while my cover for [...]

Visual Tales is another of those web magazines which presents us with fashion items few people would buy, garnished with or draped upon delectable examples of male pulchritude. I am not complaining. The tattooed object of desire is Dan Felton and the photos are by Bell Soto. Dan’s etiolated physique may not pass muster with [...]

August 13th, 1967. More psychedelia of a sort although it’s arguable whether Alejandro Jodorowsky’s cosmic surrealism can ever be pigeon-holed so easily. Fabulas Panicas (Panic Fables) is a comic strip that Jodorowsky was writing and drawing for a Mexican newspaper in the late Sixties. The text is all in Spanish, of course, but going by [...]

25 O’Clock (1985). Andy Partridge’s great cover design. The DUKES say it’s time…it’s time to visit the planet smile…it’s time the love bomb was dropped…it’s time to eat music…it’s time to kiss the sun…it’s time to drown yourself in SOUNDGASM and it’s time to dance through the mirror. The DUKES declare it’s 25 O’CLOCK. It [...]