Ezio Anichini postcards

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More from Ezio Anichini (1886–1948), the Italian artist responsible for yesterday’s Salomé, these are part of a series of postcards on the theme of sacred music dated from between 1915 to 1920. The precision of these drawings is remarkable. See the (complete?) set here.

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The illustrators archive

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Ezio Anichini’s Salomé

Ezio Anichini’s Salomé

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Scena Illustrata was an Italian magazine that continued to fly the flag for Art Nouveau into the 1920s, by which time the style’s organic flourishes were looking old-fashioned when compared to the rectilinear forms of early Art Deco. This cover is from 1921 but could easily have appeared any time in the past two decades. Ezio Anichini (1886–1948) was a regular illustrator for the magazine. Searching for more of his work I realised I’d seen several of his covers before without having known his name. His Salomé looks more like something by Léon Bakst than anything from the Middle East, while that impossible reversal of the dancer’s head adds something we haven’t seen before. Steven Heller wrote a short appraisal of the artist’s career last year. There’s a lot more from Scena Illustrata on this Marinni page. (Via Beautiful Century again.)

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
The Salomé archive

Weekend links 157

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Elektrik Karousel, a new release on the Ghost Box label by The Focus Group. “For a clue to its moods, think Czech animation, Italian Giallo, early Radiophonics, HP Lovecraft stories, 1960s underground cinema, Lewis Carroll and baroque psych.” Julian House’s package design is “heavily inspired by 1960s underground press and conceived as a kind of mind altering DIY board game”.

Joseph Stannard of The Outer Church compiles a mix for Kit Records, and talks about rural psychedelia and malevolent lighthouses, among other things.

• At Sci-Fi-O-Rama: a sampling of Dan Nadel & Norman Hathaway’s Electrical Banana – Masters of Psychedelic Art (2012).

Stranger than Paradise: Tilda Swinton photographed by Tim Walker in the Surrealist Wonderland of Las Pozas, Mexico.

Whistler in Limehouse & Wapping: stunning etchings by the 25-year-old artist when he was newly arrived in London.

• The complete catalogue of Sunn O))) recordings is now on Bandcamp for preview and purchase.

La Danza de la Realidad: Alejandro Jodorowsky returns to his childhood in Tocopilla, Chile.

• Enjoy The Silence: Jude Rogers talks to Michael Rother about joy of quiet.

Dressing the Air, “the Bureau of Sensory Intelligence”, had a relaunch.

Fast forward – and press play again: Cassettes are back

The Lovecraft Expert: An Interview with S.T. Joshi

Book Graphics: an illustration blog.

Paint Box (1967) by Pink Floyd | Beat Box (1984) by Art of Noise | Glory Box (1994) by Portishead

Wear Your Love Like Heaven

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It’s unlikely that many people have been crying out for yet another Donovan compilation but that’s what EMI released earlier this month. Breezes of Patchouli (His Studio Recordings 1966–1969) is the prime psychedelic material, and for me looks tempting since I only have one of those albums. The latest Shindig! magazine gives the collection a favourable review (unsurprisingly), and has a related article about Donovan’s elaborate double album, A Gift From a Flower to a Garden (1968), which in its original form was two vinyl albums in a box with coloured lyric-sheet inserts. The article mentions a short promo film, Wear Your Love Like Heaven, directed by photographer Karl Ferris who shot the infra-red photos used for the album covers. A quick dash to YouTube turned up Ferris’s film in which the singer rides a white horse through some woods then enters a cave whereupon the film bursts Wizard-of-Oz-like into colour. It looks to have been filmed in either Cornwall or Ireland, and features the inevitable crew of kaftaned flower children playing with musical instruments, kites and peacock feathers. Very much of the period, but worth a look if you like this sort of thing.

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Tomorrow Never Knows

Ghosts in Gaslight, Monsters in Steam

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Ghosts in Gaslight, Monsters in Steam is a forthcoming anthology in the Gay City Anthology series from Seattle’s Gay City Health Project and Minor Arcana Press. The publishers describe it as “a multidisciplinary anthology of amazing queer monster and ghost fiction, poetry and art.” I’ve created a cover design for the book, and also have a work-in-progress extract from the never-ending novel I’ve been immersed in since August 2006, a self-contained piece which I call Study in Blue, Green, and Gold. As the anthology title implies, the general (although not exclusive) tenor is spooky steampunk business with a queer inclination; my piece features copious quantities of sex, hallucinogenic drugs, steam locomotives and a fractal cat. Anyone wishing to know more is encouraged to give a push to the Kickstarter donation fund which has been launched to help with promotional costs. I’m very pleased to be involved with this, not least because some of the fiction I’ve been working on for over a decade will receive an airing. I’ve resolved recently to start pushing the writing side of things a bit more so this is a start. When the final anthology contents are announced next month I’ll post an update here.