We haven’t had any proper eye candy here for a while so let’s correct that with some Brazilian beauty in the shape of model Arthur Sales, from a shoot for Butch Swim. Photo by Cristiano Madureira. Via VGL where you can see a lot more pics.

Taner photographed by Hedi Slimane.

No, I don’t go looking for these deliberately, they just keep turning up. This latest manifestation of the Flandrin pose is from a photo shoot by Hedi Slimane. I was going to write a bit more on this subject but haven’t had the opportunity today since the webhost has been having problems and the site was down for a few hours. Something for later. Meanwhile, a commenter recently pointed out this similar example by John Jude Palencar, a Flandrinesque painting for a book cover.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The recurrent pose archive

A brace of elegant fencers posing for an Elle Italia spread by photographer Ruven Afanador whose Torero series was highlighted here in April. Afanador’s recent work is worth a look for the set showing a model posing in an antiquated schoolroom among bones and stuffed animals. Via Homotography.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The men with swords archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Torero

Photography by Steven Klein, styling by Nicola Formichetti.

Not a Tom Waits album, Bondage Machine is the title of a feature in Vogue Hommes Japan which plays with bondage and fetish imagery to striking effect. What’s not to love about a huge skeletal necklace and leather underwear? Fetish gear is the aesthetic dimension of erotica and it’s always nice to see new manifestations of the form even when, as in this case, it’s largely about fashion designers flirting with the edge of acceptability.

Via the essential Homotography.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Bad Boy

Les Chansons de Bilitis (1922).

I’ve posted examples of George Barbier’s Art Deco drawings before but online examples of his work outside the world of fashion illustration have been difficult to find. The Bunka Women’s University Library corrects that with a collection of high-quality scans which include a book about the artist, George Barbier, Étude Critique (1929) by Jean‐Louis Vaudoyer. There’s also his adaptation of the Sapphic classic by Pierre Loüys, Les Chansons de Bilitis, from 1922. The drawings there lack the customary ardour of other adaptations but they’re marvellously elegant nonetheless, with some beautiful page designs.

Note: these books can’t be linked to individually, you need to follow the links from “Art Deco illustrated books” in their site menu.

Nijinsky (1913).

Poèmes en Prose (1928).

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Decorative Age
• Images of Nijinsky

L’Androgyne by Alexandre Séon (1890).

Related to yesterday’s post, I’ve been re-reading various books this week for details of the most curious character associated with the French Symbolist movement, novelist and occultist Joséphin Péladan (1859–1918), also known as Sâr Peladan, a Babylonian title he bestowed upon himself as more befitting his adopted role as Rosicrucian mystic. Péladan’s writings and occult art theories spurred many of the painters who banded together as part of his Salon de la Rose+Croix, a kind of anti-salon intended to stand in opposition to what the Sâr saw as the drab realism of the Impressionists and the staid historicism of academic painters. One gets the impression reading about Péladan that he was probably a rather preposterous figure—his obsession with androgyny caused him to change his forename from Joseph to Joséphin yet he kept his length of bristling beard. But, like Oscar Wilde in London, his presence in the pool of fin de siècle art creates considerable ripples. Alexandre Séon, whose frontispiece above was created for Péladan’s semi-autobiographical essay, L’Androgyne, was particularly devoted to him, as was Carlos Schwabe. Séon’s picture depicts “the androgyne Samas, stupefied by the sexual enigma”, a character with whom Péladan fully identified as he describes his youth and its apparent state of androgynous grace.

One doesn’t need a Rosicrucian salon today for examples of creative androgyny, of course, all you have to do is go to Flickr where you’ll find creatures such as the boy above from Roman Mitchenko’s photostream. The photos there are at the fashion end of the spectrum; for more of an amateur or semi-professional perspective there are groups like the Androgyny pool, and the Mommy, I want to be androgynous! pool, the latter featuring many striking boyish girls and girlish boys.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Arthur Tress’s Hermaphrodite
• Carlos Schwabe’s Fleurs du Mal
• Czanara’s Hermaphrodite Angel

Elly Jackson of La Roux in the recent video for Bulletproof. I’ve been enjoying La Roux’s debut album a great deal in the past week. The jacket she’s wearing is designed by Jean-Charles de Castelbajac and features the black stripes and primary colours used by Piet Mondrian (1874–1942) in his Neo-plasticist paintings of the 1920s.

Castelbajac’s jacket (above left) is from a collection his website calls JC in the sky with diamonds!!!, a collection which also borrows Jackson Pollock’s paint drips and Disney’s Mickey Mouse for some bold Pop Art effects. Further Mondrian inspiration is in evidence on other outfits but the Dutch painter’s influence on the fashion world goes back at least as far as 1961 with a dress design by Ann Klein, followed shortly thereafter by Yves Saint Laurent’s Mondrian day dress (above right).

Twenty years later, French bicycle racing team La Vie Claire used Mondrian as an inspiration for their distinctive jersey designs. This flourishing in the Eighties makes Elly Jackson’s choice of clothing particularly apt since La Roux draw so much on Eighties’ music and style. The sight of the racing jacket reminds me of Eighties’ band Age of Chance who liked to wear similar cycling gear and whose video for Who’s Afraid Of The Big Bad Noise incorporates some Mondrian background patterns, possibly via The Designer’s Republic who were designing their record sleeves at the time.

You can still buy replica copies of La Vie Claire clothing even though the racing team no longer exists. The woman’s dress above was another derivation produced a couple of years ago by Urban Outfitters.

Mickey Mondrian (1976).

I’m sure these aren’t the only clothing designs to be found. Tracking the full extent of Mondrian’s influence today is an impossible task, as well as being a great painter he’s inadvertently become one of the most influential graphic designers of the 20th century. Those abstract patterns get everywhere; Mondrian Espresso, anyone? So I’ll end with a witty painting by artist and designer Mick Haggerty whose Mickey Mondrian managed to collide the Dutch painter with Disney’s mouse three decades before Jean-Charles de Castelbajac.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Design as virus #8: Keep Calm and Carry On
• Design as virus #7: eyes and triangles
• Design as virus #6: Cassandre
• Design as virus #5: Gideon Glaser
• Design as virus #4: Metamorphoses
• Design as virus #3: the sincerest form of flattery
• Design as virus #2: album covers
• Design as virus #1: Victorian borders

Foiled again… Model Mathias Lauridsen photographed by Kacper Kasprzyk. Thanks to Thom for the tip!

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The men with swords archive

Brett Reeves photographed by Peter Tamlin.

Yeah, I like the fetish look but all too often it’s been spoiled by ridiculous Tom of Finland-style moustaches. Brett Reeves, on the other hand….damn. Love the black nail polish and the tats; some of the clothes are pretty good too. This was from I Want to Do Bad Things to You, a great de-saturated photo spread by Peter Tamlin at Fantasticsmag. “Off-the-charts-sexy” says VGL which provided the tip. Can’t disagree with that.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The art of Ralf Paschke
• Let’s get physical: Bruce of Los Angeles and Tom of Finland

I’ve had some longer posts planned for a while but the current workload is claiming too much of my attention, hence the increase in picture posts such as this one of model Theo Hall photographed by David Macgillivray. Beautiful Theo was discovered via the essential VGL where many more delightful specimens of male pulchritude may be found.

left: “Hippies in a psychedelic coffee shop“, San Francisco, 1967; right: “Pair of long-haired Londoners in a psychedelic corner of the Beatles’ Apple boutique“, London, 1968.

A few of the photos which turn up when searching for pictures of the psychedelic era at Google’s LIFE archives.

left: “Artist Peter Max on floor in room covered w. his psychedelic artwork“, 1967; right: “Poster Designer – Peter Max“, 1968.

above and below: Posters, New York. (?)

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Psychedelic vehicles
• Dutch psychedelia
• Family Dog postcards

No, not the Australian singer. Soundsuits are wearable artworks by an American artist, dancer and fashion designer. Bigger pictures here while the Jack Shainman gallery has details of a recent exhibition.

Metal armatures adorned with a range of objects including painted ceramic birds, flowers, brass ornaments, and strands of beads, top the figures and serve as headdresses that activate the sculpture and provide a visual and textural contrast to the soft bodysuit. Soundsuits, named for the sounds made when the sculptures are worn, are as reminiscent of African and religious ceremonial costumes as they are of haute couture. A multitude of references bring to mind not only disparate cultural traditions but they also highlight Cave’s diverse background and artistic training. Cave studied and danced with Alvin Ailey and created his own clothing line which he featured in a shop he opened and ran for ten years. He is as interested in fashion and cultural, ritualistic and ceremonial concepts as he is in politics, a domain that has always been part of his work as demonstrated by acts of collecting and reconfiguring elements and concealing the identity, race, and gender, of those who wear his suits.

How else to name this obsession? (Which, it should be noted, is more a mild preoccupation than a full-on fetish.) Xiphoid isn’t a word one hears very often:

\Xiph”oid\ (?; 277), a. [Gr. ? sword-shaped; xi`fos a sword + ? form, shape: cf. F. xiphoide.] (Anat.)
(a) Like a sword; ensiform.
(b) Of or pertaining to the xiphoid process; xiphoidian.

Ensiform is less of a challenge but doesn’t lend itself to a suffix while foinery is a term which only refers to combat with foils. Xiphophilia will have to suffice.

The Aragorn type at the top of the post is a Polish model, Jared Koronkiewicz, and his uncredited photo is via Queerty. The identity of the pouting sword boy is a mystery but this picture and another look like scans from a fashion mag. Thanks to Callum for the tip. Finally, the umbrella swords are a design concept from Materious. While these might be useful for keeping commuters at bay, in the current climate of security theatre they’d probably only lead to your arrest or worse. But they look good. Via Core77.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The men with swords archive

The Flapper by Frank X Leyendecker, Life magazine (1922).

When I posted this splendid cover last July I said that I ought to make a post of Butterfly Women, so here is one. Don’t expect this to be at all comprehensive, women with butterfly wings are as legion as mermaids, these are merely a couple of favourites.

Loïe Fuller by Koloman Moser (1901).

The ultimate butterfly woman must be Loïe Fuller (1862–1928) whose Serpentine Dance inspired a host of fin de siècle paintings and sculptures and was also filmed by the Lumière brothers in 1896. Archive.org has a tinted copy of the latter while Europa Film Treasures has an Italian short from 1907, Farfale (Butterflies) with a troupe of dancers (also hand-tinted) imitating the Fuller style.

Life magazine cover by Wladyslaw Benda (1923).

These two pictures were discovered via the wonderful Golden Age Comic Book Stories who always has the best scans of vintage art. The Life covers are from the humour periodical which expired in 1936, not the later photojournalism magazine. For more Life covers, look here.

Dragonfly by Alberto Vargas (1922).

Okay, so it’s called Dragonfly but those look more like butterfly wings to me. A delicate piece of Vargas cheesecake which echoes the flapper theme of the Leyendecker picture. This Flickr user has a whole set of butterfly girl cigarette cards but we don’t get to see them properly without paying. If anyone has seen them elsewhere, please leave a comment.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Mermaids
• Wladyslaw Benda
• Vintage magazine art II
• Vintage magazine art

The Chevalier d’Eon wins a fencing bout.

I’ve known of the cross-dressing Charles-Geneviève-Louis-Auguste-André-Thimothée d’Eon de Beaumont—or the Chevalier d’Eon (1728–1810) to give him his title—for some time thanks to a typically witty and informative entry by Philip Core in Camp: The Lie that Tells the Truth (1984). The nobleman rubs shoulders there with the equally flamboyant Henry Paget (1875–1905), Fifth Marquess of Anglesey, known as “the Dancing Marquess”, and Romain de Tirtoff, better known as illustrator and designer, Erté, who we see in a photo dressed as “Claire de Lune”. Aside from his status as a historical curio, and a failed attempt by Havelock Ellis to borrow his name to describe transvestism—Eonism, the Chevalier seems less celebrated than he might be. So it’s a pleasure to hear that theatre director Robert Lepage has created a new stage production, Eonnagatta, based on the Chevalier’s colourful life:

For a long time now, the actor and experimental theatre director Robert Lepage has been fascinated by the life of the Chevalier d’Eon, an 18th-century French soldier who had a flamboyant career as a diplomat and secret agent for Louis XV, and spent much of his adult life dressed as a woman. Officially, the Chevalier’s skirts were worn as a professional disguise: his exceptionally fine features allowed him to pass easily for a woman, and thus move around undetected as a spy. But the Chevalier didn’t just do it for the job. He was a genuine cross-dresser, an 18th-century transvestite.

Lepage’s fascination has now led to Eonnagata, a daring collaboration inspired by the life of the Chevalier that gets its British premiere next week. The work has been put together by four very different, and internationally acclaimed, artists: there’s Lepage, the choreographer Russell Maliphant, the dancer Sylvie Guillem and the fashion designer Alexander McQueen. That’s quite a team – and the result is a unique hybrid of their art forms. How would they describe it? Maliphant gives it a go: “It’s not pure dance: it doesn’t have Sylvie doing splits or amazing falls. But it’s not pure theatre, either.” (More.)

Eonnagata.

So, a camp character from a camp era, then, although the Chevalier slightly predates the Regency camp of Beau Brummell and his foppish entourage. D’Eon was renowned for his prowess as a swordsman and despite its lethal nature there’s something camp about the swordfight, especially in its 18th century incarnation when fencing matches reduced the deadly art of the rapier duel to a mannered, rule-bound sport rather like a ballet with weapons. Being a spy for Louis XV, the Chevalier’s swordplay would have been a serious business and there’s something satisfying about the engraving above which shows him besting an opponent in a fencing match for the English Prince Regent; this was a man who was capable of defending his non-conformity to the utmost.

The unusual title of Lepage’s stage production is derived from the onnagata, male actors in Japanese kabuki who perform female roles. This tradition may explain why the Chevalier’s character has also been used as the basis for a recent Japanese anime series, Chevalier: Le Chevalier D’Eon, one of the few fictional manifestations of his life.

D’Eon is a member of the Secret Police, working in the shadows to keep the peace within French society. When his sister suddenly turns up floating down a river in a coffin with ‘Psalms’ written on it, D’Eon is thrown into a deadly struggle with revolutionaries and supernatural forces in order to uncover the truth behind his sister’s death. D’Eon looks remarkably like Lia, which turns to his advantage whenever he needs to meet with a ruler who was once Lia’s friend.

left: The Dancing Marquess relaxes; right: Bridget from Guilty Gear.

Given the way that most anime boys are distinctly androgynous, he wouldn’t have to try too hard to impersonate his sister. And impersonation gives a boy an excuse to drag up, of course, rather than leaving the series writers to tackle (or ignore) the adventure-unfriendly issue of gender confusion or transvestism. Japanese culture seems far more open to this kind of identity play than we’re used to here. The character of Bridget in fighting game Guilty Gear, for example, is actually a boy who was “born in a village where the birth of twins of the same gender was considered bad luck, and hence his family named and raised him as a girl.” Can you imagine American film or TV executives approving a story—for kids, yet—with a cross-dressing central character? Neither can I. I’ve yet to see any anime which can hold my attention for long but Chevalier may be worth seeking out. If anyone has seen it, please leave a comment.

Eonnagata runs from 26 Feb–8 Mar 2009 at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The men with swords archive

I missed posting something about Strapped: The Art of the Decorated Jockstrap while the exhibition was running last month at the London College of Communications but better late than never with this. Designer Colin Corbett’s playful additions to the humble jockstrap hit so many spots of obsession it’s like he read my mind: black clothes, swords, peacocks, jockstraps… You can see more of them here and he talks about some of the designs here.

Dennis Covey, meanwhile, turns jockstraps into art by making unique torso casts of their wearers. He also has a fine collection of other homoerotic work, most of which is for sale.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Game boy

Jean Cocteau looking nothing less than fabulous in what I guess is 1955 since the writer is sporting his Académie française medal, an award bestowed upon him that year. The ceremonial sword is his own design, needless to say, and the curiously-tinted photographs are by Frank Scherschel for LIFE. The colours and lavish decor—those metallic palm trees—aren’t so far removed from the photographs of James Bidgood although the milieu certainly is. I doubt Cocteau would mind who the photographer was if Bidgood’s favourite model, Bobby Kendall, was in the picture with him.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The men with swords archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Cristalophonics: searching for the Cocteau sound
• Cocteau at the Louvre des Antiquaires
• James Bidgood
• La Villa Santo Sospir by Jean Cocteau

Dragonfly (Green Darner) sterling silver, 18k & 14k gold, brass, ceramit, moonstone.

Two of Elizabeth Goluch’s unique—and no doubt expensive—sculptures. She also does a range of jewellery.

Another fabulous find from Fabulon.

Praying Mantis, sterling silver, copper, 14K & 18K gold.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Kelly McCallum’s insect art
• The art of Jo Whaley
• The art of Philippe Wolfers, 1858–1929
• Lalique’s dragonflies
• Lucien Gaillard
• Insect Lab

Does Priapus rule the month of October? Having this lot appear in the same week makes it seems likely. The carved carnelian sealing ring above comes via Silent-Porn-Star.

Then this Vivienne Westwood pendant turned up at Fabulon.

Finally, there’s the discovery of two artists producing phallic glasswork. Paul Thomas created the pendants above while Jamie Burress is responsible for the penis table.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Phallic worship
• The art of ejaculation

In addition to insects, Kelly McCallum also has birds filled with clockwork mechanisms, stuffed animals being eaten by gilded grubs, jewellery carved from human bones, and more. Plus a quote from the Prince of Quotation, Walter Benjamin: “The grey film of dust covering things has become their best part.”

Via 3quarksdaily.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Walmor Corrêa’s Memento Mori
• The art of Jo Whaley
• The art of Ron Pippin
• Custom creatures
• Polly Morgan, fine art taxidermist
• Insect Lab
• The art of Jessica Joslin

De la Fumée (1922).

Artophile has a page of prints by Thayaht, a palindromic pseudonym concealing the identity of Italian artist Ernesto Michahelles whose fashion illustration differs from many of his contemporaries in its Futurist influence. I really like the stylisation of some of these, the way they’re caught midway between representation and abstraction. As well as illustrating, painting and sculpting, Thayaht worked as a designer and in 1919 created a one-piece “futurist garment” which he called the TuTa; you can see him wearing it here.

• THAYAHT – RAM
• A gallery of Thayaht art

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Mentor
• The art of Cassandre, 1901–1968
• Smoke
• The Decorative Age
• The World in 2030

This delightful piece of Art Nouveau-inflected grooviness is one of the new T-shirts designed by Nigel Waymouth for The Look via Topman. Waymouth, as some readers here may know, was part of Hapshash & the Coloured Coat in the late Sixties, London’s leading group of psychedelic poster artists. In addition to design, Waymouth and Sheila Cohen opened the legendary Kings Road boutique Granny Takes A Trip (named after its stock of antique clothes) in 1966. That shop’s fame inspired a one-off single by Stockport group The Purple Gang in 1967 which the BBC banned for alleged drug references, although the trip in question concerns an elderly woman journeying each year to Hollywood. Waymouth’s flyer for the single, of which the shirt design is a variant, can be seen below.

The Look Presents Nigel Waymouth – in-store and online at Topman from Friday August 8

“Sepia tints and flouro tones…darkly psychedelic graphics for the 21st Century…”

Nigel Waymouth is a legend of British rock fashion and design.

Not only did he found the wild 60s Kings Road boutique Granny Takes A Trip (whose ever-changing shop design attracted the likes fo the Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Anita Pallenberg, Brigitte Bardot and Marianne Faithfull), but his graphic design company Hapshash produced eye-popping designs, posters and record sleeves for the The Who and Jimi Hendrix.

Original Hapshash artwork is highly prized in collector circles and Granny’s clothes are seriously sought-after on the vintage market. Now Nigel Waymouth makes his re-entry into fashion via The Look Presents – http://thelookpresents.com – with a contemporary t-shirt range reflecting the original Granny’s aesthetic by delving into decadent psychedelia replete with sepia tints and flouro tones.

The first five t-shirts are available in-store and online at Topman from August 8, with the launch party on August 14 at the George and Dragon in Shoreditch.

The Look Presents Nigel Waymouth is the second collection from the creative hub formed by author Paul Gorman and Soho boutique owner Max Karie. Our first, a collaboration with rock & roll brand Wonder Workshop, proved a great success earlier this summer and this autumn we launch The Look Presents Priceless, a menswear capsule collection with couturier to rock royalty Antony Price.

The shirts are priced £20 each. I rarely wear T-shirts on their own but I’ll probably have to get one of these, for the associations if nothing else.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The New Love Poetry
• Dutch psychedelia
• Family Dog postcards
• The 14-Hour Technicolor Dream revisited

Jerom photographed in a Jerome-studio fashion feature for Fantasticsmag.

Bijoux modernes (c. 1900) from a series of Art Nouveau designs by Rene Beauclair. As usual the peacock caught my attention on this page. There’s more by Beauclair at the NYPL Digital Gallery

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Elizabetes Iela 10b, Riga
• The Divine Sarah
• Whistler’s Peacock Room
• Lalique’s dragonflies
• Lucien Gaillard

All Is Vanity by Charles Allan Gilbert (1892).

The surreptitious skull is another of those perennial motifs that recur in art from time to time and one which has become especially prevalent since the late 19th century. There seem to be a number of reasons for this, the most obvious being that if you’re going to show how clever you are by hiding one image inside another you may as well make the hidden thing something that everyone recognises. A secondary reason would seem to be the waning power of the vanitas theme. As painting became more pictorially sophisticated it wasn’t enough to simply show a skull and expect people to accept that and a stern moral as the principal content. Hence the development of death as a non-skeletal character in Symbolism and the reduction of skulls in pictures to a kind of playful game.

Holbein’s anamorphic skull in The Ambassadors is probably the grandfather of all the later versions but the more recent popularity of the hidden motif can be traced back to Charles Allan Gilbert whose 1892 picture, All is Vanity, drawn when he was just 18, was sold to Life Publishing in 1902 and subsequently spread all over the world in postcard form. Despite giving birth to a host of imitators, Gilbert’s picture is the one that still inspires artists and photographers up to the present day.

A Pierrot’s Love (uncredited) (1905).

Another very popular version.

La Famille Impériale de Russie; French postcard (1908).

In Voluptate Mors by Salvador Dalí & Philippe Halsman (1951).

Dalí was the master of this kind of pictorial illusion, of course, and worked several of his own variations with skulls. The most famous is the Philippe Halsman photograph which was recapitulated in the poster art for The Silence of the Lambs in 1991 and, more recently, The Descent.

The Adventures of Luther Arkwright by Bryan Talbot (1982).

Gilbert’s picture started to be reproduced as a poster from the Sixties on and eventually began influencing rock album sleeve art. There’s more than enough examples of these, most of them pretty ropey. The Damned used Gilbert’s picture in 1977 while Def Leppard produced their own version for Retro Active in 1993. Far better than the metal attempts was Trevor Brown’s sleeve for Coil’s Hellraiser Themes EP which you can see on his blog page along with some other 20th century examples of the motif.

Bryan Talbot’s panel from the first book of The Adventures of Luther Arkwright is less well-known. I’m sure there’s been a lot of this kind of thing in the comics world over the years but Bryan’s version is the only one I have to hand.

Lord Horror: Reverbstorm (1991).

And speaking of comics, here’s my own variation in a panel from Reverbstorm #3, drawn in 1991 but not published until 1995.

Hellblazer (unpublished) (1994).

One of the editors at DC Comics liked my Lovecraft and Lord Horror work and asked me to do a tryout for a Hellblazer cover in 1994. I’d only just switched from gouache to painting with acrylics at the time and didn’t feel very confident about using them but also didn’t want to turn the offer down. The painting above was the result and they didn’t like it. I thought I was trying to be clever by doing the skull thing when all they wanted to see was a portrait of John Constantine, not a guy with his face blotted by shadow.

Poison by Dior, photographed by Vincent Peters (2002).

And so to the 21st century and this award-winning ad shot which brings us full circle with a copy of Gilbert’s original picture.

The effect was achieved with skilful lighting, set design and photography rather than post-production trickery, says Peters.

“The image recalls the blending of art and psychology that occurred at the end of the 19th century. I shot it straight, with very little post-production. The trickiest part was getting the composition right – there was only one spot I could take the shot from; an inch to the left or right and the effect would have been spoiled.”

He stresses that the resulting image was “a collaborative effort” and makes special mention of the agency’s creative team. “The agency came to me with the idea and asked me how I would do it. These day it’s rare to be approached for your technical skills. Normally it’s because you can achieve a certain mood. In this case I added the fin de siècle atmosphere.”

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Darwin Day
• Vanitas paintings
• Giant Skeleton and the Chocolate Jesus
• Perfume: the art of scent
• Very Hungry God
• Dalí Atomicus
• History of the skull as symbol

Sarah Bernhardt by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1895).

You can’t be a fin de siècle fetishist and not develop a fascination with actress Sarah Bernhardt, a woman who was muse to many of the era’s finest artists, most notably Alphonse Mucha, who she employed as her official designer. Mucha’s marvellous posters are endlessly popular, of course; less well-known is the sculpture by academic painter and Orientalist Jean-Léon Gérôme, a rare three-dimensional work inspired by the actress.

Inkwell by Sarah Bernhardt (1880).

Even less well-known is Ms Bernhardt’s own design for a curious bat-winged inkwell. I’ve read of her having created other sculptural works but so far this is the only one I’ve seen a picture of. With something as decadent as this you’d really have to use peacock quills for pens, wouldn’t you?

Bracelet by Alphonse Mucha & Georges Fouquet (1899).

And in a similar sinister vein to the inkwell there’s this serpentine bracelet and ring, a superb one-off, designed by Mucha and crafted by the jeweller Fouquet. After seeing works such as this and the Lalique dragonfly (which Ms Bernhardt once wore), most other jewellery seems timid and unadventurous in comparison.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The art of Philippe Wolfers, 1858–1929
• Lalique’s dragonflies
• Lucien Gaillard
• Smoke
• The Masks of Medusa

Maléficia (1905).

Much of the jewellery and sculpture produced by Phillipe Wolfers demonstrates the tendency of Art Nouveau and decorative Symbolism to evolve from Decadence to full-blown Gothic. The sinister recurs in Wolfers’ creations whether in the form of baleful females such as Malèficia and his Medusa pendant, or in the shape of bats, insects and the ubiquitous fin de siècle serpent. There’s more Wolfers on the web than there was a couple of years ago but still too little; I scanned Malèficia from a book and swiped the bat brooch belt buckle (also a book scan) from Beautiful Century.

Large dragonfly (1903–04).

Le Jour et la Nuit (1897).

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Lalique’s dragonflies
• Lucien Gaillard
• The Masks of Medusa

It wouldn’t surprise me if there are more examples of the fashion world borrowing the Flandrin pose but this is the only one I’ve seen so far, part of a 1998 art-inspired photo series by Mario Sorrenti for Yves Saint-Laurent. There don’t seem to be any larger copies available, unfortunately.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The recurrent pose archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Last Suppers and last straws
• The last circle of the Inferno

left: tits t-shirt by Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren.
right: the Hipp Chronoscope via io9.

A new year brings new blogs which is perhaps just as well seeing as the old year drew a line under some regular reads.

The Look, “Adventures in pop and rock fashion”, began posting a couple of weeks ago, spinning off from Paul Gorman’s book of the same name. Pieces there which immediately catch my eye are a skate through Billy Bowers’ outrageous clothing designs and a nice potted-history of the “tits tee”. I’d not realised before that the history of this latter creation goes back beyond punk to the early Seventies, another example of the evolution from post-psychedelic freakery to punk being a process of gradual elision, not the clean break that lazy commentary often suggests.

Also arriving (and noted everywhere by now) is io9, a new addition to the Gawker network, which looks at sf-related culture. I’ve already had a traffic spike from there after they linked to my Hugh Ferriss post and it’s good to see that Bldg Blog’s Geoff Manaugh is among their contributors.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Ave Atque Vale!

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 Gulbenkian (in whose museum it now resides) and was worn once by Sarah Bernhardt. You can barely tell from this picture but the delicate gold wings are hinged at several points so they wouldn’t be obtrusive for the wearer.

The Lalique company made more glassware than they did jewellery and these included a range of unique automobile mascots whose pedestrian-puncturing potential saw them banished to museum cabinets as road safety laws evolved. The dragonfly design was an especially splendid example, being placed above a multicoloured disc lit from beneath which rotated in accordance with the speed of the car. The faster the car travelled, the faster the colours changed.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Lucien Gaillard
• Wesley Fleming’s glass insects
• The glass menagerie