{symbolists} – Page 29 – { feuilleton }

The Illustrators of Alice

Latest book purchase is this large format volume from 1972, one of a number of interesting art books produced by Academy Editions in the early seventies. I also have their monographs on Odilon Redon, “insane” painter Richard Dadd, and their collection of Félicien Rops‘ pornographic and “Satanist” drawings which remains one of the few Rops books published in English.

Through the Looking-Glass by Mervyn Peake (Allen Wingate, London, 1954).

This collection is worth seeking out if you’re interested in minor Victorian and Edwardian illustrators. The book goes through each chapter of the Alice stories showing examples of illustrated editions by a wide range of illustrators and artists, from Lewis Carroll’s original drawings, Tenniel’s inimitable renderings, then on through the twentieth century, featuring artists such as Peter Blake, Ralph Steadman and even a picture by Max Ernst. The cover drawing is one of my favourites, from Charles Robinson, brother of the more famous William Heath. I also like the pictures by the great Mervyn Peake, one of the few illustrators who seemed able to overcome Tenniel’s dominance and show us something new.

The Alice books are one of the great “standards” (in the jazz sense) of illustration although I can’t say I’ve ever felt the temptation to approach them myself. Loathsome monstrosities from hideously-angled dimensions beyond space and time, yes; small Victorian girls and white rabbits, no.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive

Czanara’s Hermaphrodite Angel

More obscure art, only now we’re talking really obscure. This remarkable picture, The Hermaphrodite-Angel of Peladan by Czanara, turned up in the archives of Russ Kick’s seemingly abandoned Rare Erotica blog. “Czanara” was one Raymond Carrance (1921–?), a gay artist who I haven’t come across before and who seems to be completely absent not only from my library, but from most of the web. A great shame, if there’s more of his work like this I want to see it.

The “Peladan” of the title might be a reference to Sâr Péladan, founder of the Catholic Order of the Rose and the Cross in fin de siècle Paris, and guru to a number of significant Symbolist painters, including the brilliant Jean Delville. Hermaphroditism and androgyny were important themes for Péladan who declared, in an outburst typical of the period, “the androgyne, is the plastic ideal!” Czanara’s picture is certainly Symbolist in its details—those multiplied wings and hippogriffs—even if its intent is most likely a result of mundane pornographic imperatives.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive
• The fantastic art archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Angels 4: Fallen angels

The Masks of Medusa

We had Sartorio’s Gorgon and the Heroes yesterday so here’s some Medusas to continue the theme. Art history, especially in the nineteenth century, is full of Medusa portraits; these are some of the better ones.

Medusa by Caravaggio (1598-1599).

Head of Medusa by Peter Paul Rubens (1617).

Continue reading “The Masks of Medusa”

The art of Giulio Aristide Sartorio, 1860–1932

Giulio Aristide Sartorio is generally counted as one of the Italian Symbolists, along with painters such as Giovanni Segantini. He’s also one of the few notable artists of the period to have worked as a film director.

I’ve been fascinated by the curiously erotic academic style of Sartorio’s early work for years but these paintings rarely appear in books (although there have been a couple of monographs) and there’s little decent attention given to him on the web. Philippe Jullian in his essential guide to Symbolism, Dreamers of Decadence (Pall Mall Press, 1971), describes his work as being “vast paintings… full of handsome warriors who are always naked and generally dead.” Gabriele D’Annunzio, who knew heroic camp when he saw it, became a fan when the pair met in Rome in the 1880s. Sartorio illustrated D’Annunzio’s Isaotta Guttadàuro in 1886 and they continued to collaborate into the 1920s. One possible reason for Sartorio’s falling out of favour may have been later association with Mussolini’s Fascists, something else he shared with D’Annunzio.

Diana of Ephesus and the Slaves (1893–98).

Much as I’d like to point you to a large reproduction of the bizarre Diana of Ephesus and the Slaves, there doesn’t seem to be one around just now. However, you can see a few gallery pages of Sartorio’s work here if you don’t mind the copyright label spoiling everything.

Update: A reasonable copy of the Diana painting has turned up. Click the image above.

Diana of Ephesus and the Slaves (detail).

Gorgon and the Heroes (1895–99).

L’Invasione degli Unni (no date).

Siren or The Green Abyss (1900).

Pico, roi du Latium, et Circé de Thessalie (1904).

Pico, roi du Latium (detail).

Ex libris Gabrielis Nuncii “per non dormire” (1906).

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Angels 4: Fallen angels

Images of Nijinsky

I have an abiding fascination with the Ballets Russes, Sergei Diaghilev‘s company which electrified the art world from 1909 up to the impressario’s death in 1929. One of the reasons for this—aside from the obvious gay dimension and the extraordinary roster of talent involved—is probably Diaghilev’s success in carrying the Symbolist impulses of the fin de siècle into the age of Modernism without losing any richness or exoticism along the way. Diaghilev’s arts magazine, Mir Iskusstva (1899–1900), was as much a product of fashionable Decadence as The Savoy, and its principles were easily transported into the world of ballet.

A big subject, then, that’ll no doubt be returned to in later postings. Looking around for images of dancer and choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky in his celebrated (and notorious) role in L’Après-midi d’un Faune turned up not only Leon Bakst’s luscious drawing but some marvelous Beardsley-esque pictures by George Barbier (1882–1932). I’d seen some of Barbier’s work before but didn’t realise he’d created a whole book devoted to the dancer. Artists like Bakst, Erté and Barbier show how Aubrey Beardsley’s art might have developed had he not died prematurely in 1898. You can see the full set of book plates here.

Nijinsky as faun by Leon Bakst (1912).

Designs on the Dances of Vaslav Nijinsky (and below) by George Barbier (1913).

L’ Apres-midi d’un Faune.

Narcisse.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive
• The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The art of Nicholas Kalmakoff, 1873–1955