{ feuilleton }

La Tour (1987) by François Schuiten and Benoît Peeters is the third story in the Cités Obscures series, although it’s the fourth volume if you want to be strictly canon about things, L’achivist, a guide to places in the Obscure World, having preceded it.

Carcere Oscura by Piranesi (1750).
This is another book where Schuiten and Peeters’ [...]

Satire on False Perspective by William Hogarth (1753).
Whoever makes a Design without the knowledge of Perspective will be liable to such absurdities as are shewn in this Frontispiece.

More eye-deceiving art for All Fools’ Day. Everyone knows MC Escher’s pictures which continually played with the rules of perspective. Hogarth’s satire is less well-known and may even [...]

I wouldn’t be surprised if these have been linked all over but I hadn’t come across this site before, Czech posters from the Cold War period when promotional material for Hollywood films was home-produced. This makes for some surprising results as with the psychedelic confection for Dumbo shown above. Elsewhere there’s a Piranesian collage for [...]

Urban Chiaroscuro 6: Paris (after Piranesi) (2007) by Emily Allchurch.
Pitzhanger Manor-House in Ealing, London, hosts an exhibition with architecture as its theme, a suitable subject given that the house was designed by notable 18th century architect (and friend of Piranesi) Sir John Soane. Artist Emily Allchurch has some meticulous and clever photo-collage reworkings of [...]

Going through stacks of old artwork today turned up a photocopy of a drawing I did in 1990, my sole attempt to illustrate HP Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness. By the time I did this I was pretty exhausted by Lovecraft’s world and was already at work on the first phase of the Lord [...]

Hadrian: Empire and Conflict is an exhibition based around the life of the Roman emperor which opens at the British Museum on 24 July and runs until 26 October, 2008.
This special exhibition will explore the life, love and legacy of Rome’s most enigmatic emperor, Hadrian (reigned AD 117–138).
Ruling an empire that comprised much of Europe, [...]

Previous posts about etchings and engravings.

• The art of Oleg Denysenko

• Nicoletto Giganti’s naked duellists

• Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales

• Jan Saenredam’s whale

• Digital alchemy

• Oeuvres D’Architecture by Jean Le Pautre

• Gramato-graphices

• Edward William Lane’s Arabian Nights Entertainments

• John Bickham’s Fables and other short poems

• Battle of the Naked Men

• The art of François [...]

Pier table for Cardinal Rezzonico (c. 1768).
This ostentatious object is on display at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in an exhibition devoted to Piranesi’s work as a designer. Piranesi (whose work adorns the current {feuilleton} header) is far more well-known for his Carceri d’Invenzione and Vedute di Roma prints than for his furniture design, of [...]

Before the Law from The Trial (1962).
I’d wanted to write something about this pair of animators last year but at the time there was none of their work available for online viewing. This situation has now been remedied thanks to the ubiquitous YouTube.
This is Kafka-related once again since most people have seen Alexeieff/Parker’s work—if [...]

Lo psiconauta (2006).

Capriccio con ruderi di città ideale (2003).

Vanitas su zolla di viole (2006).
I’ve tagged this as “gay” since the first painting is featured in the controversial Arte E Omosessualita’. Da von Gloeden a Pierre et Gilles at the Palazzo della Ragione, Milan. That exhibition has caused as stir with Catholics who demanded [...]

Three views of the Ponte Sant’Angelo with St Peter’s basilica in the background and the Castel Sant’Angelo (Hadrian’s Mausoleum) to the right. All from this site, a very thorough guide to Rome’s historic buildings with different views through the ages to the present day. Dover Publications had a book available for a while (now out [...]

It was a year ago today that I sat down and wrote some words of Charles Fort’s, “One measures a circle beginning anywhere…”, as a headline for the first entry on this page. Some posts over the ensuing year have been more popular than others (and it should be pointed out that the “most popular” [...]

La Place Désertée (1979).
Yet another French artist specialising in etchings with a focus on imaginary architecture. No dedicated website, unfortunately, so I’ve posted more images than usual. Of note is Desmazières’ illustrated edition (now out of print) of the Borges’ ficcione, The Library of Babel, published by Les Amis du Livre Contemporain in France and [...]

The Coliseum by Piranesi #2 (1995).

Fore-Edge Book (2001).
Just two of Abelardo Morell’s striking photographs.
These are from his Books series. His Alice in Wonderland
tableaux are especially inventive.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The etching and engraving archive

I scanned this essay years ago from a library copy of a 1949 edition of Piranesi’s Carceri d’Invenzione (Trianon Press, London). It’s worth reproducing here since it’s still one of the best analyses I’ve read of these fascinating and enigmatic drawings. Online reproduction quality of Piranesi’s work is dismayingly low for the most part. And [...]

Gérard Trignac produces etchings of a kind I’d most likely be doing myself if I wasn’t otherwise occupied, detailed architectural fantasies that owe a lot to my sainted Piranesi and (I’m guessing, since they’re both French) Charles Méryon. As usual with contemporary artists of this nature one can find the pictures but information about the [...]

Charles Méryon (1821–1868) made his name producing etchings of the city of Paris, and became as accomplished at rendering the solidity of architecture as Piranesi. Méryon manages to do for the City of Light what Piranesi did for the Eternal City with his famous Veduti di Roma, celebrating the buildings while paying careful attention to [...]