Month: February 2008

William Heath Robinson’s illustrated Poe

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Another gem from the Internet Archive collection of scans from North American libraries. This edition of the poems of Edgar Allan Poe from 1900 was illustrated by William Heath Robinson (1872–1944), an artist whose later drawings of quirky inventions have completely overshadowed his earlier books, as well as the work of his equally talented older brother, Charles. I’m probably in the minority in preferring Heath Robinson’s book illustration to his later works, and this edition of Poe is a superb example of his mastery of line and space. It can’t compete with Harry Clarke’s Poe, of course, but then neither can anything else. WHR wasn’t really suited to the darker side of literature but he acquits himself here far better than Arthur Rackham did when he attempted his own Poe collection in 1935.

• Bud Plant’s W Heath Robinson page
• W. Heath Robinson’s fairy tale illustrations

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The Conqueror Worm.

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Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive

Whistler’s Peacock Room

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Random browsing this week turned up some nice high-res photos of Harmony in Blue and Gold, as James Abbott McNeill Whistler named the room he decorated for Frederick R. Leyland in 1878. Leyland had bought one of Whistler’s paintings, La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine (1864), and architect Thomas Jeckyll was concerned that the painting and furnishings would clash, hence the invitation for Whistler to help with the colour scheme.

I’ve always preferred this luscious, gold-leafed design to the worthy medievalism of contemporary William Morris. Even though Whistler completed the work prior to the 1890s, the combination of Orientalism and peacocks (the signature bird of the Decadence) seems very much tied to the fin de siècle not least because of Aubrey and Mabel Beardsley’s visit to the room in 1891. Beardsley was very impressed with the painting and with the golden birds, the style of which later formed the inspiration for his famous Peacock Skirt illustration in Salomé (1894).

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There’s a good overview here of the history of the room, including details of the falling out between the combative artist and his client, and the story of the room’s removal to America and subsequent restoration.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Beardsley’s Salomé
• Alla Nazimova’s Salomé

Two today

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Numeral by Erté. Via Fabulon.

In which { feuilleton } celebrates its second birthday. As always, it’s a surprise seeing what catches the attention of readers or random browsers. The five most popular posts from the past year were as follows:

• The art of ejaculation. I saw Cary Kwok’s work mentioned in a gay magazine so followed it up on the web, whereupon it occurred to me that the male moment of climax was rarely depicted visually outside the world of porn. Hence a necessarily small list of all the examples I could think of which was then linked on a couple of popular sex-related sites.

• Two guys kissing. My ungenerous reaction in May to the death of Jerry Falwell, using a splendidly erotic photo by Jack Slomovits. It’s mainly the title which attracts people, I think, some of the most popular search phrases bringing people here are “two guys kissing” or “two gays kissing”. One can only hope that the searchers aren’t disappointed.

• The art of Takato Yamamoto. I’m surprised this has been so popular considering the artist isn’t very well-known. If I was a publisher I’d be arranging reprints of his books for Europe and the US.

• Barney Bubbles: artist and designer. No surprise that this is still receiving attention seeing as it’s now linked on the Barney Bubbles Wikipedia page as well as a great many design blogs.

• Neville Brody and Fetish Records. In a similar vein, one of my earliest posts is still very popular as well, possibly because there isn’t a good selection of Brody’s early album art anywhere else.

And since I started making static archive pages for some categories (for my convenience as much as that of readers), the Gay artists archive has proved very popular even though it’s not been there for long. That’s either an indicator of the readership demographic or evidence that people are more curious than they often let on.

Thanks again for reading!

John x