Miwa Yanagi’s fairy tales

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Rapunzel (2004).

Emphasising the “grim” in the Brothers Grimm is what Japanese artist Miwa Yanagi achieves with Fairy Tale, a series of staged photos. It’s a familiar approach, of course, mining childhood for a darker subtext, and the effect is reminiscent in places of earlier explorers of this disturbing territory such as David Lynch and Jan Svankmajer. But Yanagi adds some twists of her own, not least the alarming figures of young girls masked to resemble old women. Despite being based on tales from the West, there’s a distinctly Eastern flavour to some of these scenes: in Rapunzel the usual golden locks have become a black torrent which can’t help but seem sinister when one recalls the legacy of supernatural hair in ghost stories like Yotsuya Kaidan.

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There’s a catalogue of these works available although the text may well be Japanese-only. And speaking of Svankmajer, it’s worth noting again that Alice is now available on DVD. David Moats enthuses about the film here.

Thanks to Gabriel for the Yanagi tip!

Previously on { feuilleton }
Kwaidan
The art of Maleonn Ma

Franz Stassen’s illustrated Hoffmann

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Endpaper design with an ex libris plate by the artist.

Another prolific illustrator with a clear-line style, Franz Stassen (1869–1949) here decorates the pages of Musikalische Schriften, a book devoted to the musical works of writer ETA Hoffmann. I haven’t checked but I’m fairly sure that Stassen was featured in Jugend magazine a few times, his florid style in this undated volume would certainly complement the work of the other artists there. Like some of those artists, Stassen was enthused by Teutonic nationalism during the First World War, a path that led eventually to work for, and plaudits, from the Nazis. We’re also told (via an unsourced Wikipedia detail) that he ended his days in a gay relationship, something the Third Reich would have either overlooked or conveniently ignored.

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Continue reading “Franz Stassen’s illustrated Hoffmann”

Valenti Angelo’s Salomé

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And still they come… Valenti Angelo (1897–1982) was an American printmaker, author of several books for children and the illustrator of an estimated 250 classic works of fiction including this 1945 edition of Wilde’s Salomé for Heritage Press. Angelo has an engagingly simple style in this and other works, reminding me of David Sheridan’s Tarot designs. The Internet Archive has a copy of his illustrated The Imitation of Christ with drawings reminscent of Eric Gill’s woodcuts.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
The illustrators archive
The Oscar Wilde archive
The Salomé archive

Dalí’s Salomé

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Queen Salomé (1937) by Salvador Dalí.

Of all the Surrealists, Salvador Dalí had his fingers in the most cultural pies—designing for film and theatre, writing books (including a novel, Hidden Faces), even performing occasionally, or at least making a public spectacle of himself—so it’s no surprise to find him adding to the stock of 20th-century Salomé interpretations, first in a drawing then for the stage. The stage work was something I hadn’t run across before (not since this current obsession began, anyway), a 1949 production of the Strauss opera at Covent Garden directed by Peter Brook. The now celebrated theatre director was at the outset of his career when he chose Dalí as his designer but the resultant furore shows that Brook’s ability to challenge an audience (or at least, a gaggle of theatre critics) had an early start. The critics savaged the production and the show closed after only six performances. Brook, who was sacked, had this to say:

The critics all decided that Dali and I were only out to annoy them. There, at least, I might claim that they underestimated us; if that have been our intention I think that between us we might have done much worse… (More)

Getty Images has some tantalising photos here, here and here, but I’ve not seen anything in the way of production sketches. The objections seem to have been the usual tiresomely English revulsion against anything too original, too strange or too imaginative (it’s no wonder Leonora Carrington abandoned Britain for Mexico). An article about the production from the BBC’s Music Magazine includes this detail:

In the last scene for Dali and Brooke, [Salomé] was slowly covered over by a sort of green ooze of bile that came from the head of John the Baptist, an effect of luxuriant disgust which we can imagine without too much difficulty, bearing in mind others of Dali’s images.

That piece also mentions a proposed restaging of the opera with Dalí’s designs but I’ve been unable to discover whether this took place. If anyone knows better, please leave a comment.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
The Salomé archive

Wild Salomés

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So there’s a poster for Al Pacino’s forthcoming drama-documentary about the Oscar Wilde play but I’ve yet to see any release details. The tagline connects Salomé with The Ballad of Reading Gaol: “We kill the thing we love.”

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Searching around for posters turned up this item for an Italian-French co-production of the Wilde play directed by Claude d’Anna. I’ve not seen this but it can’t be any worse than Ken Russell’s version so it may be worth seeking out.

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Far better poster-wise is this splendid creation by Anselmo Ballester for the Italian release of the 1953 Hollywood film (which isn’t based on the play). Rita Hayworth was too old for the role, and the film is simultaneously lavish and dull in the way that so many sword-and-sandal epics manage to be, but the poster is a gem. This site has many more examples of Ballester’s poster art.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
The Oscar Wilde archive
The Salomé archive