John – Page 502 – { feuilleton }

L’amour des âmes

L’amour des âmes (1900) by Jean Delville.

Another of the many connections between the Symbolism and psychedelic poster art, the mystically-inclined Jean Delville (1867–1953) may at least have approved of the addition of a yin-yang symbol to his painting of drifting souls. I was originally going to post Delville’s Pour L’art poster design since I’ve not seen a copy on the web as good as the one below which is scanned from a book. (The principal Delville site has many of his works but in variable quality.) Delville’s pair of floating lovers happen coincidentally to suit the preoccupations of February 14th.

MC5 at the Grande Ballroom, Detroit (1967) by Gary Grimshaw.

Pour L’art was a Belgian circle of artists formed in Brussels in 1892 to stage exhibitions promoting their work. Delville was the most notable of the group as well as being one of its prime movers. Looking on the Delville website it’s good to see there’s a major study of the artist’s life and work in progress, with publication scheduled for later this year. Too many artists from the late 19th century have been neglected for far too long but attitudes are slowly changing. Anyone interested in Jean Delville is advised to also look at this site which is dedicated to that apostle of androgyny, Joséphin Péladan. One of the strangest characters in the Symbolist menagerie (and the competition for that label is fierce), Péladan’s occult theories inspired Delville and a number of other artists in Belgium and France. It’s good to see he’s also gaining some serious study at last.

Pour L’art (1892) by Jean Delville.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Philippe Jullian, connoisseur of the exotic
• Delville, Scriabin and Prometheus
• The faces of Parsifal
• Masonic fonts and the designer’s dark materials
• Angels 4: Fallen angels

Seven

Seven and Seven Is (1967), a single by Love.

Celebrating seven years of this here blawg with a bunch of sevens. But first, the stats which (according to WordPress’s own meter) say “This blog was viewed about 2,300,000 times in 2012”. The caveat there is that many people visit these pages simply to see a picture, not because there’s anything further of interest, hence the persistent popularity of the Naked furniture post in the top five listing below:

1: The weekend artists, December 2011
2: Naked furniture, April 2009
3: The art of Takato Yamamoto, June 2007
4: Alex in the Chelsea Drug Store, April 2006
5: Hysterical Literature, August 2012

Not listed there because it’s on a standalone page is the gay artists archive which remains the most popular thing on the site. The equally persistent popularity of the Clockwork Orange post at no. 4 is a good demonstration of the fickleness of the blog hordes; things done on a whim often have more staying power. As always, thanks for reading and commenting! And now the music…

• Seven By Seven (1971) by Hawkwind
• Seven Days (1972) by Annette Peacock
• Seven Years (1986) by Watermelon Men
• Seven Souls (1989) by Material feat. William Burroughs
• Seven Laws of Woo (1992) by Praxis
• Seven, Seven, Seven (1995) by Money Mark

The Cephalopoda of the Hawaiian Islands

A little something for Darwin Day, and a collection of illustrations I hadn’t seen before. The Cephalopoda of the Hawaiian Islands (1914) is another title in the splendid (and huge) collection of the Biodiversity Heritage Library whose Flickr sets have been linked here before. Some of those prior examples have ended up being collaged into Lovecraftian entities so there’s always the possibility of that happening to one or two of these illustrations in the future.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Vampyroteuthis Infernalis by Vilém Flusser
• Le Poulpe Colossal
• Fascinating tentacula

The recurrent pose 50

Belator (2013) by Christiane Vleugels.

With this series about the Flandrin pose being the oldest on the blog—the initial post was Feb 16, 2006—the whole thing has gradually evolved from a diverting observation to the unearthing of a trend that runs deeper and further than I expected.

Christiane Vleugels is a Belgian artist with a hyperrealist style. Siegfried Zademack has a painting style closer to Salvador Dalí, here putting Flandrin’s Classical figure onto the pillar of Saint Simeon Stylites. One of Philip Gladstone’s paintings was the subject of an earlier post, and some of his other drawings might be considered Flandrinesque. They show that you don’t have to render every last hair and shadow in order to make an impression.

Saint Simon on the Pillar (after Flandrin) (1988) by Siegfried Zademack.

Untitled (seated male nude in the Flandrin pose) (2011) by Philip Gladstone.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The recurrent pose archive

Weekend links 146

A Chinese postage stamp celebrating the Year of the Snake.

• Cyclopean is a collaboration from Burnt Friedman, Jono Podmore and Can founding members Jaki Liebezeit, and Irmin Schmidt. The Quietus has a preview of all the tracks from their forthcoming EP. Great stuff.

• Ten Things You (Possibly) Don’t Know About Kraftwerk. Related: a Speak & Spell emulator, and Atomium, a new single by Karl Bartos.

• In 1975 Barney Bubbles designed an inner sleeve for Hawkwind’s Warrior on the Edge of Time album, and this scarce recipe booklet.

• “We should all use language carefully. That is an obligation on the literate. But carefully doesn’t mean fearfully,” says Jenny Diski.

• Faber’s car-crash of a cover design for the 50th anniversary edition of The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath caused an outbreak of parodies.

• At Strange Flowers: Ancient dreams and antique corruptions, Salomé via Gustave Moreau and Huysmans.

• FACT Mix 368 is a very varied collection of recent music and older pieces curated by Holly Herndon.

• At Ubuweb: eleven out-of-print recordings of Harry Bertoia’s sound sculptures.

• Laurie Anderson and Brian Eno in conversation at Interview magazine.

• Michael Chabon on Wes Anderson’s Worlds.

• Snake Rag (1923) by King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band | Rattlesnake Shake (1969) by Fleetwood Mac | Snakes Crawl (1980) by Bush Tetras | Ananta Snake Dance (1980) by Suns of Arqa | Snakeblood (2000) by Leftfield