John – Page 8 – { feuilleton }

Eclipse and Sunscreen

Gobelins, the French school of film animation, has its own YouTube channel where students post a variety of clips showing technical exercises or, as in the case of this pair of films, complete works. Eclipse (directed by Theo Guignard, Noé Lecombre and Hugo Moreno) and Sunscreen (directed by Xinzhi Ma, Yuan Liu, Yufan Chen and Zixiao Yue) are both science-fiction pieces that are also very short, being more like anecdotes than stories. Of the two I prefer Eclipse but both are very accomplished, and a welcome riposte to the ubiquity of the Pixar house style. Stylistic exercises like these are seldom extended to feature-length (or if they are, they get cancelled like Scavengers Reign) but it’s good to see younger animators following in the footsteps of René Laloux.

And speaking of Laloux, the restored Les Maîtres du temps (Time Masters) was released on blu-ray in France last year. As with many French releases there are no English subtitles but it’s good to know it’s available again. I’m waiting now for a high-definition reissue of Gandahar.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Terra Incognita, a film by Adrian Dexter and Pernille Kjaer
• Arzak Rhapsody
• Fracture by Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi
• The Captive, a film by René Laloux

Thirteen views of snow

Lingering Snow at Asukayama, from the series Eight Views of the Environs of Edo (1837–38) by Utagawa Hiroshige.

We’ve had one of our mild falls of snow this week, hence the subject. Snow is a very common theme in Japanese prints, a part of the cultural interest in all the different aspects of the yearly seasons. There are many more examples out there.

Mountains and Rivers of Kiso (1857) by Utagawa Hiroshige.

Plovers Flying Across a River above Snow-Laden Reeds, from the series Worlds of Things (1909–10) by Kamisaka Sekka.

Snowy Ravine at Harinoki, from the series Twelve Scenes in the Japan Alps (1926) by Hiroshi Yoshida.

Snow at Shiba Park, Tokyo (1930) by Kawase Hasui.

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Weekend links 811

A still from The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926), a feature-length animated film by Lotte Reiniger.

• Hélice 39 is a speculative-fiction journal (in Spanish) whose current issue includes an article by Marcelo Sanchez: “What did Borges think of Lovecraft?”

• Among the new titles at Standard Ebooks, the home of free, high-quality, public-domain texts: The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett.

• Old music: Hydrophony For Dagon by Max Eastley & Michael Prime; The Adventures Of Prince Achmed by Morricone Youth.

• Public Domain Review lists some of the writers whose works will enter the public domain this year.

• “Modern Japanese Printmakers celebrates vibrant mid-20th-century innovation“.

• At Nautilus: “Here’s what’s happening in the brain when you’re improvising.”

• At the BFI: Pamela Hutchinson selects 10 great films of 1926.

• New music: The Future Is Now by Pietro Zollo.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Phil Solomon Day.

• 2026 is the Year of the Fire Horse.

• Runaway Horses (“poetry written with a splash of blood”) (1985) by Philip Glass | Unicorns Were Horses (1996) by New Kingdom | Red Horse (2002) by Jack Rose

02026

The Basket of Bread (1926) by Salvador Dalí.

Happy new year. 02026? An affectation via the Long Now.

The Cello Player (1926) by Edwin Dickinson.

Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden (1926) by Otto Dix.

The Virgin Spanking the Christ Child before Three Witnesses: André Breton, Paul Eluard and the Artist (1926) by Max Ernst.

The Musician’s Table (1926) by Juan Gris.

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The art of Benvenuto Disertori (1887–1969)

L’arco di Tito (1918).

Benvenuto Disertori was an Italian artist with a parallel career as a musicologist. I forget how his prints came to my attention but they’re just the kind of thing I like to see: meticulous monochrome views with an emphasis on architecture and eroded mineral surfaces. Some printmakers tend to concentrate on a single medium—wood engraving, for example—but Disertori embraced a wide range of etching and engraving techniques. Once again, the influence of Piranesi is discernible in some of these views (another point in their favour), especially those that depict Roman ruins or older Italian buildings like the medieval towers in San Gimignano.

Il Pensatore (1909).

L’edera (1911–13).

Gubbio. La Campanella di S. Giovanni Battista (1912-13).

La Nicchia (1913).

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