{art} – Page 565 – { feuilleton }

Reynard the Fox

Reineke Fuchs, Einband der Ausgabe des Versepos von Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1846).

From Wikimedia Commons’ stock of images related to the medieval trickster hero, and another great cover showing the 19th century art of the blocked binding. In a similar vein, don’t miss these marvellous illustrations at BibliOdyssey.

Reineke als Sieger by Wilhelm von Kaulbach (1846).

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The etching and engraving archive
• The book covers archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Old book covers
• Decorated Russian book covers
• The Hetzel editions of Jules Verne

The art of Virginia Frances Sterrett, 1900–1933

“Rosalie saw before her eyes a tree of marvellous beauty” from Old French Fairy Tales.

Continuing the series of occasional posts mining the scanned library books at the Internet Archive, these illustrations are from a 1920 edition of Old French Fairy Tales by Comtesse Sophie de Ségur and a 1921 volume of Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Virginia Frances Sterrett, like Beardsley and Harry Clarke, was another artist whose life was cut short by tuberculosis. She was a remarkably accomplished 19-year-old when she illustrated the Sophie de Ségur book. Her incredible illustrations for The Arabian Nights (1928) can be seen here.

“They walked side by side during the rest of the evening” from Old French Fairy Tales.

“She whipped up the snakes and ascended high over the city” from Tanglewood Tales.

“This pitiless reptile had killed his poor companions” from Tanglewood Tales.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive

The art of Rune Olsen

For Everything I Long to Do (2005/08).

A sculpture which resurrects the old tentacle sex motif, part of a series of sculpted works by Rune Olsen exploring unusual erotic permutations; this one of a naked man sniffing round the hind quarters of a wolf (?) also caught my attention.

The octopoid sculpture reminds me that I’d been intending on looking at some of the lesser-known treatments of the tentacle sex theme since I keep running across new examples. Soon maybe, when work here has calmed down a bit.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Octopulps

The art of Arnaldo Pomodoro

One of the Italian sculptor‘s many Sphere works, part of a series which began in the Sixties. This one is situated at Trinity College, Dublin.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Sculptural collage: Eduardo Paolozzi
• The art of Igor Mitoraj

Horror comics

More horror…. It’s been a while since I posted anything work-related here, not because I haven’t been busy but because much of the work this year is still waiting to see the light of day as a result of protracted schedules.

The Mammoth Book of Best Horror Comics is an anthology from Running Press (US) that really is mammoth—over 540 pages—and includes a reprinting of my Dunwich Horror pages from The Haunter of the Dark. You can see the selections in the Sprout widget below. (Not any more you can’t. Sprout decided to make everyone pay for their previously free service. Bye bye, Sprout.) It feels a bit fraudulent being in there since my drawings are more illustrations than a comics adaptation but I imagine most people buying the book will be happy to see poor old Wilbur Whateley’s demise receive another airing. Many of the featured strips are in the hokey EC mould which is often more comic than horror (one reason I was never very taken with EC) but the material gets better as it goes along and it’s a pleasure to be in anything with an artist as good as Mike Kaluta.

The Dunwich Horror, title page (1988).

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The Lovecraft archive