Self portrait (2009).
More carved antlers, horns and bronze skulls at Shane Wilson’s website. Via ~Wunderkammer~.
Category: {sculpture}
Sculpture
Ricardo Bellver’s El Ángel Caido
This Luciferian statue by Spanish sculptor Ricardo Bellver (1845–1924) was drawn to my attention in the comments a while back and I thought it about time it had a post of its own. Statues of Satan/Lucifer or fallen angels are usually depicted at the mercy of Saint Michael’s feet and sword, it’s unusual to see such a work where the forces of Heaven are implied rather than shown. It’s even more unusual to have such a figure on display in a public park, as Bellver’s is.
The sculpture … of great dramatism and originality, obtained the First Medal at the Spanish National Fine Arts Exhibition in 1878, and the same year was cast in bronze for the third Paris World’s Fair. Later on, the Prado Museum donated it to the City of Madrid, and in 1885 it was installed in a square with the same name in the Retiro Park (the largest one in Madrid).
The writhing serpents are probably a nod to the Laocoön and manage to impose modesty as well as evoke an erotic frisson, a familiar ambiguity as I’ve noted before. Wikimedia Commons has a lot more photos while Flickr has even more here and here.
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Previously on { feuilleton }
• Melancholy Lucifers
• Angelo Colarossi and son
• Dark Angel
• Men with snakes
• Angels 4: Fallen angels
Wildeana 2
Further flotsam from the wilds (so to speak) of the web. The above portrait is a collage constructed by this Flickr user with pages from The Picture of Dorian Gray as the raw material. A remarkable work.
Wilde’s face in the collage portrait comes from one of the famous photographs taken by Napoleon Sarony on the writer’s visit to America in 1882. Another of Sarony’s photographs was used as the basis for this cigar advert which sought to exploit Wilde’s fashionable notoriety. Possibly the first and last time that cigars have ever been offered for sale as “aesthetic”.
Weekend links 11
Panneaux decoratifs (1900) by Manuel Orazi at NYPL.
• Ghostsigns: “a collaborative national effort to photograph, research and archive the remaining examples of hand painted wall advertising in the UK and Ireland.”
• Golden Age Comic Book Stories posts some Alphonse Mucha.
• Voyage Fantastique – An illustrated guide to the body and mind at A Journey Round My Skull.
• The gallery of the International Exhibition of Calligraphy.
• Trevor Wayne Pin-Up Show, a new photo collection of the tattooed Mr Wayne which includes photos and a foreword by Clive Barker.
• Phallophonies, a gallery exploring the penis in religious art. Related: “Churchgoers are outraged over a crucifix in a Catholic church that they say shows an image of genitalia on Jesus.”
• Hollingsville: “Expect live and unscripted wanderings around voodoo science parks, examinations of cities as battle suits and thoughts on pods, capsules and world expos.”
• Phantom Circuit #33 is a Ghost Box special featuring an interview with Jim Jupp (Belbury Poly) and Julian House (The Focus Group). Related: Ghost Box films at YouTube.
• Eldritchtronica and Wyrd Bliss, a mixtape by Simon Reynolds.
• Avant garde music and cinema meet at The Sound of Eye.
• Make your own newspaper with Newspaper Club.
• Drawdio: A pencil that lets you draw music.
• Yoko Ono collects rare books.
• Song of the week: The Four Horsemen (1972) by Aphrodite’s Child.
The panoramic towers of Prague
The Tower at Charles Bridge, Old Town.
More panoramas of Prague from 360 Cities by Jeffrey Martin, a photographer who’s made a speciality of capturing the city in 360º views. Among his collection are a number of photos taken from Prague’s many towers and steeples including a few where he’s managed to remove the supporting building, as in the view from the Charles Bridge above. This gives the effect of floating in weightless suspension above the city and may well induce alarm in vertigo sufferers. Needless to say, all these are best viewed on the full screen setting.
The Powder Tower (Prasna Brana).
Mikulas Tower.
Prague TV Tower Babies 1; one of David Cerný’s crawling baby sculptures looks over the city. See also the 18 gigapixel view from the tower.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The panoramas archive
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Karel Plicka’s views of Prague