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Weekend links 275

A painting from the Projekt Babelturm series by Wessi.

• “The first thing I would say is that I have no idea what authentic psych music is, and I have no wish to pursue that either. To me the idea of real psych is a paradox. I can’t see how you can have such a thing as real psychedelia when the whole thing is based on a psychedelic drug that gives you hallucinations and illusions and layers and layers of unreality.” Rob Chapman talking to Ben Graham about his new book, Psychedelia And Other Colours.

Elsewhere in a rather psychedelic week: Rob Young reviewed Chapman’s book for the New Statesman; Dangerous Minds posted “Hypnotic video of how a psychedelic masterpiece is made“; and in Germany a homeopathy conference “ended in chaos in Germany after dozens of delegates took a LSD-like drug and started suffering from hallucinations.”

• Coming soon from Dark Entries (so to speak), another collection of Patrick Cowley‘s music for gay porn films.

• Jonathan Barnbrook works some quotes from JG Ballard into the British Road Sign Project.

• “Sorcery is more popular than football in Morocco,” says writer and filmmaker Abdellah Taïa.

• “If you’re going to make something, you should try and be wild,” says Mica Levi.

• Coca-Cola Milanese: Patrick Ellis considers the state of the world’s fair in 2015.

• Hear two pieces from Collapse, the forthcoming album by Drew McDowall.

• Mix of the week: Secret Thirteen Mix 162 by Ketev (Yair Elazar Glotman).

• Emptyset’s Signal transforms Earth’s ionosphere into sound art.

• Paul Laffoley: The Force Structure of the Mystical Experience.

• Fuck off, Star Wars, Ben Wheatley’s High Rise is on its way.

• Ideologic Organ

• Psychedelic Ride (1967) by The Ides | Psychedelic Warlords (Disappear In Smoke) (1974) by Hawkwind | Psychedelic Sewing Room (1989) by Bongwater

Christopher Dresser’s Studies in Design

The previous post about Christopher Dresser’s design studies proved popular so here’s another discovery from the same source. A surprise this time was seeing the middle motif on the page above; I have this separated from its neighbours in a collection of Art Nouveau graphics, and used it on the slipcase of a Cradle of Filth CD in 2002. Studies in Design (1876) is a collection of colour plates of Dresser’s design work. Some of these emulate medieval or Arabian/Persian decoration but the most interesting examples for me are Dresser’s more personal pieces. Once you’ve seen a few of these his style is easy to recognise. Thanks to some searching by Mr TjZ I now know that a number of collections of Dresser’s designs are available from (who else?) Dover Publications. More for the shopping list.

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Christopher Dresser’s Art of Decorative Design

Studies of decorative design are numerous but this one stands out for the quality of its colour plates, all of which show a variety of designs derived from plants and flowers. The Art of Decorative Design (1862) is one of a number of design books published in the wake of the Great Exhibition of 1851, the most celebrated being Owen Jones’ lavish Grammar of Ornament. Christopher Dresser was a professor of ornamental art and botany who here continues where The Grammar of Ornament ends, exploring the floral design that’s a recurrent feature of Victorian decoration. What’s most remarkable for me about some of these designs is the way they prefigure the forms of Art Nouveau, a style that wouldn’t emerge for another thirty years.

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The art of Alan Odle, 1888–1948

The Malicious Satyr.

Following yesterday’s post, a little more about British illustrator Alan Odle. A cursory search between work sessions today yielded a variety of Odle drawings but not the illustrated edition of Candide I was hoping for. The examples here are all taken from Pinterest, and I believe the ones towards the end are from Candide but that’s only a guess. In a reversal of the usual state of affairs, Odle’s career has been overshadowed by that of his wife, Dorothy M. Richardson, a Modernist novelist of some note. But the neglect has been addressed recently with the publication in 2012 of a monograph, The Life and Work of Alan Odle by Martin Steenson. Mark Valentine reviewed the book at Wormwoodiana. Some of Odle’s drawings are for sale at the Victor Arwas and Chris Beetles galleries.

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Harry Clarke and others in The Studio

The Swing by Alan Odle.

The University of Heidelberg has for some time now had several years of British art magazine The Studio in its archive but I’ve yet to delve fully into the later issues. These illustrations are from two articles from the volumes covering the year 1925, both of which feature the exceptional Irish artist Harry Clarke. In the first piece Clarke is present along with two contemporaries, John Austen and Alan Odle; the second is a review by novelist Dorothy M. Richardson (Alan Odle’s wife) of Clarke’s illustrations for Goethe’s Faust. All three artists owed an artistic debt to Aubrey Beardsley, and an earlier number of The Studio features a drawing by John Austen of Scheherazade in his Beardsley-derived style. (Thanks to Nick for the tip!)

Columbine by Harry Clarke.

Atalanta in Calydon by John Austen.

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