{books} – Page 393 – { feuilleton }

The art of Anton Pieck, 1895–1987

The drawings of Dutch artist and illustrator Anton Pieck are very good for their finely-rendered architectural detail when they’re not being too comic or whimsical. Flickr has a few sets of the artist’s work which is useful since his museum site is rather lacking. The bookselling picture above comes from this set of watercolours while the black-and-white piece is from an edition of Grimm’s fairy tales published in 1930. There’s also a page of smaller drawings here.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive

Monsters in art

Frontispiece for Goethe’s Faust (c. 1843) by Eugène Delacroix.

Or a couple of pages from Les monstres dans l’art; êtres humains et animaux bas-reliefs, rinceaux, fleurons, etc., a study of aesthetic teratogenesis by Edmond Valton from 1905. The Delacroix frontispiece gives a better view than the one at the Davison Art Center but they have more of the Faust lithographs. Emmanuel Frémiet’s animals were created to adorn the restored medieval Château de Pierrefonds for Napoleon III. The artist had smaller ceramic copies of the statues made later, of which the lizard is an improvement on the stone version.

Fantastic animals (c. 1870) by Emmanuel Frémiet.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The House with Chimaeras
• Frémiet’s Lizard

Liceti’s monsters

Illustrations from De monstrorum natura, caussis, et differentiis libri duo (On the nature, causes and differences of monsters, 1616) by Italian scientist Fortunio Liceti who we’re told has a crater on the Moon named after him. Further images from Liceti and his contemporaries can be found at Les Monstres de la Renaissance à l’âge classique, an online exhibition of assorted teratisms, prodigies and abominations. Via Monsieur Peacay, no monster he.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The etching and engraving archive

Weekend links 24

Delta-Wing (2009) by Chloe Early.

• “Feted British authors are limited, arrogant and self-satisfied, says leading academic”. Stating the bleeding obvious but it still needs to be said, apparently, especially when the announcement of the Booker list this year caused the usual confusion when Amis Jr. and McEwan weren’t included, as though the mere existence of their novels makes them prize-worthy. And as someone pointed out, the word “male” is missing from that headline.

• Hero of Comic-Book World Gets Real: Alan Moore again, in the NYT this time. Related: a review of Unearthing live.

• Announcing The Hanky Code by Brian Borland & Stephen S Mills, a 40-poem book to be published next year by Lethe Press. For an explanation of the Hanky Code there’s this, and there’s also an iPhone app.

• Folk—the ‘music of the people’—is now hip again, says (who else?) Rob Young who can also be heard on the archived podcast here. Related: the folk roots of Bagpuss. Related to the latter: The Mouse Mill.

An endpiece from The Firebird and other Russian Fairy Tales by Boris Zvorykin.

• ‘Yes’ to Catastrophe: Roger Dean, Prog and SF. A lengthy and thoughtful analysis of Roger Dean’s early work.

• Into the Media Web, the enormous Michael Moorcock book which I designed, is officially published this week.

• Cassette playa: in praise of tapes. I’ve complained about tapes in the past but people continue to find them useful. Some technologies die harder than others.

• Boy BANG Boy: “Quiet moments made suddenly very loud with the attitude and opinion of what it means to be a young male in an impossibly diverse world.” An exhibition opening at Eastgallery, London, on August 5th.

• Empty your heart of its mortal dream: Alfred Kubin’s extraordinary novel, The Other Side.

• Ghostly and Boym Partners devise a new way to deliver digital music.

• Besti-mix #27: a great selection by producer Adrian Sherwood.

• Agnostics are troublemakers. Amen to that.

• RIP Harry Beckett.

• Acousmata.

• Let Us Go In To The House Of The Lord by Pharoah Sanders (live, 1971): Part 1 | Part 2

Weekend links 23

“The Go-Go wonder of Paris — That’s space girl. Transistors never wear down, they just go on and on — Even her heart is made of vinyl — It’s a marvy life — With nothing else to do but dance — Why not? – Love? — Forget it, baby — Not for her —” From Mod Love (1967) by Michael Lutin and Michel Quarez.

• “Gay people are not advancing themselves in the (publishing) industry, they’re just regurgitating familiar territory. Of course, artists are always ahead of gatekeepers. That’s the way it works—artists innovate. But in order to fulfill your promise as an editor, agent, publisher or reviewer, you have to be a person who’s embracing the new and looking to elevate what is not yet known. And unfortunately, there’s not a discussion among publishing professionals about enhancing this aspect of people’s responsibilities. In fact, it goes the other way. So there needs to be a psychological revolution on behalf of the people who are controlling what information is allowed to be seen.” From an interview with Sarah Schulman at Lambda Literary.

• Jonathan Ross meets Jim Steranko. Also at the Guardian: Unearthing the truth about Alan Moore.

• Photographing an abandoned Art Deco skyscraper. From the people who photographed Neverland at night.

• Powers: “aural sculptures” by Andy Partridge inspired by the strange science fiction art of Richard M Powers.

La Paresse (Laziness) (1924) by George Barbier.

• Lautréamont’s poison-drenched pages. Roger Cardinal reviews a new edition of Les Chants de Maldoror and Poésies.

• The Wire‘s Top 50 Rhythms of All Time, a list from 1992. Some great recommendations but it’s impossible to imagine that being written now without a mention of Klaus Dinger. And where’s Fela Kuti?

• The Wire Salon at Cafe Oto, London, on August 5th presents Rob Young discussing his forthcoming book, Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music.

• American Pictorial Photography, 1912–1955. Another astonishing picture set at Golden Age Comic Book Stories.

• The Beats: Pictures of a Legend. Edmund White on a new exhibition of Allen Ginsberg’s photographs. Related: the trailer for Howl.

• The Dream Machine is a point-and-click adventure game made using hand-crafted animation.

• Fuck yeah Francisco Lachowski: Brazilian model cutie has many Tumblr fans.

• Polly Morgan’s wings of desire. The taxidermy artist interviewed.

• Thomas Dolby’s solar-powered boat studio.

• Rückstoss Gondoliere (1971) by Kraftwerk: pt. 1 | pt. 2