{books} – Page 407 – { feuilleton }

Salammbô illustrated

Salammbô by Alphonse Mucha (1897).

Alphonse Mucha’s gorgeous rendering of Flaubert’s Carthaginian heroine isn’t included in the many illustrated editions at this Salammbô site but plenty of other adaptations are. Examples range from faithful renderings by George Rochegrosse and Mahlon Blaine to drawings which are less successful or even downright bad. Also included are panels from Philippe Druillet‘s bizarre science fiction adaptation from the 1980s, a version which is often closer to Frank Herbert than Gustave Flaubert although many of the compositions are striking. One of these was used for a sleeve illustration by Richard Pinhas on his excellent East West album in 1980. And by coincidence, Druillet’s site mentions a forthcoming exhibition of his Salammbô nudes at the Galerie Pascal Gabert on May 20th.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The album covers archive
• The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The art of Mahlon Blaine, 1894–1969
• Druillet meets Hodgson
• The music of Igor Wakhévitch

Weekend links 13

• Watch the trailer for the newly-restored version of Fritz Lang’s masterwork, Metropolis.

• My cover design for Jeff VanderMeer’s Finch was voted best cover in the 2010 Spinetingler Awards.

• Figment announces the 2nd Annual Figment Album Cover Design Contest. The judge this time round is William Schaff.

• Two interviews at The Quietus: Jon Brooks of The Advisory Circle and Richard H Kirk of Cabaret Voltaire.

• “Merely a Man of Letters.” Jorge Luis Borges interviewed in 1977.

• Another Engelbrecht: The Miniature Theatres of Martin Engelbrecht.

• The Unearthing Box Set by Alan Moore & Mitch Jenkins.

• The gays: RIP Felix Lance Falkon, author of the landmark study, A Historic Collection of Gay Art (1972). The Independent is the latest newspaper to look at sexuality in the animal kingdom.

• Publisher to Release Philip K Dick’s Insights Into Secrets of the Universe.

• Roger Ebert shows the world a draft of his unfilmed Sex Pistols screenplay, Who Killed Bambi? Jon Savage comments.

• Further Flickr sets: History of the Book/Typography and Dutch Graphic Design. Related: more Dutch graphic design at the NAGO.

• Far Red: Video by u-matic & telematique, music by Monolake.

• Has steampunk jumped Captain Nemo’s clockwork shark yet?

• An edge over which it is impossible to look.

• Surrender. It’s Brian Eno.

• Ecstatic Peace Library.

• Songs of the week: See Emily Play by Pink Floyd and Metropolis by Kraftwerk.

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”.

Continue reading “Wildeana 2”

Louis Rhead bookplates

Yet another Internet Archive discovery, examples from a small book collection from 1907 of ex libris plates by Art Nouveau illustrator Louis Rhead (1857–1926). Rhead’s brightly-coloured poster art is often represented in Art Nouveau design books, less visible is his black-and-white work, some of which, like the example below, owes a clear debt to Aubrey Beardsley.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Pratt Libraries Ex Libris Collection
• The Evil Orchid Bookplate Contest
• David Becket’s bookplates
• Louis Rhead’s peacocks
• More Arabian Nights
• Buccaneers #1

Weekend links 12

Simulation No. 136 (1973); From the Archigram Revival Project.

• Scientific American looks at DMT: “the only psychedelic known to occur naturally in the human body”. Related: Hofmann’s Elixir: LSD and the New Eleusis, a book from the Beckley Foundation Press.

• “People weren’t quite sure what this guy was doing.” Colin Marshall talks to Eno biographer David Sheppard.

• LA FAN presents its debut group show, Eve in the Garden of Lost Angels, curated by Milla Zeltzer, at Optical Allusion Gallery, downtown Los Angeles, from May 15 to June 12, 2010.

• Masturbation: literature’s last taboo. The words “last” and “taboo” should never be used together; taboos don’t vanish, they migrate.

• Announcing the Text: Development of the Title Page, 1470–1900.

• The Anachronism is an award-wining Steampunk short about two children who discover the wreck of a giant squid submarine on a beach near their home.

• Out There is a brand new, bi-annual, international magazine for gay men and their friends.

• The Big Picture looks at the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull.

• Expo 2010 opens in Shanghai on May 1st.

• (Walter) Benjamin in Extremis.

• Nathalie returns to Bomarzo.

• Acronymic songs of the week: Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (1967) by The Beatles; The Stars That Play With Laughing Sam’s Dice (1967) by The Jimi Hendrix Experience; London Social Degree (1968) by Billy Nicholls; Love’s Secret Domain (1991) by Coil.