{art nouveau} – Page 5 – { feuilleton }

Buchschmuck und Flächenmuster by Max Benirschke

A recent arrival at the Internet Archive was this collection of Art Nouveau book decorations by Max Benirschke (1880–1961). Very welcome it is too, although I wish it had been accompanied by its companion volumes from Koloman Moser and Carl Otto Czeschka. The three books formed a series, Die Quelle (The Source), a Viennese equivalent of the design books produced by Alphonse Mucha and others in France. Both the Benirschke and Moser books have been available from Dover Publications at one time or another but the Benirschke one seems now to be out of print. There’s more about Die Quelle and its artists (plus related subjects) at the excellent Vienna Secession. Benirschke’s book may be browsed and downloaded here.

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Weekend links 414

Czech poster for Robert Bresson’s Une Femme Douce (1969) by Olga Polácková-Vyletalová. There’s more about Polácková-Vyletalová’s striking poster designs (and this one in particular) at Mubi. See also the Polácková-Vyletalová collection at Terry Posters.

• “I heard that in Japan the tendency is to hammer down the nails that stick out. I think that Haruomi Hosono is a nail that sticks out. And has maintained that.” Van Dyke Parks on Haruomi Hosono, best known in the West for being one third of Yellow Magic Orchestra but a prolific artist in his own right. Hosono’s early solo albums are being reissued by Light In The Attic later this year.

• Hua Hsu on The Spectacular Personal Mythology of Rammellzee. “Rammellzee will always feel like part of the underground,” says Geeta Dayal in a review of the Rammellzee exhibition currently showing in New York.

• Mixes of the week: Hassell’s Children, a Fourth World mix by Ban Ban Ton Ton, The Island of Bright Tombs by SeraphicManta, and a Radio Belbury mix by The Advisory Circle.

• More Robert Aickman: The Fully-Conducted Tour, a complete short story. Related: Matthew Cheney reviews the new Aickman collection, Compulsory Games.

• Another Kickstarter bid, this time for a reprint of Art Nouveau designs and illustrations by Carl Otto Czeschka.

• Oliver Burkeman reviews How to Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics by Michael Pollan.

• Art/design/architecture magazines online at the International Advertising & Design Database.

• Tonedeaf in our nose: Gerri Kimber on the musicality of James Joyce’s writing.

• More William Hope Hodgson: Greydogtales examines Hodgson’s poetry.

• The Art of Elsewhere: Jed Perl on the world of Edward Gorey.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Records.

• Beat Bop (1983) by Rammellzee vs. K-Rob | Equation (1989) by Material ft. Rammellzee | No Guts No Galaxy (1999) by Ramm Ell Zee & phonosycographDISK

Décorations Peintes pour Devantures et Intérieurs de Magasins

Once again, I was going to post something more substantial this week but I’m still exceptionally busy, and my plans were further thwarted by the arrival in my RSS feed of this new upload at the Internet Archive. Décorations Peintes pour Devantures et Intérieurs de Magasins is a short but beautiful collection of Art Nouveau signs and shopfronts compiled by Henry Guédy. The date—1905—places it near the end of the Art Nouveau movement but the style was evidently still popular enough at this point to warrant a guide for sign painters looking for something à la mode. The shopfront photos show the commercial application of the style in Parisian streets, although many of these façades will have since been replaced by less adventurous designs (see this post for an example). Monsieur Guédy’s book may be viewed in full and downloaded here.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Hector Guimard’s Castel Béranger
• Chemiserie Niguet
• Rue St. Augustin, then and now
• Hector Guimard elevations
• Infernal entrances
• Hector Guimard sketches
• Temples for Future Religions by François Garas
• Elizabetes Iela 10b, Riga
• Atelier Elvira
• Louis Bonnier’s exposition dreams
• The Maison Lavirotte
• The House with Chimaeras

Moonshine by Jasmine Gower

Presenting yet another cover design for the house of furious automata, Angry Robot Books. This one won’t be published until next year but the cover has been previewed on the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog so I can show it here. Like Under the Pendulum Sun, this is another fantasy scenario with a fresh take on fairy lore:

Daisy’s starting a new job and stylish city life, but mage-hunters out for her dark magic threaten to destroy her vogue image.

In the flourishing metropolis of Soot City (a warped version of 1920s Chicago), progressive ideals reign and the old ways of magic and liquid mana are forbidden. Daisy Dell is a Modern Girl—stylish, educated and independent—keen to establish herself in the city but reluctant to give up the taboo magic inherited from her grandmother.

Her new job takes her to unexpected places, and she gets more attention than she had hoped for. When bounty hunters start combing the city for magicians, Daisy must decide whether to stay with her new employer—even if it means revealing the grim source of her occult powers.

The brief this time was for something with an Art Nouveau/Art Deco feel. I had plans at the outset to incorporate some of the Art Nouveau stylings seen in the Netherlands circa 1910 but that idea was dropped in favour of a more overt collision between Nouveau and Deco. The latter element was essential since Jasmine’s story borrows much from the Roaring Twenties with its city setting, Prohibition theme, speakeasies and dance halls. The poses of the figures are based on the chryselephantine sculptures that were popular in the Deco period; the Daisy figure I borrowed from a statue by Ferdinand Preiss of a Charleston dancer.

Moonshine will be published in February 2018. Meanwhile there’s a lot more of my illustration work waiting in the wings. So far this year I’ve created 55 illustrations for four different books, and there’s even more to come. This is what is known as a busy time. One or more of the books will be out before the end of the year so, as always, watch this space.

Hector Guimard’s Castel Béranger

Art Nouveau is never far from these pages or from my own work, as has been the case this week when work-related research turned up this recent addition to the scanned books at the Internet Archive. Hector Guimard is best known today for his entrances to the Paris Metro not all of which survived the ravages of the 20th century. His designs for the Castel Béranger, an apartment block in Paris, slightly precede the Metro commission, and were intended by Guimard as a showcase for his own development of the Art Nouveau style.

Like Frank Lloyd Wright, Guimard attended to every detail of the building’s construction and interior design, furniture included, and that’s what you have here, a book length guide to the building inside and out. The asymmetrical wrought-iron gate is a familiar sight from studies of Art Nouveau but other views of the building are less common. Compared to Alphonse Mucha’s control and Victor Horta’s sinuous curves, Guimard’s decoration can appear undisciplined but the wildness also makes it seem in advance of its time. Some of the wallpaper patterns for the Castel Béranger contain shapes that wouldn’t be seen again in a design context until the psychedelic posters of the 1960s. Guimard believed he was designing for the future but didn’t live to see the world that could make use of such stylistic delirium.

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