{fantasy} – Page 101 – { feuilleton }

The art of Pierre Clayette, 1930–2005

The Library of Babel (no date).

Another French artist who specialised in fantastic architecture, Pierre Clayette’s work came to my attention via the picture above which illustrates a Borges story. This leads me to wonder once again what it is about French and Belgian artists which attracts them more than others to this type of imagery.

Whatever the reason, there isn’t a great deal of Clayette’s work online and biographical details are few. This page (the source of the untitled picture above) reveals that he worked as an illustrator for Planète magazine, the journal of “fantastic realism” founded by Jacques Bergier and Louis Pauwels in the early Sixties. Some readers may know that pair as the authors of a { feuilleton } cult volume, The Morning of the Magicians (1960), whose vertiginous blend of speculative and weird fiction, occultism and futurology Planète was intended to continue.

Clayette also worked as a theatre designer and book illustrator. Le Chateau (above) is an illustration from Songes de Pierres, a 1984 portfolio depicting scenes from Pierres by Roger Caillois. That writer has his own significant Borges connection, being responsible for introducing Borges’ work to France via his editorship of the UNESCO journal, Diogenes. (Pauwels and Bergier later published Borges in Planète.)

Finally, there’s a less extravagant Flickr collection of some Clayette covers for Penguin Shakespeare editions. All of which only scratches the surface of what was evidently a prolific career; I’ll look forward to more examples of his work coming to light.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The fantastic art archive
• The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The art of Michiko Hoshino
• The art of Erik Desmazières
• The art of Gérard Trignac
• The Absolute Elsewhere

The Corpus Clock

This splendid clock is unveiled by Professor Stephen Hawking later today at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge. If it hadn’t cost a million pounds to develop I’d probably be demanding that someone find me one for Christmas. The mechanical monster perched at the top is explained by its creator:

“It is terrifying, it is meant to be,” said John C Taylor, the creator and funder of an extraordinary new clock to be unveiled tomorrow by Stephen Hawking at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge. “Basically I view time as not on your side. He’ll eat up every minute of your life, and as soon as one has gone he’s salivating for the next. It’s not a bad thing to remind students of. I never felt like this until I woke up on my 70th birthday, and was stricken at the thought of how much I still wanted to do, and how little time remained.”

Unfortunately there are few decent pictures to be had of the device but the Telegraph has an article which describes its “grasshopper escapement”, while the Guardian goes one better with a video of the clock in action.

Update: Longer video at the university site with Dr Taylor explaining the clock in detail.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Gold robots
• The art of Sergei Aparin
• The art of Almacan
• The sculpture of Christopher Conte
• The Bowes Swan

Frazetta: Painting with Fire

Continuing from yesterday’s post, Berni Wrightson appears in this 2003 documentary about the great fantasy artist Frank Frazetta. (And Frazetta is another artist who acknowledges a debt to Roy G Krenkel.) I saw this when it first appeared on video and it’s essential viewing for anyone interested in Frazetta’s work. Stephanie Bruder wrote this week to inform me that the film is now available through iTunes (US store only, for now; UK release is being arranged).

For the last half century, Frank Frazetta has dominated the fantasy art world with his visceral images of savage warriors, curvaceous princesses, and fantastical creatures set in the most lavish landscapes. In this critically acclaimed documentary, we journey to a place where up until now, only the privileged have been. For the first time on film, the reclusive Frazetta reveals to us details of his astonishing life, including how he learned to draw left handed at the age of 70 after suffering a debilitating stroke. Dozens of other professionals candidly weigh in on Frank’s career, including comic legends Berni Wrightson, Dave Stevens, William Stout, Neal Adams, Al Williamson, Forrest Ackerman and film directors Ralph Bakshi and John Milius. Also appearing are rocker Glenn Danzig, actress Bo Derek and fantasy artists Brom, Simon Bisley, and Joe Jusko. Mirroring the dramatic nature of his work, this film utilizes visual effects and a breathtaking orchestral score to create astonishing results. Painting With Fire tells of a life, the spark of an artist, and what Frazetta means to future inspirations. Frank Frazetta is not just a pop phenomenon, but a creative artist destined for a serious place in art history.

Frazetta’s official site is here, this unofficial site has a great selection of his paintings and his influence in some of my own work was recounted here.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Men with snakes
• My pastiches
• Fantastic art from Pan Books

The faces of Parsifal

Parsifal by Jean Delville (1890).

Continuing the occasional series of posts examining the evolution of a particular design or image, this one begins with a mystical charcoal drawing by Belgian Symbolist, Jean Delville (1867–1953), our object of concern being that entranced or dreaming face.

My first encounter with Delville’s image wasn’t via the original but came with this Seventies’ version produced for a Charles Williams paperback cover by illustrator Jim Lamb. (And this copy is the only one I can find, reused on a recent audiobook of Williams’ novel. If anyone has a link to a larger copy of the paperback cover then please post it in the comments.) Yes, this is tenuous but when I eventually got to see Delville’s picture it made me think immediately of Lamb’s illustration. Many Dimensions is one of my favourite books by Williams and unusually for him it deals with Islamic rather than Christian mysticism; in that case if Lamb was borrowing from Parsifal then it’s a case of the right image for the wrong book.

Jim Lamb is another illustrator from this period who now works mainly as a landscape artist.

Continue reading “The faces of Parsifal”

The art of Mahlon Blaine, 1894–1969

Nova Venus (1938).

I doubt that illustrator Mahlon Blaine featured in any of the scurrilous porn books in Franz Kafka’s collection—he would have been too young, for a start—but his erotic work isn’t so far removed from some of the artists of The Amethyst and Opals. As usual with obscure talents of this period it’s good to know that someone has already done the required legwork in assembling biographical details. The always reliable Bud Plant has a page about Mahlon Blaine’s life and work, and there’s also a website, The Outlandish Art of Mahlon Blaine. Blaine’s quality control is variable but there’s a trace of the usual suspects in many of these drawings, notably Harry Clarke and, occasionally, the etiolated shade of the Divine Aubrey. (Beardsley, to you.) Similarities too to contemporaries such as Wallace Smith and John Austen, both of whom owe a debt to Clarke and Beardsley. The drawing above comes from this gallery which is among the better sets available.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Kafka’s porn unveiled