{symbolists} – Page 20 – { feuilleton }

Odilon Redon lithographs

La mort: mon ironie dépasse toutes les autres! (1889).

Two samples from a collection of Odilon Redon etchings lithographs at Gallica, an archive I’ve only recently begun to look at. A shame that the larger images scale up the content and the empty margin, often leaving a very small picture in the centre not much bigger than thumbnail size. Oh, well… On the plus side there’s a portrait I hadn’t seen before of Des Esseintes from Huysmans’ À Rebours, the book which in 1884 introduced Redon’s work to a wider public. Via BibliOdyssey, without whom, etc.

Et là-bas l’IDOLE ASTRALE, l’apothéose (1891).

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The eyes of Odilon Redon
• Arthur Zaidenberg’s À Rebours

The art of Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis, 1875–1911

Rex (1909).

Another relatively obscure Symbolist, Mikalojus Ciurlionis was a Lithuanian artist and composer whose painted output might have graded to total abstraction if he’d lived a few more years. This site has a substantial gallery section and details of his life and other work.

The Offering (1909).

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Delville, Scriabin and Prometheus

Illustrating Poe #5: Among the others

The Conqueror Worm (c. 1900) by František Kupka.

Poe’s illustrators are legion, you could easily devote an entire blog to nothing but depictions of his stories and poems. By way of rounding off this week of posts I thought I’d point to some of the works which have caught my attention over the years, several of them being obscure enough to warrant further investigation.

František Kupka’s drawing is, as far as I can gather, one of a series based on Poe’s poem; this seems to be a related piece. As with many Symbolists artists, you can spend a great deal of time scouring the available resources to find more of their work. We’re told that one of Kupka’s more well-known paintings, The Way of Silence (1903), was inspired by the poem Dream-land.

Berenice (1905) by Alberto Martini.

Alberto Martini (1876–1954) is a fascinating artist whose work bridges the decline of Symbolism and the rise of Surrealism. He’s also another talent whose work is woefully underrepresented on the web so let’s hope that changes soon. Wikipedia describes him as having produced 135 Poe illustrations of which only a small handful are visible online, and most of the ones that are go unlabelled. I know this one is for Berenice since I have it in a book but any Poe reader should guess the title from those blazing teeth. A few more of Martini’s drawings can be seen here.

Continue reading “Illustrating Poe #5: Among the others”

Diaghilev’s World of Art

Cover by Evgeny Lanceray for Prospectus of the Magazine, 1901.

Previous posts here have concerned fin de siècle art magazines like The Savoy, Pan and Jugend; yesterday we had Sergei Diaghilev so it seems fitting to mention Diaghilev’s own magazine, Mir Iskusstva (World of Art), founded in 1899 with similar intentions to the European magazines which were highlighting developments in art beyond the academic sphere. Mir Iskusstva was also the name of the Russian art group who used the magazine as their forum, and a number of the artists involved in the movement, notably Léon Bakst, Ivan Bilibin and Nicholas Roerich, went on to work for Diaghilev at the Ballets Russes.

Cover by Léon Bakst for Mir iskusstva #8 (1902).

I find this later development especially fascinating since it positions the magazine as a precursor to the groundbreaking works which followed rather than being—as so many periodicals were and still are—a publication which had its moment of glory then faded from view. Of the works shown here, Vrubel’s Symbolist Demon, one of several painted by the artist, was featured in a 1903 edition of the magazine, whilst the Bakst painting, depicting the destruction of Atlantis, shows a Symbolist side to an artist who later became far better known for his Ballets Russes costume designs.

Demon (1902) by Mikhail Vrubel.

Unlike the other magazines mentioned above, I’ve yet to come across a cache of whole editions of Mir Iskusstva (and I’m still waiting for Ver Sacrum to turn up somewhere). This page has an overview of the Russian art movement and its journal, while this page has a selection of works by the artists involved. For more of Vrubel’s work, Wikimedia Commons has the best collection of the artist’s paintings and sculpture.

Terror Antiquus (1908) by Léon Bakst.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes
• Pamela Colman Smith’s Russian Ballet
• The art of Ivan Bilibin, 1876–1942
• Magic carpet ride
• Le Sacre du Printemps
• Images of Nijinsky

The art of Karel de Nerée tot Babberich, 1880–1909

Judith (no date).

Another Decadent type who died young, de Nerée was a Dutch artist and illustrator whose work in these pictures owes a great deal to Aubrey Beardsley. As Beardsley-influenced pieces go they’re rather crude, although it’s unfair to be too judgemental since there’s so little of his work available to see online. Following yesterday’s post, it’s inevitable that he produced a Salomé picture of his own but there’s no sign of that, the curiously space-age (or alien) Judith above is the closest you’ll get.

Introduction to Extaze (1900-01).

On the strength of these drawings I’d probably have de Nerée down as a post-Beardsley pasticheur similar to Alastair (aka Hans Henning Voigt) but there’s another side to his output evident in his painted works which show a far more assured Symbolist style, with a figurative approach closer to another Dutch artist of the period, Jan Toorop. It’s a shame the photos there are little more than snapshots, I’d like to see more of these. The Wikipedia article has a couple more drawings, and there’s another Beardsley-esque piece here.

La musique (1904).

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrator’s archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• More decorated books from the Netherlands