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Thirteen views of snow

Lingering Snow at Asukayama, from the series Eight Views of the Environs of Edo (1837–38) by Utagawa Hiroshige.

We’ve had one of our mild falls of snow this week, hence the subject. Snow is a very common theme in Japanese prints, a part of the cultural interest in all the different aspects of the yearly seasons. There are many more examples out there.

Mountains and Rivers of Kiso (1857) by Utagawa Hiroshige.

Plovers Flying Across a River above Snow-Laden Reeds, from the series Worlds of Things (1909–10) by Kamisaka Sekka.

Snowy Ravine at Harinoki, from the series Twelve Scenes in the Japan Alps (1926) by Hiroshi Yoshida.

Snow at Shiba Park, Tokyo (1930) by Kawase Hasui.

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Weekend links 811

A still from The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926), a feature-length animated film by Lotte Reiniger.

• Hélice 39 is a speculative-fiction journal (in Spanish) whose current issue includes an article by Marcelo Sanchez: “What did Borges think of Lovecraft?”

• Among the new titles at Standard Ebooks, the home of free, high-quality, public-domain texts: The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett.

• Old music: Hydrophony For Dagon by Max Eastley & Michael Prime; The Adventures Of Prince Achmed by Morricone Youth.

• Public Domain Review lists some of the writers whose works will enter the public domain this year.

• “Modern Japanese Printmakers celebrates vibrant mid-20th-century innovation“.

• At Nautilus: “Here’s what’s happening in the brain when you’re improvising.”

• At the BFI: Pamela Hutchinson selects 10 great films of 1926.

• New music: The Future Is Now by Pietro Zollo.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Phil Solomon Day.

• 2026 is the Year of the Fire Horse.

• Runaway Horses (“poetry written with a splash of blood”) (1985) by Philip Glass | Unicorns Were Horses (1996) by New Kingdom | Red Horse (2002) by Jack Rose

02026

The Basket of Bread (1926) by Salvador Dalí.

Happy new year. 02026? An affectation via the Long Now.

The Cello Player (1926) by Edwin Dickinson.

Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden (1926) by Otto Dix.

The Virgin Spanking the Christ Child before Three Witnesses: André Breton, Paul Eluard and the Artist (1926) by Max Ernst.

The Musician’s Table (1926) by Juan Gris.

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The art of Benvenuto Disertori (1887–1969)

L’arco di Tito (1918).

Benvenuto Disertori was an Italian artist with a parallel career as a musicologist. I forget how his prints came to my attention but they’re just the kind of thing I like to see: meticulous monochrome views with an emphasis on architecture and eroded mineral surfaces. Some printmakers tend to concentrate on a single medium—wood engraving, for example—but Disertori embraced a wide range of etching and engraving techniques. Once again, the influence of Piranesi is discernible in some of these views (another point in their favour), especially those that depict Roman ruins or older Italian buildings like the medieval towers in San Gimignano.

Il Pensatore (1909).

L’edera (1911–13).

Gubbio. La Campanella di S. Giovanni Battista (1912-13).

La Nicchia (1913).

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Weekend links 810

Image of a Spherical Black Hole with Thin Accretion Disk (1979) by Jean-Pierre Luminet. Via.

• “I would be willing to bet that every student of fantastic fiction has at some point in his or her career read a book with the name EF Bleiler printed on its cover.” Brian J. Showers of Swan River Press talked to EF Bleiler in 2005.

• “James Webb Space Telescope confirms 1st ‘runaway’ supermassive black hole rocketing through ‘Cosmic Owl’ galaxies at 2.2 million mph.”

• “You have to be ready to see it”: Abel Ferrara and Catherine Breillat on why Pasolini’s Salò is a gift that keeps giving.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Kosten Koper presents…Bill Nelson: Acquitted By Mirrors (1982–1987).

• At Skurrilsteer: Ongoing research into the life, work and legacy of Edward James.

• At The Daily Heller: All that jazzy record cover design.

• Cygnus X-1 (1977) by Rush | Blackhole Dropout (1979) by Tod Dockstader | The Competition Of Supermassive Black Holes And Galactic Spheroids In The Destruction of Globular Clusters (1999) by Jah Wobble