{ feuilleton }

Hiatus

Ho hum. Internet problems here mean posting will be sporadic for the next few days. My apologies. In the meantime the archive feature has been activated to bring up posts from the past. Stay tuned.

Update: Still contending with a week of All The Technical Problems, not only internet-related but things like my main work computer throwing kernel panics like they’re going out of fashion. Consequently I’ve been rather preoccupied while I attempt to get back to the usual operational status and do important things like attend to deadlines. It’ll still be a few more days before there’s further activity here, I’m afraid. Stay tuned.

Update 2: UK residents will tell you that the iniquities of British Telecom are like Walt Whitman’s contradictions: vast and multitudinous. All being well, however, normal service should be resumed here on the 20th.

Paul Konewka’s Faust

Discovered via the GoetheZeitPortal, these illustrations for Faust by German artist Paul Konewka (1841–1871) date from 1865, although the copies here are from a later edition. Konewka was a silhouette cutter so while these may look like ink illustrations they’re actually paper silhouettes displaying a formidable level of detail and complexity. Whatever the technique, the story itself is immediately recognisable from the characters even if none of the more dramatic scenes are represented. There aren’t many books you could treat in this fashion since the story has to be almost universally familiar; Shakespeare would be an obvious candidate—Konewka subsequently produced illustrations for A Midsummer Night’s Dream—fairy tales (like Arthur Rackham’s Sleeping Beauty), and also Lewis Carroll’s Alice books come to mind.

The copies shown here are from another shoddy Google scan at the Internet Archive but you do get to see all the pages. The Goethe site has better copies of the illustrations.

Continue reading “Paul Konewka’s Faust”

Walpurgisnacht

Walpurgisnacht (1917) by Amadeus.

April 30th gives me an opportunity to repost this drawing by “Amadeus” which could easily have come from an underground magazine of the late 60s. The works below are some of the many Faust-related illustrations at GoetheZeitPortal, a great resource although it helps if you can read a little German to navigate. This page has more Hexentanz scenes, while the complete series of Franz Xaver Simm’s academic illustrations may be seen here. Over at 50 Watts there’s Stefan Eggeler’s illustrations for Gustav Meyrink’s Walpurgisnacht (1917).

Walpurgisnacht (1897) by Albert Welti.

Walpurgisnacht (1899) by Franz Xaver Simm.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The art of Luis Ricardo Falero, 1851–1896
• Weel done, Cutty-sark!

Lines and colours

OMG Particles II.

From the Algorithms Are Fun Dept., some of the more colourful examples of script pyrotechnics and coding samples at mbostock’s pages. Many of the routines have data-crunching applications but a few eye-candy pieces may be found among them. What’s most surprising is how many of them work immediately, and also operate at great speed which makes them difficult to capture in screen grabs. Via Coudal.

Lorenz Toy.

Transform Transitions.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Eyecandy
• The Kaleidoplex
• Colorscreen

The art of Jean-Michel Mathieux-Marie

Limbroglio (URBS V).

Drypoint prints by a French artist who also has a nice line in moody renderings of European cities—Paris, Venice, Rome—which occasionally stray into architectural speculation. Outright fantasia is more evident in these mysterious views more of which may be seen at the Velly gallery.

Les grandes Manoeuvres.

Paysage aux mollusques.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The fantastic art archive