{ feuilleton }

Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration #12

Continuing the delve into back numbers of Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, the German periodical of art and decoration. Volume 12 covers the period from April 1903 to September 1903, and this edition opens with a feature on the French Art Nouveau artist and designer George de Feure. This is followed by more from sculptor Franz Metzner including some of his designs for Germany’s many Bismarck monuments. Earlier volumes of DK&D have featured similar Bismarck designs by other architects but they tend to be as ponderous as you’d expect, the kind of thing which nationalists of the time would have found grand but which to our eyes look either pompous or—at their worst—quasi-fascist. Another feature on artist Paul Bürck finishes the edition. As before, anyone wishing to see these samples in greater detail is advised to download the entire volume at the Internet Archive. There’ll be more DK&D next week.

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The Ursulines’ winter garden

Another winter garden, this addition to the Institute of the Ursulines, a Catholic school in Onze-Lieve-Vrouw-Waver, Belgium, is a lot smaller than previous examples but is celebrated for its beautiful Art Nouveau-styled stained glass canopy. The winter garden was added to the main building in 1900 and—surprisingly—no one seems to know who the architect was. The photo above is by Eddy Van 3000 from Wikimedia Commons, while the one below is from the same photographer’s Flickr set showing many other views of a building which is only open to the public one day a year.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Hothouse panoramas
• Ludwig’s Winter Garden
• The Schönbrunn Palm House
• The Royal Greenhouses of Laeken

Ave Arthur!

The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon (detail, 1881–1898) by Edward Burne-Jones.

Arthur magazine announced its demise this week: “He died as he lived—free, high and a-dreaming of love, ’neath vultures’ terrible gaze.” The magazine lapsed for a while in 2007 then returned but this time it seems things are more permanent. Running a magazine of any kind is never easy, and they don’t always last long—the UK run of the legendary Oz only managed 48 issues to Arthur‘s 32—but it’s a dismal fact that certain tastes are rarely catered for or encouraged in this world. Supermarkets stock multiple titles devoted to women’s hair or tin boxes with wheels but you’ll have to hunt elsewhere for copies of Sight & Sound or The Wire. This isn’t a sign of any kind of new barbarism, if you look to history you’ll find The Savoy magazine publishing Aubrey Beardsley’s art and literature alongside contributions from future Nobel Prize winners yet it only managed eight issues; New Worlds magazine struggled during its run in the 1960s and 1970s, and while it may never have officially died (not while Michael Moorcock lives and breathes) it’s safe to say that it would struggle anew if re-launched today. If this is the end then let’s celebrate what’s been done, and hope it may inspire something new.

Issues #1–25.

The Arthur archives will be available online in the future. In the meantime, the favourites among my own contributions were MBV Arkestra (cover illustration), The Aeon of Horus, Out, Demons, Out (cover illustration), Brian Eno, and Sir Richard Bishop.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Savoy magazine
• Dodgem Logic
• The Realist
• A wake for Arthur
• Oz magazine, 1967-73

Splendor Solis

Venus: The Peacock’s Tail.

The Tarot-like illustrations to the Splendor Solis, a 16th-century alchemical manuscript, have fascinated me for years, ever since I saw them reproduced in the pages of Man, Myth & Magic. Despite their familiarity, the copies online are less than satisfactory, mostly poor scans from books with inconsistent colours. Given the amount of original alchemical documents being made available by the world’s libraries it’s only a matter of time until a decent set of reproductions turn up. Until then there’s a complete set of the plates here with details about the book and links to further information. As usual, if anyone finds better copies—preferably from a copy of the original text—please leave a comment.

The Black Sun.

Hermaphrodite with Egg.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae
• Cabala, Speculum Artis Et Naturae In Alchymia
• Digital alchemy

Hothouse panoramas

Kew Gardens, London, by Davide Cornacchini.

I would have done this earlier if I hadn’t been distracted. Favourite panorama site 360 Cities doesn’t have any views of the Laeken greenhouses but they do have a view of a capacious interior of the Palm House at Kew Gardens, London. And as a follow-up to the post about the Schönbrunn Palm House, panorama photographer Bernhard Vogl shows us several views of that distinctive building, inside and out.

Schönbrunn Palm House, Vienna, by Bernhard Vogl.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The panoramas archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Ludwig’s Winter Garden
• The Schönbrunn Palm House
• The Royal Greenhouses of Laeken