Edmund White: On fire with desire
Imagining Stephen Crane’s lost gay novel.
Men with snakes
Laocoön and His Sons attributed to Agesander, Athenodoros
and Polydorus of Rhodes (c. 160–20 BCE).
No jokes about snakes in a frame, please. Bram Dijkstra’s Idols of Perversity: Fantasies of Feminine Evil in Fin de Siècle Culture (1986) is a wide-ranging study of the “iconography of misogyny” in 19th century painting. Dijkstra examines the numerous ways that women were depicted in late Victorian and Symbolist art, with one chapter, “Connoisseurs and Bestiality and Serpentine Delights”, being devoted to representations of women with animals, especially snakes. The story of Eve and the Serpent prompts many of these latter images, of course, while scenes with other creatures seem intended to demonstrate the Victorian attitude that woman was closer to the brute beasts than man and could often be found conspiring with them to bring down her masculine masters. Continue reading “Men with snakes”
The art of John Bauer, 1882–1918
A Young Prince Went Riding out in the Moonlight.
A Swedish artist whose fairytale illustrations were an influence upon later book illustrators from Arthur Rackham to Brian Froud. More pictures here and yet more at Art Passions.
• Bud Plant’s John Bauer page
• The John Bauer Museum
Dragon.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive
The recurrent pose 6
Further examples of the Flandrin pose from photographer Amat Nimitpark. Not sure what’s going on in the picture above but the scene below finds a use for a nearly-nude male that would no doubt have surprised Jean Hippolyte Flandrin. Needless to say, I can think of a few other uses for this blue-eyed boy…
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The recurrent pose archive
Shriek: The Movie
Not to be confused with animated junk that’s long outstayed its welcome, this is a short film based on Jeff VanderMeer‘s fantasy novel Shriek: An Afterword. I helped design Jeff’s City of Saints and Madmen, his first book concerning the city of Ambergris. Shriek is set in the same city and is just as sophisticated a piece of fiction as its predecessor and with a similarly unique flavour. Shriek: The Movie is more than a promotional device, it’s a self-contained narrative that does a great job of introducing some of the atmosphere of Ambergris without spoiling things by being too literal.
A city at war with itself. A night beyond imagining. And… aftermath. A short indie film about memory and transformation by Finnish director J.T. Lindroos, from a screenplay by Jeff VanderMeer, with an original soundtrack by the legendary art-rock band The Church. The film opens with Janice Shriek typing up her memoirs from the backroom of a bar, and being interrupted by bar patrons (played by Steve Kilbey and Tim Powles from The Church!). Influenced by early surrealist films. Set in Jeff VanderMeer’s fantastical city of Ambergris.
Voice cast includes Kathleen Martin as Janice Shriek and Steve Kilbey & Tim Powles from The Church. With character images by Elizabeth Hand and Rick Wallace, and art by Scott Eagle, Steve Kilbey, and others.