{painting} – Page 95 – { feuilleton }

The art of Jean Boullet, 1921–1970

From Antinous (1954).

A few drawings and paintings by Jean Boullet, a prolific French illustrator who was also a writer—passionate about “sexology, conjuring, magic, demonology, and mythology”, says Wikipédia—and a film critic. His illustrations range from books by Raymond Radiguet, Boris Vian and Edgar Allan Poe to unabashed homoerotic collections of his own, one of which, Tapis volant (1945), has an introduction by Jean Cocteau. Boullet’s figures are very Cocteau-like, especially those depicting the sailors which Cocteau also liked to draw and fantasise about. The Au Bonheur du Jour gallery has many pages of Boullet’s drawings and publications, while Bibliothèque Gay has several posts showing complete sets of drawings from some of his books. Many of the artist’s drawings circulating without credit on the web seem to originate there. Don’t miss Metamorphoses (1950).

• See also: The Male Universe of Subversive Genius Jean Boullet by Julien Beyle.

Portrait of Jean Marais.

Portrait of Kenneth Anger.

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The Hell Courtesan

The Enlightenment of Jigoku-dayu (1890) from the series New Forms of Thirty-six Ghosts by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi.

Jigoku-dayu of Takasu was a courtesan adopted by the Zen Priest Ikkyu (1394–1481), who converted her to a religious life and gave her a literary education. She is seated in meditation with a ghostly vision of a procession of the skeletons of a courtesan and her entourage, thus showing her the impermanence of life.

Jigoku-dayu is portrayed here as a high-ranking courtesan. Her white robe is embossed with fine key patterns and her outer robe is decorated with the Goddess of Mercy on the front and at the back with scenes of hell. Her name consists of Jigoku (hell), a term for the lowest form of unlicensed prostitute and dayu (respect) for a courtesan of the highest rank. (via)

See also Junko Mizuno‘s contemporary drawings of Jigoku-dayu.

Jigoku-dayu (date?) by Kawanabe Kyosai.

Jigoku-dayu (another version) by Kawanabe Kyosai.

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Dunes

Sand Dunes near Boulogne-sur-Mer, France (c. 1870) by Joséphine Bowes.

Dunes. Having visited the sand dunes that run along the French and Belgian coast it’s notable how much dune art has taken them as a subject. Belgian Symbolist Léon Spilliaert returned to them frequently, and managed to invest the littoral with a greater sense of mystery than many of his contemporaries.

Dune Landscape (1911) by Piet Mondrian.

Girls on a Dune (1913) by Léon Spilliaert.

Dunes, Oceano (1936) by Edward Weston.

Dune (1961) by Alexander MacKenzie.

Pale Dunes (1970) by Ronnie Landfield.

Midsummer

A statue of the Great God Pan looks down on the teeming chaos of Joseph Noel Paton’s The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania (1849), one of many 19th-century paintings based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Paton’s canvas gives Richard Dadd a run for his money in its wealth of incident and grotesque detail (see the big version at Wikipedia), and the artist returned to the theme a few years later with the equally excessive Fairy Raid (below). The later painting presumably depicts the kidnapping of the Changeling which Oberon and Titania quarrel over.

While we’re on the subject, a couple of years ago I wanted to link to the amazing fairy scene in William Dieterle’s 1935 film (which supposedly features Kenneth Anger as the Changeling) but it wasn’t on YouTube. Now you can watch it here.

The Midsummer Night’s Fairies (detail, 1847) by Robert Huskisson.

The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania (1849) by Joseph Noel Paton.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (c. 1860) by W. Balls.

The Fairy Raid: Carrying Off a Changeling, Midsummer Eve (1867) by Joseph Noel Paton.

Midsummer Morn, Bushy Park (1905) by George Dunlop Leslie.

Midsummer’s Eve Bonfire on Skagen’s Beach (1906) by PS Krøyer.

Midsummer Night, Lofoten, Norway (no date) by Adelsteen Normann.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Max Reinhardt’s Dream
• The Midsummer Chronophage
• Another Midsummer Night
• A Midsummer Night’s Dadd
• William Heath Robinson’s Midsummer Night’s Dream

More hypercubes

A few more extensions of the idea, not all of which have much to do with Hinton’s concepts beyond the name.

Salvador Dalí with hypercube (1952). Photo by Francesc Català-Roca.

Hypercubic Metropolis (2002) by Peter Gric.

HyperCube (2012) is an installation by artist Jaap van den Elzen and sound composer Augusto Meijer which combines the mirror room familiar from the work of Yayoi Kusama with changeable lighting and sound effects. See also Cube 2: Hypercube (2002) which concerns a group of people imprisoned in a tesseract.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Hinton’s hypercubes
• Infinite reflections