Manuel Orazi – { feuilleton }

Manuel Orazi’s Fleurs du Mal

This collection of Baudelaire’s poems with illustrations by French artist Manuel Orazi (1860–1934) didn’t turn up when I was searching for illustrated editions a few years ago. With over 50 full-page drawings or vignettes it’s more profusely illustrated than most. It’s also more determinedly erotic than most, concentrating on depictions of female flesh at the expense of the poet’s other themes; Orazi’s fleurs on the title pages are a succession of priapic or vaginal orchids and fungi. The book was published in 1934, which means it was probably the last thing that Orazi worked on, but it resembles something from the fin de siècle, especially the work of Félicien Rops. Browse it or download it here.

Continue reading “Manuel Orazi’s Fleurs du Mal”

Calendrier Magique

The Calendrier Magique was created in 1895 by Austin De Croze, with pages decorated and illustrated by Manuel Orazi. In addition to being a calendar for the year 1896, the booklet (which was printed in an edition of 777 copies) is also a fascinating bogus grimoire which did the internet rounds a few years ago when scans appeared on a sub-site hosted by Cornell University Library. While it was good to see the pages at all, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who would have preferred a closer look at the details, something which is now possible thanks to a recent upload at Gallica.

The Gallica copy is also downloadable as a PDF so there’s no need to replicate all the contents here. Something worth noting which did occur to me when I first saw Orazi’s drawings was the striking similarity of the letterform sigils and the doodle-like figure below to the later, more seriously-intended occult art of Austin Spare. Neither Orazi nor the Calendrier Magique receives a mention in Phil Baker’s biography of Spare but a copy of the calendar could have made its way to a London book shop where Spare might have seen it.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Typefaces of the occult revival
• Manuel Orazi’s Salomé
• La belle sans nom

La Morphine by Victorien du Saussay

Manuel Orazi’s illustrations (above and below) have been travelling the recursive paths of the Tumblr labyrinth recently. I was hoping to find covers for other editions but the third image here (from 1930) is the only one that’s turned up. La Morphine, Vices et passions des morphinomanes by Victorien du Saussay was published in 1906, and is described by Barbara Hodgson as “a stark novel of addiction, failed cures, incest, indecent exposure and adultery” (In the Arms of Morpheus: The Tragic History of Laudanum, Morphine, and Patent Medicines (2001)). Orazi apparently produced 22 interior illustrations but (again) they don’t appear to be available for the moment.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The book covers archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Haschisch Hallucinations by HE Gowers
• Manuel Orazi’s Salomé
• Demon rum leads to heroin
• La belle sans nom
• German opium smokers, 1900

The weekend artists

Flower Me Gently (2010) by Linn Olofsdotter.

Yes, this is one of those lazy end-of-year retrospectives, a look back at all the artists whose work was highlighted in the weekend posts for 2011. Thanks to BibliOdyssey, Form is Void and 50 Watts for so often pointing the way.

Blasphemous Rumours (2009/2010) by Ryan Martin. The artist now has a dedicated site for his paintings.

DG-2499 (1975) by the fantastic (in every sense of the word) Zdzislaw Beksinski (1929–2005). See the Dmochowski Gallery for a comprehensive collection of the artist’s work.

Continue reading “The weekend artists”

Virgil Finlay’s Salomé

While chasing down Virgil Finlay’s illustration for Lovecraft’s The Colour Out of Space earlier this week I came across another Finlay drawing I’d not noticed before in a book I’ve owned for years. Makes me wonder what else is lurking on the shelves. Finlay’s depiction of Salomé was an illustration for Waxworks, a story by Robert Bloch published in Weird Tales for January 1939. I’ve never read much of Bloch’s fiction, this story included, so can’t say anything about it, but Finlay’s drawing impresses for the solid black night sky, and the peculiar flaming headdress, the kind of unique detail he often added to his pictures.

Bloch and Finlay had a memorable encounter a couple of years years before when Finlay illustrated The Faceless God, another Weird Tales piece which so impressed HP Lovecraft that it inspired a poem, To Mr. Finlay, Upon His Drawing for Mr. Bloch’s Tale, ‘The Faceless God’. Lovecraft’s handwritten draft can be seen (but not necessarily read) here.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The Salomé archive