{"id":11552,"date":"2012-06-12T04:26:22","date_gmt":"2012-06-12T03:26:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/?p=11552"},"modified":"2012-06-13T13:57:08","modified_gmt":"2012-06-13T12:57:08","slug":"recovering-viriconium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2012\/06\/12\/recovering-viriconium\/","title":{"rendered":"Recovering Viriconium"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"viriconium01.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Detail from Assassination in the Night (c. 1600?) by Mons\u00f9 Desiderio.<\/em><\/p>\n

Yesterday’s post looked at some of the past cover designs for M. John Harrison’s Viriconium books. This post makes a few suggestions for how they might be presented in the future. Since these are mostly covers that I’d like to see they’re not necessarily ideal for the audience a publisher might be aiming at, cover design is usually a three-way process involving designer, author and publisher. In the end I’ve resisted the temptation to draft a range of original cover proposals\u2014writing these posts has taken long enough\u2014so almost everything here uses pre-existing art. If I was<\/em> designing covers for all four Viriconium books, however, and the brief was to orient them towards a fantasy readership, the first thing I’d try would be a series of four imaginary Tarot designs. A peculiar pack of Tarot cards is a recurrent feature of the books so I’d create four emblematic cards that featured significant elements and characters from each. The characters wouldn’t be too well defined, they’d be stylised, maybe even silhouettes. Each card would feature a dominant presence: offhand these would be one of the geteit chemosit<\/em> for The Pastel City<\/em>, a locust for A Storm of Wings<\/em>, the Barley Brothers for In Viriconium<\/em> and a Mari Lwyd horse skull for Viriconium Nights<\/em>. These presences together with the human characters would loom over a silhouette city at the foot of each card whose outlines would change appearance from book to book, evolving gradually from a fantastic outline of domes and towers to something that resembles a contemporary city. The colours and treatments would show a similar evolution from the bright and bold styles of the Pamela Colman Smith<\/a> Tarot deck to something more photographic, collaged from elements closer to our world. Maybe.<\/p>\n

That’s an idea for the four individual books. All the examples here use the convenience of the omnibus edition so a single image (or pair of images) has to somehow represent the entire series. To save time and effort I’ve taken the liberty of hijacking a couple of Penguin Books layouts. I hope Penguin doesn’t mind, and I should also apologise to Harrison’s UK publishers, Gollancz, for making one of their authors jump ship. The Viriconium omnibus is certainly good enough to be considered a modern classic. Penguin’s recent template for its Modern Classics series happens to be very easy to apply to a wide range of artwork.<\/p>\n

\"viriconium04.jpg\"<\/p>\n

The Anti-Pope (1942) by Max Ernst.<\/em><\/p>\n

Penguin has a long tradition of using pre-existing art on its covers, especially on those in its Penguin Classics series. You can almost make this into a parlour game: match your favourite novel with the best choice of painting. The tradition was extended to its science fiction titles<\/a> in the early 1960s when the art of Max Ernst was featured several times along with the work of other Surrealists. Max Ernst is a favourite artist of mine so this is one I can’t resist. Many of Ernst’s decalcomania paintings of the 1940s would suit Viriconium but The Anti-Pope<\/em> with its horse heads seems especially suitable.<\/p>\n

Also on the Penguin sf covers was a picture by the mysterious “Mons\u00f9 Desiderio” one of whose works can be seen at the top of this post. Desiderio was a 17th-century painter with a vague enough presence\u2014works have been attributed to both Fran\u00e7ois de Nom\u00e9 and Didier Barra\u2014and a line in gloomy architectural fantasias to make him an ideal Viriconium artist.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"viriconium09.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Illustration for Edgar Allan Poe’s The Man in the Crowd (1923) by Harry Clarke.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is a cheat since it belongs with a Poe story but Harry Clarke is an artist far more suited to Viriconium than Aubrey Beardsley (see yesterday’s covers). Poe’s The Man in the Crowd<\/em> concerns a pursuit through the worst areas of London, something that Clarke depicts with his customary skill<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"viriconium03.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Detail from Hive Assault by Ian Miller.<\/em><\/p>\n

For a more contemporary look there’s the estimable Ian Miller<\/a> again, many of whose works would make fitting covers. This one is particularly good.<\/p>\n

\"viriconium06.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Detail from Red Flow (2002) by Clive Hicks-Jenkins.<\/em><\/p>\n

As noted yesterday, the sheeted horse skull known in Welsh folklore as the Mari Lwyd is an increasingly sinister presence in Harrison’s later fiction so I had to try using one of Clive Hicks-Jenkins’ superb drawings from his Mari Lwyd series<\/a>. As with Ian Miller, many of these drawings would work although I imagine a publisher might find them too dark and oppressive. My thanks to Clive for letting me borrow his art.<\/p>\n

\"viriconium07.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Detail from The Friends Gather (2001) by Clive Hicks-Jenkins.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"viriconium08.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Metamorphosis (1973) by Wilfried S\u00e4tty.<\/em><\/p>\n

Then there’s the collage approach. Viriconium is a collage city so it seems an obvious move to reflect this on the cover although to date only Ian Miller has taken the initiative with his pages for The Luck in the Head<\/em>. S\u00e4tty is another personal favourite but there are plenty of other collage artists out there whose work might suit. The picture was a quick choice from the Time Zone<\/em> book with a colour overlay applied. Ideally the collage would be an original piece more closely tied to the books.<\/p>\n

\"viriconium02.jpg\"<\/p>\n

The Jantar Mantar, Jaipur (1928) photographed by Martin Hurlimann.<\/em><\/p>\n

The architectural\/photographic approach. Lots of choice here: Eug\u00e8ne Atget’s Paris<\/a>, Karel Plicka’s Prague<\/a>, Bill Brandt’s Halifax<\/a>, etc. or combinations of the same either together or with others. The Jantar Mantar<\/a> is an 18th-century garden of astronomical instruments in Jaipur, India. Alternatively there might be some collaged arrangement of street maps of real cities with a bold typographic treatment for the titles.<\/p>\n

\"viriconium05.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Beetle helm by Ian Miller.<\/em><\/p>\n

With recent designs I’ve been using metallic inks more frequently (as with this CD and vinyl collection<\/a>) to emphasise the tactile and material advantages that real books and CDs have over their virtual equivalents. This isn’t always an option since special inks add to the cost of production but when possible they make a significant difference. For these last two suggestions the idea would be to use metallic gold printed on black, or black ink printed on metallic gold. The background picture is another of Atget’s Paris photographs\u2014many similar pictures might be used\u2014with Ian Miller’s splendid beetle helm from his Green Dog Trumpet<\/em> book. I like this combination of the fantastic and the prosaic. And that’s the challenge if you’re going to do something original for this single volume: how best to combine those two polarities.<\/p>\n

\"viriconium10.jpg\"<\/p>\n

This doesn’t exhaust the possibilities but I hope it shows you don’t always have to take the well-worn path. Some additional suggestions have been offered by commenters at the Ambiente Hotel<\/a>. Meanwhile, there’s a new M. John Harrison novel, Empty Space<\/em>, due from Gollancz next month. (Read an extract here<\/a>.) I think we’re about due for a reprint of Viriconium<\/em> as well. Over to you, publishers.<\/p>\n

Update:<\/strong> Further discussion at the MJH blog<\/a>. Fascinating seeing how people react to these suggestions.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 The book covers archive<\/a><\/p>\n

Previously on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 Covering Viriconium<\/a>
\n\u2022 The angels in their anguish<\/a>
\n\u2022 Wilfried S\u00e4tty: Artist of the occult<\/a>
\n\u2022 The art of Ian Miller<\/a>
\n\u2022 Giant mantis invades Prague<\/a>
\n\u2022 Nova Swing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Detail from Assassination in the Night (c. 1600?) by Mons\u00f9 Desiderio. Yesterday’s post looked at some of the past cover designs for M. John Harrison’s Viriconium books. This post makes a few suggestions for how they might be presented in the future. Since these are mostly covers that I’d like to see they’re not necessarily … Continue reading “Recovering Viriconium”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,2,42,51,1029,4,21,44,12,18,23],"tags":[94,3790,767,93,1822,99,723,3789,2291,3788,112,3787,547,633,552,2232,102],"class_list":["post-11552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","category-art","category-books","category-cities","category-collage","category-design","category-fantasy","category-painting","category-photography","category-surrealism","category-work","tag-aubrey-beardsley","tag-bill-brandt","tag-clive-hicks-jenkins","tag-edgar-allan-poe","tag-eugene-atget","tag-harry-clarke","tag-ian-miller","tag-karel-plicka","tag-m-john-harrison","tag-martin-hurlimann","tag-max-ernst","tag-monsu-desiderio","tag-pamela-colman-smith","tag-penguin-books","tag-tarot","tag-viriconium","tag-wilfried-satty"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-30k","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11552\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}