![\"vyletal11.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/vyletal11.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Hero is Afraid (1965).<\/em><\/p>\n Film posters by Czech artist Josef Vyle\u0165al (1940-1989) have appeared here in the past, but after watching Juraj Herz’s gloomily Gothic Beauty and the Beast<\/em> (1978) at the weekend\u2014a film for which Vyle\u0165al not only created a poster but also provided the title sequence and paintings seen within the film\u2014I thought the artist deserved a post of his own.<\/p>\n Josef Vyle\u0165al was a prolific poster artist and designer\u2014the Terry Posters website states that he created 115 designs for the cinema\u2014who also worked as a book illustrator. Between commercial assignments he produced paintings in a macabre Surrealist style that filtered into his commercial work, the Herz titles included. The absence of barriers between private obsessions and commercial imperatives is what makes the film posters created by Czech and Polish artists so attractive, as well as so surprising to Anglophone viewers. There’s no sense of these works being produced by committee, of a gaggle of marketing executives fretting over details behind the scenes. Some of Vyle\u0165al’s interpretations are so extreme and uncompromising by Hollywood standards it’s impossible to imagine even an adventurous chain like Alamo Drafthouse commissioning them, never mind a risk-averse studio. One of the designs I singled out for an earlier post is an ideal example, a poster for Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds<\/em> which dispenses with any visual reference to the film in favour of a liberal borrowing of the bird-headed figures from Max Ernst’s The Robing of the Bride<\/em>. It’s a commonplace when discussing the films of Jan \u0160vankmajer to situate the director in the history of Czech Surrealism which remained a clandestine movement during the Communist years. But Vyle\u0165al’s paintings demonstrate a confidence that the average Czech filmgoer could accept Surrealist imagery when being tempted by the latest fare from Hollywood.<\/p>\n The Naked Eye (1966).<\/em><\/p>\n Given my own tastes for Surrealist imagery many of the examples shown here tend in this direction. Vyle\u0165al was a versatile artist who utilised a number of different styles, including collage and a bold graphic style of black shapes on coloured backgrounds. In addition to borrowing from Ernst he also borrowed (or swiped) figures from Aubrey Beardsley on at least two occasions (see below). Most of the examples here are collages augmented by or combined with paint, collage being a quicker solution when faced with deadlines. Terry Posters<\/a> has many more examples.<\/p>\n The Black Tulip (1967).<\/em><\/p>\n The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1968).<\/em><\/p>\n The Trygon Factor (1968).<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Easy Rider (1968).<\/em><\/p>\n Charly (1968).<\/em><\/p>\n The Immortal Story (1968).<\/em><\/p>\n Our Crazy Family (1968).<\/em><\/p>\n Last Summer (1969).<\/em><\/p>\n The Birds (1970).<\/em><\/p>\n Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970).<\/em><\/p>\n Chariots of the Gods (1971).<\/em><\/p>\n The Poseidon Adventure (1972).<\/em><\/p>\n Amarcord (1973).<\/em><\/p>\n Lakeside Sonata (1977).<\/em><\/p>\n Beauty and the Beast (1978).<\/em><\/p>\n Previously on { feuilleton } The Hero is Afraid (1965). Film posters by Czech artist Josef Vyle\u0165al (1940-1989) have appeared here in the past, but after watching Juraj Herz’s gloomily Gothic Beauty and the Beast (1978) at the weekend\u2014a film for which Vyle\u0165al not only created a poster but also provided the title sequence and paintings seen within the film\u2014I … Continue reading “The poster art of Josef Vyle\u0165al”<\/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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,1029,4,7,44,18],"tags":[416,94,1320,1559,375,415,5097,461,112,123],"class_list":["post-19529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-collage","category-design","category-film","category-painting","category-surrealism","tag-alfred-hitchcock","tag-aubrey-beardsley","tag-bob-peak","tag-dr-mabuse","tag-jan-svankmajer","tag-josef-vyletal","tag-juraj-herz","tag-lucifer","tag-max-ernst","tag-salome"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-54Z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19529","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=19529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19529\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"vyletal07.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/vyletal07.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"vyletal13.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/vyletal13.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"vyletal01.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/vyletal01.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"vyletal12.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/vyletal12.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"vyletal06.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/vyletal06.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"vyletal04.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/vyletal04.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"vyletal14.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/vyletal14.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"vyletal10.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/vyletal10.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"vyletal15.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/vyletal15.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"vyletal05.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/vyletal05.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"vyletal17.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/vyletal17.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"vyletal03.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/vyletal03.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"vyletal16.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/vyletal16.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"vyletal02.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/vyletal02.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"vyletal08.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/vyletal08.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"vyletal09.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/vyletal09.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n\u2022 The poster art of Raymond Gid<\/a>
\n\u2022 High-Rise posters<\/a>
\n\u2022 Saragossa Manuscript posters<\/a>
\n\u2022 Parajanov posters<\/a>
\n\u2022 The poster art of Akiko Stehrenberger<\/a>
\n\u2022 La Belle et la B\u00eate posters<\/a>
\n\u2022 Dr Mabuse posters<\/a>
\n\u2022 The poster art of Frank McCarthy<\/a>
\n\u2022 Repulsion posters<\/a>
\n\u2022 The poster art of Vic Fair<\/a>
\n\u2022 Petulia film posters<\/a>
\n\u2022 Lucifer Rising posters<\/a>
\n\u2022 Wild Salom\u00e9s<\/a>
\n\u2022 Druillet\u2019s vampires<\/a>
\n\u2022 Bob Peak revisited<\/a>
\n\u2022 Alice in Acidland<\/a>
\n\u2022 Salom\u00e9 posters<\/a>
\n\u2022 Polish posters: Freedom on the Fence<\/a>
\n\u2022 Kaleidoscope: the switched-on thriller<\/a>
\n\u2022 The Robing of The Birds<\/a>
\n\u2022 Franciszek Starowieyski, 1930\u20132009<\/a>
\n\u2022 Dallamano\u2019s Dorian Gray<\/a>
\n\u2022 Czech film posters<\/a>
\n\u2022 The poster art of Richard Amsel<\/a>
\n\u2022 Bollywood posters<\/a>
\n\u2022 Lussuria, Invidia, Superbia<\/a>
\n\u2022 The poster art of Bob Peak<\/a>
\n\u2022 A premonition of Premonition<\/a>
\n\u2022 Metropolis posters<\/a>
\n\u2022 Film noir posters<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"