{"id":20332,"date":"2021-01-21T16:38:55","date_gmt":"2021-01-21T16:38:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/?p=20332"},"modified":"2025-09-21T14:18:34","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T13:18:34","slug":"beksinski-at-mnemos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2021\/01\/21\/beksinski-at-mnemos\/","title":{"rendered":"Beksi\u0144ski at Mn\u00e9mos"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"mnemos2.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

More book covers. Mn\u00e9mos<\/a> is a French publisher of horror, fantasy and science fiction some of whose recent titles have their covers filled with paintings by the great Polish artist Zdzis\u0142aw Beksi\u0144ski. The pairings of book and picture aren’t always ideal but I appreciate the impulse to choose art from other sources than genre artists. Omni<\/em> magazine adopted a similar approach in its early issues, matching stories and science features with paintings by artists who are often grouped together as Fantastic Realists: Mati Klarwein, Ernst Fuchs, HR Giger, Bob Venosa, De Es Schwertberger and others. Beksi\u0144ski’s work was less visible in the late 1970s than that of his contemporaries but one of his (always untitled) paintings did appear in a 1993 issue of the magazine.<\/p>\n

\"mnemos1.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Of the Mn\u00e9mos covers the one for the collection of Averoigne stories by Clark Ashton Smith is the most immediately fitting, Averoigne being an invented region of France that suits a painting of a Gothic cathedral turned fibrous and fungal. The painting for Zothique<\/em>, on the other hand, could easily be used for HP Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness<\/em>, while the dog-like creature on the cover of the Frank Belknap Long collection is nothing like the author’s trans-dimensional hounds. Mn\u00e9mos have given Lovecraft his own Beksi\u0144ski covers in a seven-volume collection of translated fiction, Lovecraft, l’int\u00e9grale prestige<\/em><\/a>, but there doesn’t seem to be a page anywhere that shows the individual books.<\/p>\n

\"mnemos4.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What the artist would have made of all this attention may be gauged by comments like this one from The Fantastic Art of\u00a0Beksi\u0144ski<\/em> (1998): “Meaning is meaningless to me. I do not care for symbolism, and I paint what I paint without meditating on a story.”<\/p>\n

\"mnemos3.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For more about the anti-symbolist, see The Cursed Paintings of Zdzis\u0142aw Beksi\u0144ski<\/a> by Marek Kepa.<\/p>\n

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

Previously on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 Cosmic music and cosmic horror<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More book covers. Mn\u00e9mos is a French publisher of horror, fantasy and science fiction some of whose recent titles have their covers filled with paintings by the great Polish artist Zdzis\u0142aw Beksi\u0144ski. The pairings of book and picture aren’t always ideal but I appreciate the impulse to choose art from other sources than genre artists. … Continue reading “Beksi\u0144ski at Mn\u00e9mos”<\/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":"New blog post: Beksinski at Mn\u00e9mos","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":[2,42,22,26,44],"tags":[11162,1279,2654,724,5770,1687,720,11163,295,11161,2298],"class_list":["post-20332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-books","category-horror","category-lovecraft","category-painting","tag-bob-venosa","tag-clark-ashton-smith","tag-de-es-schwertberger","tag-ernst-fuchs","tag-frank-belknap-long","tag-hp-lovecraft","tag-hr-giger","tag-marek-kepa","tag-mati-klarwein","tag-mnemos","tag-zdzislaw-beksinski"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-5hW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20332","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=20332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20332\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}