{"id":3434,"date":"2008-08-20T01:49:32","date_gmt":"2008-08-20T00:49:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2008\/08\/20\/the-art-of-mahlon-blaine-1894%e2%80%931969\/"},"modified":"2009-09-03T17:49:40","modified_gmt":"2009-09-03T16:49:40","slug":"the-art-of-mahlon-blaine-1894-1969","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2008\/08\/20\/the-art-of-mahlon-blaine-1894-1969\/","title":{"rendered":"The art of Mahlon Blaine, 1894\u20131969"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.all-art.org\/art_20th_century\/mahlon1.html\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/08\/blaine.jpg\" alt=\"blaine.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Nova Venus (1938).<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I doubt that illustrator Mahlon Blaine featured in any of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2008\/08\/16\/kafkas-porn-unveiled\/\">scurrilous porn books<\/a> in Franz Kafka&#8217;s collection\u2014he would have been too young, for a start\u2014but his erotic work isn&#8217;t so far removed from some of the artists of <em>The Amethyst<\/em> and <em>Opals<\/em>. As usual with obscure talents of this period it&#8217;s good to know that someone has already done the required legwork in assembling biographical details. The always reliable Bud Plant has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bpib.com\/illustra2\/blaine.htm\" target=\"_blank\">a page about Mahlon Blaine&#8217;s life and work<\/a>, and there&#8217;s also a website, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mahlonblaine.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Outlandish Art of Mahlon Blaine<\/a>. Blaine&#8217;s quality control is variable but there&#8217;s a trace of the usual suspects in many of these drawings, notably <a href=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2006\/10\/29\/the-art-of-harry-clarke-1889-1931\/\">Harry Clarke<\/a> and, occasionally, the etiolated shade of the Divine Aubrey. (Beardsley, to you.) Similarities too to contemporaries such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2007\/01\/31\/fantazius-mallare-and-the-kingdom-of-evil\/\">Wallace Smith<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2007\/05\/23\/the-art-of-john-austen-1886-1948\/\">John Austen<\/a>, both of whom owe a debt to Clarke and Beardsley. The drawing above comes from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.all-art.org\/art_20th_century\/mahlon1.html\" target=\"_blank\">this gallery<\/a> which is among the better sets available.<\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere on { feuilleton }<br \/>\n\u2022 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/the-illustrators-archive\/\">The illustrators archive<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Previously on { feuilleton }<br \/>\n\u2022 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2008\/08\/16\/kafkas-porn-unveiled\/\">Kafka&#8217;s porn unveiled<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nova Venus (1938). I doubt that illustrator Mahlon Blaine featured in any of the scurrilous porn books in Franz Kafka&#8217;s collection\u2014he would have been too young, for a start\u2014but his erotic work isn&#8217;t so far removed from some of the artists of The Amethyst and Opals. As usual with obscure talents of this period it&#8217;s &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2008\/08\/20\/the-art-of-mahlon-blaine-1894-1969\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The art of Mahlon Blaine, 1894\u20131969&#8221;<\/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":[2,50,30,42,21,48],"tags":[1013,99,2140,1106],"class_list":["post-3434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-beardsley","category-black-white","category-books","category-fantasy","category-illustrators","tag-franz-kafka","tag-harry-clarke","tag-john-austen","tag-mahlon-blaine"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-To","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3434","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=3434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3434\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}