Born today...Jean De Bosschere, 5 July 1878, Uccle, Belgium.

illustration for The Love Books of Ovid, 1925.

André Masson (1896 - 1987) ~ The Magicians, oil on canvas 1936.

Leonora Carrington (1917-2011) ~ 999, oil on canvas ,1948.

Dolorosa de La Cruz...Für Max Ernst mask, 'Oscular Troth' ,mixed media, 2019.

Gustav-Adolf Mossa (1883 – 1971) ~ Solomon,oil, gilding and glass beads on canvas 1908

Born today... George William Russell Æ, April 10, 1867, Lurgan, Northern Ireland

''Yet of my night I give you the stars,

And of my sorrow here the sweetest gains...''

image: George William Russell, Mystical figures

Odilon Redon (1840-1916) ~ Pilgrim of the Sublunary World from Dreams, lithograph, 1891

On the satin back of the avalanche soft, 
She falls into lingering swoons, as she dies, 
While she lifteth her eyes to white visions aloft, 
Which like efflorescence float up to the skies. 
Charles Baudelaire, Tristesses de la lune from Fleurs du Mal

Born today...Charles Pierre Baudelaire, poet, April 9, 1821, Paris, France

The Spiritual Dawn

When upon revellers the stained dawn breaks 

The fierce ideal comes with it; at that hour, 

Stirred by some terrible avenging power, 

An angel in the sated brute awakes. 

Above the stricken, suffering man there glow 

Far azure plains of unimagined bliss 

Which draw his dreaming spirit like the abyss. 

O pure, beloved Goddess, even so 

O'er the smoked wrecks of stupid scenes of shame 

Brighter and rosier thy sweet memory 

Hovers before my wide eyes hauntingly...

The Sun has dimmed and charred the candles' flame, 

And thus, my glorious all-conquering one, 

Thy shade is peer to the immortal Sun

~ Fleurs du mal / Flowers of Evil

image: Carlo Farneti (1892-1961) illustration for Les Fleurs du Mal 1935

José Guadalupe Posada (1852 – 1913)...illustrated covers for Biblioteca del niño mexicano, commisioned in 1900

Born today... Eva Švankmajerová, September 25, 1940, Kostelec nad Černými lesy, Czech Republic image: Fall, oil on canvas

Odilon Redon (1840-1916)... Towards Ecstacy, charcoal on paper 1885

Born today... Erté, November 23, 1892, Saint Petersburg, Russia ... Le Triomphe de la femme, Eve, gouache on paper

Born today...John Wallis, November 23, 1616, Ashford, United Kingdom. Mathematician and cryptographer who introduce the infinity symbol in 1655 in his De sectionibus conicis. image: Pamela Colman Smith (1878 – 1951) illustration from the Waite Tarot

Dolorosa de la Cruz ...for Nietzsche ~ "If Zeus don't charm" ~ Oct 2012 ~ pastel and pencil on paper. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche born today October 15, 1844, Röcken, Germany

Odilon Redon (1840-1916) ... Fighting Skeletons, charcoal on paper

Born Today... José Guadalupe Posada,February 2, 1852, Aguascalientes, Mexico

Nuestra Señora de los Remedios

Born today... Méret Oppenheim, 6 October 1913 Berlin, Germany

Méret Oppenheim ~ Enchantment 1962

Meret Oppenheim ~ Breakfast in Fur 1936

''All thoughts that have ever been thought roll around the Earth in a colossal sphere of ideas. The Earth explodes, the sphere is shattered, and the thoughts spread across the universe, where they live on in distant stars."

from "Self-Portrait from 50.000 BC to X" (1980) ~ Méret Oppenheim

Born today... René Magritte, November 21, 1898, Lessines, Belgium

Studies for the beyond, ca 1938 Pencil on Paper

Comte de Lautréamont (4 April 1846 – 24 November 1870)...Happy Birthday...

Chants de Maldoror illustration  Hans Bellmer 1971

Pale hair in thick windings

Crackled in shadows horribly;

And behind, in rough, long hummings

There unreeled, according to species and size,

The animals of the earth and of the heavenly circlings.

Hans Christian Andersen...Happy Birthday... Picture book...1869

Hans Christian Ørsted's Picture-Book was made in 1869 by Mathilde Ørsted and Hans Christian Andersen.

'' If a marble city with golden roofs had lain before him he would not have
been astonished, his imagination was prepared for anything ''

H C Andersen ~ Only a fiddler

more HERE

previous Hans Christian Andersen