Monday, January 3, 2011

Leonor Fini... La Galère/Jean Genet ... 1947 drawing..





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Drawing for Jean Genet's La Galère 1947,a long poem written as a homage to murderer
Harcamone, the book was condemned in 1954 and Genet was fined 100.ooo francs.


"By the threads of death
the weapons of these nights
carried my arms paralyzed by wine
the azure of nostrils
traversed by the rose gone astray
where a gilded doe shudders under the brush...
I astonish myself and lose myself
in pursuing your course
astonishing river
from the veins of discourse"         

***
"The tree's blue branches
stretch from the salt to the sky.
 

My solitude sings
to my vespers of blood
an air of golden bubbles
squeezing from my lips."


Jean Genet - The Galley



Thursday, December 30, 2010

Austin Osman Spare ... Satyr... Happy Birthday!



Austin Osman Spare ~ 30 Dec 1886 –15 May 1956

O Give Thanks Unto!
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O Give Thanks Unto scanned from a set of postcards from recent "Fallen Visionary" exhibition 2010



The Psychology of Believing.

If the "supreme belief" remains unknown, believing is fruitless. If "the truth" has not yet been ascertained, the study of knowledge is unproductive. Even if "they" were known their study is useless. We are not the object by the perception, but by becoming it. Closing the gateways of sense is no help. Verily I will make common-sense the foundation of my teaching. Otherwise, how can I convey my meaning to the deaf, vision to the blind, and my emotion to the dead? In a labyrinth of metaphor and words, intuition is lost, therefore without their effort must be learned the truth about one's self from him who alone knows the truth . . . . yourself. 

from The Book of Pleasure (self-love) ~
The Psychology of Ecstasy

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Ex libris... Chester Dodge... Satyr





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Publilius Optatianus Porphyrius 1595...poem...Carmina Figurata





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Sometime around the end of the first quarter of the fourth century C.E., a former resident of the imperial city of Rome then living in exile in Achaea began a written campaign for his recall to the capitol. The campaign coincided with the Vicennalia, or twentieth anniverary, of the reign of the first Christian Roman Emperor, Constantine, an event celebrated in July 325 in Nicomedia and again in the summer of 326 at Rome itself. The writing campaign took advantage of this event and consisted of a series of panegyric poems addressed to Constantine in commemoration of both the Vicennalia and Constantine’s earlier defeat of Licinius in 324. The series, included in what is now known collectively as the Carmina or Carmina Figurata, is of an unusual and innovative sort: the poems contain supplementary text “hidden” within the main body of the individual poems and intended to be “discovered” by the reader. These versus intexti poems were apparently intended to dazzle Constantine with their technical virtuosity and thereby inspire the hoped-for recall of their creator, Publilius Optatianus Porphyrius. The campaign was ultimately successful, and the intriguing larger body of work created by Optatianus remains captivating even today, both for its simple visual appeal and for its display of remarkable technical skill.... continued

related previous POST



Leonard BASKIN(1922-2000) Portrait of Matthias Grunewald...print





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Previous BASKIN



Sunday, December 26, 2010

Wladd Muta.... Graphic Works...Magicka AnUra-Flora



Les pétales des fleurs de grenouilles, “AnUra-Flora“,
se développent dans un tout premier temps
à partir des tissus pulmonaires du batracien (fig.1.).
L'amorce de la mutation utilise
les traces génétiques fantômes
des branchies du stade larvaire (têtards).
Le pétale se constitue ensuite
exclusivement sur une base
de tissu épithélial humide (muqueuse) respiratoire.
L'étalement des tissus s'accompagne,
progressivement et en s’amplifiant,
d'une hybridation du tramage cellulaire
VÉGÉTALE & ANIMALE.
Même une fois aboutie, l‘AnUra-Flora
gardera toujours
cette singularité cellulaire hybride.
La fleur se déploie tout autour d’un cœur ;
celle-ci n’a pas de tige (fig.3.).


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Pour parvenir de façon simple à la transmutation,
lorsque l’on ne maîtrise pas
les techniques avancées des Arts-Humides,
il faut avoir au préalable
introduit un fragment de pétale d’AnUra-Flora
à l’intérieur de l’œuf, d’une grenouille commune,
le jour même de la ponte.
Le fragment doit être en contact avec le noyau,
si le contact ne se fait pas
le transposon génétique ne peut se constituer.
Il est conseillé de contaminer un grand nombre d’œufs,
car moins de 1% d'entre eux arriveront à l’âge adulte.

La voie royale des Arts-Humides
passe, bien entendu, par le fruit
et produit des résultats significativement plus puissants (fig.3.),
mais le maniement du fruit (œuf issu de la fleur)
est d’une complexité sans nom
et très peu ne parviennent au moindre résultat.
La fleur créée par introduction du fragment,
peut vivre jusqu’à trois années,
le triple par le fruit. 
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La mutation florale à proprement parler
a lieu au terme de la vie normale de l’animal
(soit une dizaine d’année)
– lune rousse, constellation de la grenouille –
bien sûr celle-ci ne peut s’opérer si le batracien
meurt prématurément, par accident ou maladie.
Il faut donc en prendre grand soin
si l’on espère un jour lui faire atteindre
l’état d’AnUra-Flora.


Avant la mutation,
l’individu grenouille ne présente aucune particularité,
en tout parfaitement semblable
à une grenouille commune.


L'événement transmutatoire en lui-même
est extrêmement bref
et peut se réaliser sur un laps de temps
n’excédant pas les 3 heures.
Assister au spectacle de la transformation
est un enchantement,
c'est un évènement d’une grande beauté.
Le déploiement des tissus couleurs de braises
se fait dans le crépitement
d'un feu humide et cristallin,
danse végétale d'une grâce inouïe (fig.2.). 

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Les usages de l’AnUra-Flora sont multiples
(par contact, contemplation, ingestion ou masque).
Entre autres choses :
stimulation des rêves lucides
et mémorisation des rêves en général,
“cœur de combustions“
dans un grand nombre d’opérations
impliquant l’eau et la lune,
mise en condition psychique
pour la création d’“Ikebana d’organes vivants“,
et souvent même, simple décoration

Previous post



Victor Brown.... bookplate for Lily Yeats





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from Poems by WB Yeats, Cuala Press 1935


"There's nothing but our own red blood
Can make a right Rose Tree..."
wb yeats



The Angel of Death ... in micrography...





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This illustration is found in a book entitled Nisyonot be-Ketav Ivri (Experiments in Hebrew Script)
a magnificent example of micrography, tiny Hebrew script marking out the shape of a figure, in this case a classic portrayal of the Angel of Death. In this particular example the script is in Hebrew yet the language is German. The many signed names would indicate that this was done in Central Europe, probably in a school of the German Haskalah (Enlightenment) movement, around the middle of the 19th century.



Monday, December 20, 2010

Eric William Ravilious(1903-1942)... Woodcut




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Doctor Faustus Conjuring Mephistophilis 1929



Ravilious was a prolific British illustrator and worked predominantly with wood engravings. The subject for this work relates to the 16th century medical practitioner, Dr. Johannes Faust who, legend has it, sold his soul to Mephistopheles, an evil spirit.