František Tichý & Gerard de Nerval ...Chimeras 1949

Front cover illustration by František Tichý  for Chimeras by Gerard de Nerval 1949

Gilded Verse

And so! Everything is sentient!

-Pythagoras

Man, free thinker! You think you alone think

In this world where life splatters everywhere?

You're free to dispose of your charge,

But the firmament's gone from your schemes.

Respect the spirit that moves in beasts:

Every flower a ghost that opens to Nature,

Every alloy harbors the secrets of love;

“Everything is sentient,” & everything can change you,

Fear the eyes in blind walls,

Even dead matter is infused with a verb,

Don't use it perversely.

Even in the shunned ones lives a secret god,

Like a nascent eye obscured by its lids,

A pure spirit blooms behind the veil of stones. 

The Chimeras ~ by Gerard de Nerval  translated by Translated by Mark Lamoureux

Josef Váchal's mystical Tarot cards...1912

more > HERE

Josef Váchal... A Cycle of Wood Cuts 1912

A Cycle of Wood Cuts Accompanied by a Very Nice Ode to Ingenious Doctors and Healers, self-published by Josef Váchal, Prague 1912

previous VCHAL

Ex Libris... Walter Steineck... 1920

Dolorosa... Vowed Series no 9...2011

Dolorosa ~ Vowed no 9 2011

This is the last of my Vowed Series of drawings you can see all the rest here > VOWED

Igor-Alban Chevalier... graphic works

Sorting through some old files I came across a folder with these wonderful images, if anyone knows of their origin please could you leave a comment. Many thanks.

with many thanks to Tororo Shiru for solving the mystery of the artist > Igor-Alban Chevalier's blog HERE

Frederick Carter... The Dragon of the Alchemists... 1918

Frederick Carter’s deep interest in alchemy and all aspects of the supernatural and the occult, led him to produce an esoteric symbolism which is apparent throughout his work. Nowhere is this displayed more clearly than in his works for The Dragon of the Alchemists. Frederick Carter provided little or no explanation regarding the significance of his imagery which combines symbols of established religion with those of mysticism and it is likely that he intended the meaning of many of his images to remain shrouded in mystery.

Persus

Ship of Dreams

The Balance

The Babe of Fire

Silence

To-day it is maintained that a certain morbid psychological alteration in what is called "the function of reality" bears traces of archaic thought: though what is called archaic may be basic and independent of morbidity. It was accepted without hesitation in the Renaissance that myth extended the range of mental vision, and mythical incidents and classical names were so used until that mode of metaphorical expression became stereotyped. The subjective response and understanding died; a rationalised meaning took its place and nullified its appeal. But the "libido" was then, and is yet, capable of being led into sublimer paths by the use of myth, image, and metaphor: a sound mode of analogy had, as it ever has had, an impetus and a power of moving the mind that brings poetry to life. The poet was a stargazer, and found in his heaven the images of perfection.

from ~ The Dragon of the Alchemists

Armand Rassenfosse (1862 - 1934)... Singulier animal ,colour engraving,1893

previous Armand Rassenfosse

Ex Libris... Vitezslav Fleissig... 1925

Dolorosa... Vowed Series no 8...2011

Dolorosa ~ Vowed Series no8 2011

Works of art....Japanese Carved Ivory Okimono... circa 1900

An Unusually Large Japanese Carved Ivory Okimono of a Human Skull
Entwined with snakes and rats
Perhaps made by a particular workshop as an example of excellence and achievement
Meiji period (1868-1912)

the god of death

has passed me over...

autumn dusk

Haiku of Kobayashi Issa

(1763 - 1828)

Ex Libris... M A Falor...