click on image to enlarge
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
Dolorosa ... a drawing for Harry Crosby 2012
...if it were not for you...
Dolorosa 2012 ~ for Harry Crosby
The Sun in unconcealed rage
Glares down across the magic of the world
The sun within us, that sways un incalculably.
At night
Swift to the Sun
Deep imaged in my soul
But during the long day black lands
To cross
And it is faith in the incalculable sun, inner and outer, which keeps us alive.
Sunmaid
Left by the tide
I bring you a conch-shell
That listening to the Sun you may
Revive
And there is always the battle of the sun, against the corrosive acid vapour of vanity and poisonous conceit, which is the breath of the world.
Dark clouds
Are not so dark
As our embittered thoughts
Which carve strange silences within
The Sun
HARRY CROSBY ~ CHARIOT OF THE SUN
Friday, January 20, 2012
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Frank von Sepp... illustrations for Faust 1921...
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click on image to enlarge
~
Fill your heart to overflowing,
and when you feel profoundest bliss,
then call it what you will:
Good fortune! Heart! Love! or God!
I have no name for it!
Feeling is all;
the name is sound and smoke,
beclouding Heaven's glow.
MEPHISTOPHELES The modest truth I speak to thee.
If Man, the microcosmic fool, can see
Himself a whole so frequently,
Part of the Part am I, once All, in primal Night,--
Part of the Darkness which brought forth the Light,
The haughty light, which mow disputes the space,
And claims of Mother Night her ancient place.
And yet, the struggle fails; since Light, however weaves,
Still, fettered, unto bodies cleaves:
It flows from bodies, bodies beautifies;
By bodies is its course impeded;
And so, but little time is needed,
I hope, ere, as the bodies die, it dies!
If Man, the microcosmic fool, can see
Himself a whole so frequently,
Part of the Part am I, once All, in primal Night,--
Part of the Darkness which brought forth the Light,
The haughty light, which mow disputes the space,
And claims of Mother Night her ancient place.
And yet, the struggle fails; since Light, however weaves,
Still, fettered, unto bodies cleaves:
It flows from bodies, bodies beautifies;
By bodies is its course impeded;
And so, but little time is needed,
I hope, ere, as the bodies die, it dies!
from Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
previous von Sepp
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
John Singer Sargent... Orestes Pursued by the Furies...1921
click on image to enlarge
P and lead the dance of Fate!
- Lift the song that mortals hate!
- Tell what rights are ours on earth,
- Over all of human birth.
- Swift of foot to avenge are we!
- He whose hands are clean and pure,
- Naught our wrath to dread hath he;
- Calm his cloudless days endure.
- But the man that seeks to hide
- Like him, his gore-bedewèd hands,
- Witnesses to them that died,
- The blood avengers at his side,
- The Furies' troop forever stands.
Aeschylus ~ Song of the Furies
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Bhaskar Lahiri... Paintings and prints...
click on image to enlarge
The ancient civilizations of the entire world , especially that of
India, with their spectacular manifestations , create an enchantment
In me. Side by side age-old Indian philosophy , history,religion,
folk-culture, literature,folk-art,etc.stir the very core of my mind.
In every nook and corner of my home state ,West Bengal,folk climes
have its presence felt.Hence my utmost sincerity is to house those
dew and dust strewn jewels into my compositions
India, with their spectacular manifestations , create an enchantment
In me. Side by side age-old Indian philosophy , history,religion,
folk-culture, literature,folk-art,etc.stir the very core of my mind.
In every nook and corner of my home state ,West Bengal,folk climes
have its presence felt.Hence my utmost sincerity is to house those
dew and dust strewn jewels into my compositions
Bhaskar Lahiri
Friday, January 6, 2012
Monday, January 2, 2012
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Charles Rickett... poster... 1920...satyr
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Poster advertising The Dynasts by Thomas Hardy c1920
Amid this scene of bodies substantive
Strange waves I sight like winds grown visible,
Which bear men's forms on their innumerous coils,
Twining and serpenting round and through.
Also retracting threads like gossamers—
Except in being irresistible—
Which complicate with some, and balance all.Thomas Hardy Saturday, December 31, 2011
Dolorosa... a drawing for Austin O Spare ..2011
to Cabinet Readers Love and Magick to accompany you in the mystery tour of 2012! ♥
Dolorosa ~ A drawing for AOS on his birthday ~ Raving Mouthed 30th Dec 2011
White pencil on black paperFriday, December 30, 2011
Austin Osman Spare... Happy Birthday!
click on image to enlarge
Stealing the Fire from Heaven 1911-12
The Complete Ritual and Doctrine of Magic
Ecstasy in Self-love the Obsession
My dearest, I will now explain the only safe and true formula, the destroyer of the darkness of the World, the most secret among all secrets. Let it be secret to him who would attain. Let it cover any period of time, depending on his conception. There is no qualification, nor ritual or ceremony. His very existence symbolising all that is necessary to perfection. Most emphatically, there is no need of repetition or feeble imitation. You are alive!
from my favourite AOS book The Book of Pleasure (self-love) The Psychology of Ecstasy
more > AOS
Lettice Sandford.. illustration from the Song of Songs 1936
1:1 The Song of Songs, which is for Solomon. 1:2 Kiss Me with the kisses of your mouth, for your love is better than wine. 1:3 Your oil has an excellent scent, but your name is the most exquisite oil – for this, all the maidens love you. 1:4 Draw Me after you. Let us run. The king has brought Me to his chambers. We will delight and take joy in you, savoring your love. Like new-pressed wine, they love you.
previous Lettice Sandford
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
T. Sturge Moore (1870-1944)... Pan as an Island...c1902
click on image to enlarge
a scan from The Modern Woodcut by Herbert Furst 1924
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Johannes von Schwarzenberg... bookplate...1534
a scan from The Devious and Grotesque in Art by Wilhelm Michel 1919
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
H Meyer...Bookplate... c1793
bookplate from Letters to the advancement of humanity by Johann Gottfried von Herder
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
GOETHE, Johann Wolfgang von (1749-1832)...Zur Farbenlehre ...bookplate 1810
"To divide the united, to unite the divided, is the life of nature; this is the eternal systole and diastole, the eternal collapsion and expansion, the inspiration and expiration of the world in which we move." ~ Goethe
Based on his experiments with turbid media, Goethe characterized colour as arising from the dynamic interplay of darkness and light. Rudolf Steiner gives the following analogy:
Modern natural science sees darkness as a complete nothingness. According to this view, the light which streams into a dark space has no resistance from the darkness to overcome. Goethe pictures to himself that light and darkness relate to each other like the north and south pole of a magnet. The darkness can weaken the light in its working power. Conversely, the light can limit the energy of the darkness. In both cases color arises.
—Rudolf Steiner, 1897 >
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Arthur Rackham...the Wind in the Willows..illustration..Satyr
"Perhaps he would never have dared to raise his eyes, but that, though the piping was now hushed, the call and the summons seemed still dominant and imperious. He might not refuse, were Death himself waiting to strike him instantly, once he had looked with mortal eye on things rightly kept hidden. Trembling he obeyed, and raised his humble head; and then, in that utter clearness of the imminent dawn, while Nature, flushed with fulness of incredible colour, seemed to hold her breath for the event, he looked in the very eyes of the Friend and Helper; saw the backward sweep of the curved horns, gleaming in the growing daylight; saw the stern, hooked nose between the kindly eyes that were looking down on them humourously, while the bearded mouth broke into a half-smile at the corners; saw the rippling muscles on the arm that lay across the broad chest, the long supple hand still holding the pan-pipes only just fallen away from the parted lips; saw the splendid curves of the shaggy limbs disposed in majestic ease on the sward; saw, last of all, nestling between his very hooves, sleeping soundly in entire peace and contentment, the little, round, podgy, childish form of the baby otter. All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered."
Kenneth Grahame
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Monday, December 5, 2011
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Satty... The illustrated Edgar Allan Poe
another scan from a favourite book ....
click on image to enlarge
Yet, for a while I saw; but how terrible an
Exaggeration! I saw the lips of the Black-Robed Judges.
The Pit and the Pendulum ~ Edgar Allan Poe
previous SATTY
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Sascha Schneider... Wood Engravings ... 1896
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The Mammon and its slave
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Around a Soul
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Pinax microcosmographicus...Johann Remmelin & Hara Sanshin ...Flap books
Johann Remmelin's Pinax Microcosmographicus 1667
Japanese version of Johann Remmelin's Pinax Microcosmographicus. Copy made by Hara Sanshin, 17c.
more early Japanese anatomical illustrations HERE
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Dolorosa... new drawing 2011 & Ithell Colquhoun poem...
Dolorosa ~ Arch Old Inquest ~2011
Sent Away
Sent away
By Light of day
I return
When candles burn
Ithell Colquhoun
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