By American artist Edgar Keller (1868-1932); certainly an arresting image.
Category Archives: Art
No Need for Sound
Above, a poster for D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation” (1915), for its showing in Denmark, from a collection of silent film posters at 50 Watts, with thanks to Kathy Biehl for the introduction. And more below:
Salomé (1923)
Sherlock Holmes (1922) with John Barrymore
Who Is “Number One”? (1917), a serial starring Kathleen Clifford
Lust Slave
Back in 1975 when I was looking for work, it never occurred to me that “lust slave” was an occupation, and that a cobra goddess might be hiring. Nor was I aware of the upcoming explosion of homosexuality. My thanks to Al Hoff for alerting me to this nostalgic glimpse of a bygone era.
Artuš Scheiner
For E.T.A. Hoffmann’s The Nutcracker and the Mouse King (1924)
Just when you think you’ve seen it all, life offers up another miracle. Above and below, illustrations by Artuš Scheiner (1863-1938) – a Bohemian artist whose work was widely published in Czechoslovakia and Austria but little known in the U.S. — posted at 50 Watts, a truly amazing site of illustration and graphic art.
For Vyšehrad, an epic poem by Julius Zeyer
For Božená Němcová’s The Disobedient Kids (1921)
“All at once, she saw little stars falling in her pathway. She wanted to see what they looked like. They were yellow, bright and shining. She began to gather them up in her hands, tossing them up and down. ‘Oh, if I only had an apron!’ Why there was an apron! Then she collected the little yellow stars in her apron, and growing very tired, fell asleep.”
Pochta
In 1927, Samuil Marshak (1887-1964), a writer in the Soviet Union, published a children’s book about the post office. Pochta has since been republished many times, illustrated by many illustrators, and translated into English as Hail to the Mail. The story follows a letter that’s chasing its intended recipient around the world. On a similar quest, I’ve been hunting for the edition illustrated by Yuri Korovin, published in Moscow in the 1960s and ’70s. I recently found it in Nicosia, Cyprus, thanks to eBay and Alexandre Gorchkov. I love the story and the artwork; I only wish my Russian was better.
The story begins with a knock on the door of Boris Zhitkov (1882-1938), a Russian children’s book author.
Boris gives the postman the sad news that the letter’s intended recipient has gone to Berlin.
And so the letter must follow!
But he has already gone…
…to London.
The letter follows him there, but he has just left for South America…
And so the letter takes a sea voyage, but the recipient has left…
… for Russia, and there the letter finds him, at last.
Thanks to postal workers all around the world.
Tea Fairies
After a friend left a gift of tea in my mailbox, I was inspired to look for tea fairy images, and liked these three especially. Above, “Tea Fairy” by Cinnamoncandy, a digital artist featured at deviantart.com; next, “Fondue Fairy Tea Princess” by artist Rich Beer…
… and finally, “Tea Fairy” by artist James Browne.
Gerhard Glück
Postcard by Gerhard Glück, “Wovon Werber träumen” (“What advertisers dream”), with thanks to the Rev. John Backe.
Tea Dogs
Tea with Atropine
“Mrs. Fledaway laced her husband’s tea with atropine in the spring of 1903 at the Locusts, near Puddingbasin, Mortshire.”
– From the Neglected Murderesses calendar by Edward Gorey, 2009
The Good Shepherd
The 18-foot-tall Good Shepherd window, located above the altar of Trinity Lutheran Church in Keene, New Hampshire. Commissioned in 1882 by St. Paul’s Lutheran Church of Davenport, Iowa, the window was installed there in 1902; the church eventually became the home of the Third Mission Baptist Church, and when they moved to a new building in 1998, they had the window sold at auction. Trinity Lutheran, being optimistic, bought the window but had no building for it until March of 2013. Now it has a new home.
