Monday, January 23, 2012

Dolorosa ... a drawing for Harry Crosby 2012




...if it were not for you...


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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



Saturday, January 14, 2012

Frank von Sepp... illustrations for Faust 1921...





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~

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! 



from Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe



previous von Sepp



Miscellanea curiosa... bookplate...c1706



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Wednesday, January 11, 2012

John Singer Sargent... Orestes Pursued by the Furies...1921



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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

Ernst Fuchs...Icarus... 1976



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Bhaskar Lahiri... Paintings and prints...





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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

Bhaskar Lahiri




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