Mexican god from Codex Rios juxtaposed with Egyptian gods and hieroglyphs
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Francisco Agüera Bustamante...La Portentosa vida de la muerte...1792
The earliest documented example of skeletal imagery in Mexico’s literary culture is thought to be the etchings accompanying the tragicomic protonovel, La Portentosa vida de la muerte, published in 1792 by Fray Joaquín Bolaños and illustrated by Francisco Agüera
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Georges Malkine (1898-1970)...illustration... Follow New Songs...1933
illustration for Chansons Nouvelles Suivi by Marc Fernand 1933
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Doctor Johannes Faust ... books...Magia Naturalis et Innaturalis... 1849
the classic Magia naturalis et innaturalis was known to Johann W. von Goethe, who, like Gotthold Lessing, saw Faust's pursuit of knowledge as noble; in Goethe's great Faust the hero is redeemed.
Labels:
1800's,
books,
Doctor Johannes Faust,
Goethe,
Grimoires,
illustrations,
magic
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Pascal Beverly Randolph... Eulis “Affectional Alchemy” book covers ... 1930
The book, in German "Die sexualmagischen Lehren der Bruderschaft von Eulis", was originally
published by Randolph (1825-1875) in 1874 with the founding of The Brotherhood of Eulis ("Hermetische Bruderschaft vonLuxor"), presumably to work sex-magic. Randolph also founded the Fraternitas Rosae Crucis, the oldest Rosicrucian
organization in the United States
excerpt...
So far well; but at last the world wants to know more of that wonderful fraternity, which, nameless at times for long centuries, blossomed a few centuries ago as Rosicrucia, but now has leaped to the fore-front of all the real reform movements of this wondefu1 age, and lo! the banner of peerless Eulis floats proudly—rock founded — on the breeze. We, the people of Eulis, be it known, are students of nature in her interior departments, and rejecting alike the coarse materialism of the ages, and the sham “philosophies” of the ages past and current, accept only that which forces conviction by its irresistible logic. Men who realize the existence of other worlds than this are not apt to give loose rein to passion; nor be content with fraud in any shape. We cannot take say-sos for facts, and therefore we reject much that appeals to others with the force of truth. We are ambitious to solve all possible mystery; we prefer one method to all other hyper-human agencies, knowing it to be infinitely preferable to all other modes of rapporting the occult and mysterious; and this book, and all others from the same pen, is but a very imperfect sketch or outline of the sublime philosophy of the Templars of EULIS. We know the enormous importance of the sexive principle; that a menstruating woman is an immense power if she but knew it! that a pregnant one holds the keys of eternal mystery in her hand, and that while thus she can make or mar any human fortune! We know the mystic act is one unhinging the gates alike, of heaven and of hell; and we know two semi-brainless people may, by an application of esoteric principles, stock the
world with mental giants. But where shall we find students? Are not all the people, nearly, the slaves of lust, place, gold? Well, we find one now and then; and we hail him or her as the Greeks hailed the sea— with excessive joy! Thalatta! Thalatta! They are not multitudinous now, but will be in the good time coming.
Randolph’s “Rosicrucian Apology” from the first chapter of Eulis!, “Affectional Alchemy” (1874)
Monday, March 4, 2013
Frans de Geetere & Arthur Rimbaud... The Stupra... 1925
Frans de Geetere ~ illustration for The Stupra 1925
The ancient beasts...
The ancient beasts bred even on the run,
Theirs glans encrusted with blood and excrement.
Our forfathers displayed theirs members proudly
By the fold of the sheath and the grain of the scrotum.
In the middle ages, for a female, angel or sow,
A fellow whose gear was substantial was needed;
Even a Kléber, judging by his breeches which exagerate
Perhaps a little, can't have lacked resources.
Besides, man is equal to the proudest mammal;
We are wrong to be surprised at the hugeness of their members;
But a sterile hour has struck: the gelding
And the ox have bridled their ardours, and no one
Will dare again to raise his genital pride
In the copses teeming with comical children.
Arthur Rimbaud ~ The Stupra 1925
Labels:
Arthur Rimbaud,
books,
erotica,
Frans de Geetere,
illustrations,
poems,
The Stupra
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
William T. Horton (1864-1919)...A book of images...1898
A book of images drawn by W.T. Horton & introduced by W.B. Yeats
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Giottino Humbert de Superville (1770–1849)... Symbol and Myth...1827
Labels:
1800's,
books,
Giottino Humbert de Superville,
Symbol and myth
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Marcus Behmer... illustration... 1912
from Voltaire's Zadig And Other Stories 1912
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Willy Pogany... illustrations from The Song Celestial 1934
from The Song Celestial (Bhagavad Gita) by Sir Edwin Arnold
illustrated by Willy Pogany
Dwelling outside the stress
Of passion, fear, and anger; fixed in calms
Of lofty contemplation;
The Doors of Hell
Are threefold, whereby men to ruin pass, --
The door of Lust, the door of Wrath, the door
Of Averice.
" The elements, the conscious life, the mind,
The unseen vital force, the nine strange gates
Of the body, and the five domains of sense;
Desire, dislike, pleasure and pain, and thought
Deep-woven, and persistency of being;
These all are wrought on Matter by the Soul! "
Chapter
13
previous POGANY
Labels:
bookplates,
books,
Edwin Arnold,
illustrators,
The Song Celestial,
Willy Pogany
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Enrico Baj ... illustration from The Book of Imaginary Beings by J L Borges 1973
"Let us move now from the zoo of reality to the zoo of mythology, that zoological garden
whose fauna is comprised not of lions but of sphinxes and gryphons and centaurs.
The population of this second zoo should by all rights exceed that of the first,
since a monster is nothing but a combination of elements taken from real creatures, and the
combinatory possibilities border on the infinite...
Readers browsing through our own anthology will see that the zoology attributable to
whose fauna is comprised not of lions but of sphinxes and gryphons and centaurs.
The population of this second zoo should by all rights exceed that of the first,
since a monster is nothing but a combination of elements taken from real creatures, and the
combinatory possibilities border on the infinite...
Readers browsing through our own anthology will see that the zoology attributable to
dreams is in fact considerably more modest than that attributable to God. We do not know what the dragon means, just as we do not know the meaning of the universe, but there is something in the image of the dragon that is congenial to man's imagination, and thus the dragon arises in many latitudes and ages. It is, one might say, a necessary monster."
from The Book of Imaginary Beings (Borges, 1954)
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Rosa Mundi a poem...excerpts...H.D. Carr (Aleister Crowley) & Auguste Rodin... 1905
click on image to enlarge
Limited edition, 488 copies printed with a full page watercolor drawing by Auguste Rodin signed in the plate.
pencil and wash design by Auguste Rodin
1. ROSE of the World!
Red glory of the secret heart of Love!
Red flame, rose-red, most subtly curled
Into its own infinite flower, all flowers above!
Its flower in its own perfumed passion,
Its faint sweet passion, folded and furled
In flower fashion;
And my deep spirit taking its pure part
Of that voluptuous heart
Of hidden happiness!
Red glory of the secret heart of Love!
Red flame, rose-red, most subtly curled
Into its own infinite flower, all flowers above!
Its flower in its own perfumed passion,
Its faint sweet passion, folded and furled
In flower fashion;
And my deep spirit taking its pure part
Of that voluptuous heart
Of hidden happiness!
2. Arise, strong bow of the young child Eros!
(While the maddening moonlight, the memoried caress
Stolen of the scented rose
Stirs me and bids each racing pulse ache, ache!)
Bend into an agony of art
Whose cry is ever rapture, and whose tears
For their own purity's undivided sake
Are molten dew, as, on the lotus leaves
Sliver-coiled in the Sun
Into green girdled spheres
Purer than all a maiden's dream enweaves,
Lies the unutterable beauty of
The Waters. Yea, arise, divinest dove
Of the Idalian, on your crimson wings
And soft grey plumes, bear me to yon cool shrine
Of that most softly-spoken one,
Mine Aphrodite! Touch the imperfect strings,
Oh thou, immortal, throned above the moon!
Inspire a holy tune
Lighter and lovelier than flowers and wine
Offered in gracious gardens unto Pan
By any soul of man!
(While the maddening moonlight, the memoried caress
Stolen of the scented rose
Stirs me and bids each racing pulse ache, ache!)
Bend into an agony of art
Whose cry is ever rapture, and whose tears
For their own purity's undivided sake
Are molten dew, as, on the lotus leaves
Sliver-coiled in the Sun
Into green girdled spheres
Purer than all a maiden's dream enweaves,
Lies the unutterable beauty of
The Waters. Yea, arise, divinest dove
Of the Idalian, on your crimson wings
And soft grey plumes, bear me to yon cool shrine
Of that most softly-spoken one,
Mine Aphrodite! Touch the imperfect strings,
Oh thou, immortal, throned above the moon!
Inspire a holy tune
Lighter and lovelier than flowers and wine
Offered in gracious gardens unto Pan
By any soul of man!
...
Matchless, serene, in sacred amplitudes
Of its own royal rapture, deaf and blind
To aught but its own mastery of song
And light, shown ever as silence and deep night
Secret as death and final. Let me long
Never again for aught! This great delight
Involves me, weaves me in its pattern of bliss,
Seals me with its own kiss,
Draws me to thee with every dream that glows,
Poet, each word! Maiden, each burden of snows
Extending beyond sunset, beyond dawn!
O Rose, inviolate, utterly withdrawn
In the truth: -- for this is truth: Love knows!
Ah! Rose of the World! Rose! Rose!
Of its own royal rapture, deaf and blind
To aught but its own mastery of song
And light, shown ever as silence and deep night
Secret as death and final. Let me long
Never again for aught! This great delight
Involves me, weaves me in its pattern of bliss,
Seals me with its own kiss,
Draws me to thee with every dream that glows,
Poet, each word! Maiden, each burden of snows
Extending beyond sunset, beyond dawn!
O Rose, inviolate, utterly withdrawn
In the truth: -- for this is truth: Love knows!
Ah! Rose of the World! Rose! Rose!
excerpts from Rosa Mundi by H. D. Carr (Aleister Crowley)
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
Monday, November 14, 2011
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
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Austin Osman Spare ... Illustration...1909
click here for larger image
Cujus est solum ejus est usque ad coelum 1909
from
On the Oxford circuit, and other verses by Mr Justice Darling 1909
CUJUS EST SOLUM EJUS EST USQUE
AD COELUM
'ELUSIVE maxim! Hardly Heaven
they hold
Whose lands in fee to central Hell
descend.
Though from the soil its lords the
stars behold,
With the thick air extremest titles end.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Oswald Croll (1563 - 1609) ... Alchemical emblems c1600s
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Oskar Kokoschka... The Dreaming youths... 1907/08
click on image to enlarge
Renowned as an Expressionist painter, the Austrian artist Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) began his career in the decorative arts, studying book illustration, printmaking and typography alongside life drawing at Vienna’s School of Applied Arts between 1904 and 1908. The Dreaming Youths, begun in November 1907 and printed the following June, was Kokoschka’s first major graphic series, produced at the age of 21 while he was still a student. It started as a commission for a children’s picture-book, but Kokoschka set aside his brief after the first illustration, adding verses to create a complex ‘picture-poem’ exploring the desires and anxieties of adolescent sexuality. He described it as ‘a kind of record, in words and pictures, of my own state of mind at the time’, in particular of his love for Lilith Lang, the sister of a fellow student, who appears with him in the final image, The Girl Li and I. He wrote later that ‘the book was my first love-letter’, although his relationship with Lilith had ended by the time it appeared.
The Dreaming Youths was one of Kokoschka’s most significant early statements, and the frank, erotic metaphor and personal mythology introduced here would become central to his later artistic productions, both visual and literary.
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