{architecture} – Page 19

Charles W. Bartlett’s prints

Taj Mahal, Agra (1916).

In which British artist Charles W. Bartlett (1860–1940) applies the later style of ukiyo-e landscapes to his views of India and Hawaii. Bartlett was one of a handful of Western artists to have his work reproduced by a Japanese publisher of woodblock prints, Watanabe Shozaburo, so his mastery of the form may be taken as having been given a literal seal of approval.

Taj Mahal, Sunset (1920).

Considering the popularity and influence of Japanese prints I’m surprised that more artists haven’t attempted series productions like Hokusai’s Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, rather than simply borrowing the familiar approach to line and colour. To date the only Western example I know of is Henri Rivière’s Hokusai homage, Thirty-Six Views of the Eiffel Tower (1902). Charles Bartlett could have done the same with the Taj Mahal, a subject he returned to often enough, and a building which, like the Eiffel Tower, is recognisable even in silhouette.

Hawaii, The Surf Rider (1921).

Taj Mahal (1916).

Silk Merchants, India (1919).

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Weekend links 565

The Labyrinth of Crete from Turris Babel (1679) by Athanasius Kircher.

• “My self appointed tutors were, in the order I discovered them, Robbe-Grillet, Borges, Nabokov, and Burgess. All of them associable in one way or another with labyrinths, all practitioners of non-linearity, all happy not to explain, all precursors of Godard’s celebrated and liberating ‘a beginning a middle and an end but not necessarily in that order.’ Burgess, of course, also came from the provincial lower middle class, and gave the address at Benny Hill’s funeral.” Jonathan Meades talking to Owen Hatherley about (what else?) the tastes and opinions which were always to the fore in his long-running series of TV films about architecture, art, food, and culture in general. This time last year I rewatched Meades’ TV oeuvre thanks to downloads from MeadesShrine and YouTube. It’s no surprise to learn that he won’t be making any more of these films now that the increasingly useless BBC has decided that the arts-oriented BBC 4 will be an archive channel only. The days are long past when someone like Meades would be given a new six-part series, or an artist like Leonora Carrington 50 minutes of BBC 1 airtime.

• Food and film: “As with so much else in his life, [Alfred] Hitchcock’s accomplice in this peculiar gastronomic odyssey was Alma Reville, his wife, best friend, longest-serving creative collaborator, and, to quote Hitchcock, ‘as fine a cook as ever performed miracles in a domestic kitchen.'” Edward White on Alma Reville and the status of food in the Hitchcock household.

• Food and books: “The supply of hides for parchment was always dependent on the dietary preferences of the local population… For hundreds of years, the transmission of knowledge had depended on carnivorous appetites and good animal husbandry.” Ross King on the laborious process of bookmaking in the 15th century.

• At Wormwoodiana: Sphinxes & Obelisks, a new collection of essays “on rare books and recondite subjects” by Mark Valentine.

• New music: crystallise, a frozen eye by James Ginzburg, and Multiverse by Gadi Sassoon.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Spotlight on…Amos Tutuola The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1952).

• At Spoon & Tamago: Step inside the miniature worlds of Tatsuya Tanaka.

• Mixes of the week: 30 years of People Like Us, and Fact Mix 803 by oxhy.

• And all that jazz: innovative album covers from the 1950s on.

• In praise of Edward Gorey, style icon.

• Labyrinthe (1995) by Zbigniew Preisner | Labyrinth (2010) by Chrome Hoof | The Seventh Labyrinth (2018) by Pye Corner Audio

Weekend links 562

Teenage Lightning (Les Éclairs au-dessous de quatorze ans) (c. 1925) by Max Ernst.

• “There has never been another director who has lain in wait for us with the same wrath or disgust. He is so complicated that finally he became the very thing he was nervous of admitting, a true artist best measured in the company of Patrick Hamilton, Francis Bacon, or Harold Pinter. He saw no reason to like us or himself.” David Thomson on why Alfred Hitchcock’s films still feel dangerous.

• New music: “Habitat, an environmental music collaboration by Berlin based composer Niklas Kramer and percussionist Joda Foerster, is inspired by the drawings of Italian architect Ettore Sottsass. Each of the eight tracks represents a room in an imaginary building.”

• “You could describe Lambkin’s work as a rich sort of ambient music, but largely without the synthetic textures that ambient music often possesses.” Geeta Dayal reviews Solos, a collection of recordings by Graham Lambkin.

• Tom of Finland: Pen and Ink, 1965–1989 is an exhibition at the David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles, which runs to 1st May. The website includes a virtual tour.

• More revenant gay art: Bibliothèque Gay reviews a new Spanish translation of Baiser de Narcisse by Jacques d’Adelswärd-Fersen.

• Introducing Ark Surreal: “Surreal collages by Allan Randolph Kausch. Some cute and sweet, others dark and intriguing.”

• At Artforum: Albert Mobilio on Extra Ordinary: Magic, Mystery, and Imagination in American Realism.

• At Spoon & Tamago: Shizuoka is installing monuments inspired by their plastic model industry.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Jordan Belson Day.

• Museum of Everything Else

• RIP Bertrand Tavernier.

• Teenage Lightning 2 (1991) by Coil | Teenage Lightning (1992) by Skullflower | Teenage Lightning (Surgeon Remix) (2001) by Coil

Piranesi record covers

Title page for the Carceri d’Invenzione (second state), 1761.

Continuing an occasional series about artists or designers whose work has appeared on record sleeves. Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778) is a cult figure here so this is an inevitable post even if there isn’t a great deal to look at. Many of the record covers that use Piranesi etchings are for classical releases, which isn’t so surprising. The prints that comprise the Vedute di Roma were Piranesi’s most popular works, and remain so today despite their exaggerations of the true size of Rome’s monuments and ruins. But I thought the Carceri d’Invenzione (aka The Prisons) might be more popular, especially in the metal world where dark and gloomy imagery is de rigueur. There may be more examples, of course, since I’m having to rely on Discogs which doesn’t always note the work of uncredited artists. I suspect that architecture alone isn’t attractive enough for the metal hordes, however vast and tenebrous that architecture might be. The covers I’ve done for metal bands have always had to incorporate figures—human or otherwise—or some kind of occult symbolism. The most prominent musical piece based on Piranesi’s Prisons is also a classical work, one of the Bach cello suites recorded by Yo-Yo Ma in 1998. Ma’s album, Inspired By Bach, was accompanied by six films from different directors; the film for Suite No. 2, The Sound of the Carceri by François Girard, shows Ma playing the piece inside a CGI rendering of Piranesi’s colossal spaces. Copies of Girard’s film come and go on YouTube so this one may not stay around.

Luigi Dallapiccola: Il Prigioniero (1975); National Symphony Orchestra Of Washington DC, Antal Dorati.

Palestrina: Missa Aeterna Christi Munera / Oratio Jeremiae Prophetae / Motetti (1976); Pro Cantione Antiqua, London.

Tartini: Concerti Per Violino E Orchestra / Sonate (1981); P. Toso, I Solisti Veneti, C. Scimone, E. Farina.

Captivation (1994) by Tefilla.

Continue reading “Piranesi record covers”

Weekend links 553

The Unknown Room by Gina Litherland.

• “He admired abstract painters like Mark Rothko, but also derived inspiration from the far less hip Pre-Raphaelite artists of the mid-1800s, especially the painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Budd’s dreamy early breakthrough Madrigals of the Rose Angel, which featured a segment titled Rossetti Noise, was deliciously out of step with the hard-edged music of the 1970s.” Geeta Dayal on the late Harold Budd.

• “Here the experience is transformed into something more fabulist, and much more interesting than the memoir. In the novel, delusions of grandeur become real powers.” Elisa Gabbert on Leonora Carrington and The Hearing Trumpet.

• “The Japanese especially loved 3-inch CDs and there are many different examples throughout the 90s and 00s of them being used to great effect as promos.” DJ Food begins a series of posts devoted to one of my favourite music formats.

• New music: Viia, 24 minutes of live synthesis by Kikimore; Music For The Open Air, a free album of ambient music by K. Leimer (Soundcloud login required to download tracks).

• Sensory, Imaginative, and Psychic: S. Elizabeth interviews artist Gina Litherland.

• Puppets, Birds & Wycinanki: Clive Hicks-Jenkins talks to Anna Zaranko.

• Mix of the week: a 3-hour tribute to Monolake by Funky Jeff.

• At Wormwoodiana: The Flint Transmissions.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Watery, Domestic.

• At Strange Flowers: 21 books for 2021.

• Edge Of The Unknown (1973) by Nik Pascal | Unknown Passage (1999) by Robert Musso | The Unknown, Part 2 (2005) by Robin Guthrie & Harold Budd