A journal by artist and designer John Coulthart.
Cities
More from the city of the alchemists. I downloaded The Face of Prague (1951 or 59) several years ago but never posted anything here since many of the photos are lacking Karel Plicka’s skill at framing an architectural view. But here’s a selection of shots anyway. The book has text in English and French by Jiri Körber, while the photographs are credited to M. Kucera. As usual with this kind of photography, I favour the moodier images and enclosed spaces.
Untitled (1967).
A post at MetaFilter about Czech photographer Josef Sudek (1896–1976) led to these pictures. After linking to another post about Sudek five years ago I’d subsequently forgotten about him so it was good to be reminded of his work, not least for the views of Prague. Sudek is featured on this page with his contemporary, Karel Plicka, still my favourite of the photographers of that magical city.
St Vitus Cathedral, Prague (1928).
Seashell (1953).
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Karel Plicka’s views of Prague
Presenting the best of the architectural shots from the Providence trip. Regular readers will know how much I enjoy an arcade so it was a thrill that the public headquarters of NecronomiCon—Lovecraft Arts & Sciences— was located in the oldest arcade in the United States.
Environment Transformer/Flyhead Helmet by Haus-Rucker-Co (1968). From Hippie Modernism at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.
• From 2006: Weird Tales: The Strange Life of HP Lovecraft. Geoff Ward examines Lovecraft’s life and work for BBC Radio 3 with contributions from Neil Gaiman, ST Joshi, Kelly Link, China Miéville and Peter Straub. Meanwhile, Ned Beauman wonders whether Ford Madox Ford is “as scary as Lovecraft”.
• Alexei German’s years-in-the-making feature film, Hard to be a God (previously), receives a UK release this week. Paul Duane reports on an overwhelming viewing experience, while Nigel Andrews says it “may be the greatest film since the millennium began”.
• Mixes of the week: Adventures In Sound And Music, 30 July 2015, hosted by Joseph Stannard, and RCMIX9 by worriedaboutsatan.
As Nabokov insisted, “Literature is invention. Fiction is fiction. To call a story a true story is an insult to both art and truth.” The genre thrives because its deceptions are liberating. For Wood, the thrill of reading fiction is intimately connected with the awareness that fiction constitutes “an utterly free space, where anything might be thought, anything uttered.” The excitement comes when, as readers, we’re allowed to participate in this freedom and experience the fiction imaginatively, without being required to believe that it is true.
Joanna Scott on The Virtues of Difficult Fiction
• “Writing used to be a solitary profession. How did it become so interminably social?” asks Meghan Tifft.
• The original, real-life dystopian cityscape of Kowloon Walled City, and the artwork it inspired.
• The Long, Lonely Walk: Nick Ripatrazone on hallways in horror films.
• New cover designs for the Essentials range from Penguin Books.
• Lemi Ghariokwu: “How I designed Fela Kuti’s album covers”.
• “Do CDs sound better than vinyl?” asks Chris Kornelis.
• Magic Fly (1977) by Space | Human Fly (1978) by The Cramps | I Am The Fly (1978) by Wire
Cover art: The Castle in the Pyrenees (1961) by René Magritte.
A final post for this week devoted to Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, and it occurs to me that “Miscellanea” could easily be the name of one of Marco Polo’s cities.
One thing that’s become apparent over the past few days is that this subject is a very popular one with artists, especially in Italy. This is understandable but it also means you could probably fill another week of posts pursuing further illustrations and homages. Rather than belabour things I’m ending with a few of the more notable derivations including some cover designs. The Einaudi volume above was the first printing in Italy in 1972.
Cover design by Arnold Skolnick.
And this was the first American edition from Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich in 1974. The cover is printed in silver foil which makes the book a particularly desirable item. This might explain why it’s also rather expensive today.
Cover art: Martyrdom of a Saint by Monsù Desiderio.
The 1979 Picador edition is one of two paperback editions I own. The enigmatic “Monsù Desiderio” has a confused identity (see this post), and specialised in curious architectural paintings so this is an apt choice.