{ feuilleton }

Willy Pogány’s Children of Odin

I ought to have waited until Wotan’s Day to post this one. The title may suggest a black metal album but these are illustrations by the versatile Willy Pogány for a retelling of Norse myths by Padraic Colum. Pogány illustrated several of Colum’s books, including retellings of Greek myths for which the illustrations resemble the figures found on Grecian ceramics. Children of Odin was published in 1920 with illustrations and page designs closer to Pogány’s drawings and paintings for Colum’s novel, The King of Ireland’s Son. The four colour plates shown here aren’t always present in the editions available online.

Iduna picking the Apples of Life for the Gods.

Jason and the Argonauts was one of my favourite films when I was 10 years old (and the story of the Golden Fleece happens to be the subject of a later Colum/Pogány volume) but I was never very interested in the written accounts of Greek mythology. The world of the Norse gods was darker and more mysterious, and I read Roger Lancelyn Green’s Myths of the Norsemen many times. I’m sure I would have done the same with Colum’s book, especially in this edition which contains over 40 illustrations. These days, any mention of Odin and Thor is blighted by association with the steroidal junk of “The Marvel Universe” and neopagan numbskullery. Feed them all to Fenrir and the Midgard Serpent, say I, and let the old gods rest in peace.

Odin at Mimir’s Well.

Continue reading “Willy Pogány’s Children of Odin”

Weekend links 598

The Wire, July 2004. Illustration and design by Non-Format. Christopher Cox’s interview with Lucier is available to read here.

• “I went into experimental overdrive. Lyrical motifs became literal imagery. A hammer shattering a plate of glass. A lyrical maze of geometric tunnels and formations.” Chris Mosdell talking to Aquarium Drunkard about writing lyrics for Yellow Magic Orchestra and others (you can hear his voice on YMO’s Citizens Of Science), plus the recording of his own debut album, Equasian.

• At Public Domain Review: “…this short, odd book confronts a question that has vexed naturalists for thousands of years: how do we account for the precipitation of animals?” Odd Showers; or, An Explanation of the Rain of Insects, Fishes, and Lizards (1870) by George Duncan Gibb.

• “…few writers on our list could have functioned in the culture that, today, sees literature as a profession for which you prepare like any other: going to the right school, meeting the right people.” Francine Prose on her encounters with the literary strange.

• “Where was glass first fashioned? How was it worked and coloured, and passed around the ancient world?” Carolyn Wilke presents a brief scientific history of glass.

• RIP Antony Sher and Alvin Lucier. In 1969 Lucier was sitting in a room different to the one you are in now. Elsewhere: Alvin Lucier at Ubuweb.

• New/old music: Zeitgeist: Ambient Music from 2012 to 2020 by Marco Simioni & Mattia Saviolo.

• James Balmont on five unmissable films from the Japanese New Wave movement.

• At Spoon & Tamago: Illuminated paintings of Tokyo after dark by Keita Morimoto.

• Mixes of the week: XLR8R Podcast 724 by Laura BCR, and Isolatedmix 115 by HVL.

• At Strange Flowers: part two of James Conway’s Secret Satan end-of-year list.

• “Jony Ive’s first major design since leaving Apple isn’t what you’d expect.”

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Yasuzo Masumura Day.

• Glass (1968) by Sagittarius | Glass (1979) by Joy Division | Glass (2009) by Bat For Lashes

Prints update

The Major Arcana (2006): a C-type print on Fuji gloss paper. A1 or A2 sizes.

I’m continuing to add artwork to Etsy which will be available as prints in a variety of sizes and papers. I would have done more of this by now but I’m still very busy working through the commissions of the past few months so progress has been slow. The system does actually work as intended, however, with orders being routed automatically to the printer then printed and shipped within 24 hours. The initial setup may take longer than places like CafePress but the benefits are multiple, not only a faster turnaround (and cheaper worldwide postage) but now I can create prints of any size I want, and with a variety of papers and finishes. Most of the items there at the moment are the things I consider “greatest hits” so the latest additions include new poster versions of my psychedelic Alice in Wonderland artwork, together with the International Symbols Tarot poster and yet more Lovecraftiana. Requests are, of course, still welcome.

Psychedelic Wonderland (2009): a C-type print on Fuji gloss paper. A1 or A2 sizes.

Psychedelic Looking-Glass (2010): a C-type print on Fuji gloss paper. A1 or A2 sizes.

Cthulhu (1998): a giclée print on Canson Aquarelle rag paper. A3 size.

Dagon (1999): a giclée print on Canson Aquarelle rag paper. A3 size.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Prints at Etsy

Bill Travis revisited

“Todd,” backlit alternative process photo with wax, 28 x 41 in., 2017.

Bill Travis was in touch last week to let me know about his new website which showcases his latest artwork. Travis’s photographs of male bodies. pastoral views and cityscapes are processed in a manner that gives them a painted finish, with the prints being further backlit to create the luminosity commonly associated with stained-glass windows. It’s a beautiful effect that enhances the inherent beauty of the images. Some of the prints are available for purchase.

“Dancers 1,” backlit alternative process photo with wax and oil paint, 22 x 18 in., 2019.

“Receive Me Darkness” (artist book), pp. 36-37, mixed media, 24 x 36 in., 2021.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The art of Bill Travis

Weekend links 597

Untitled art by Toshio Okazaki from JCA Annual 5, 1984.

• “Yeah, when I first started writing it, nobody knew what to call it at all. I mean, the publishers didn’t know what to call it. They thought that Tolkien was (writing about) a post-apocalyptic nuclear world. That’s the only way they could perceive an alternate world, in other words. And it was the same with Mervyn Peake… they’re all interpreted that way. The idea of putting ‘fantasy’ on a book meant usually meant that it was a children’s book. And if you put fantasy as the genre, they usually put ‘SF’ larger than ‘fantasy’ to show that it was what it was.” Michael Moorcock (again) talking to Derek Garcia about fiction, games, and (of course) Elric.

• “Non-payment, low payment, late payment and promises of jam tomorrow, or at some unspecified future date, bedevil the freelance life as they did five centuries ago.” Indeed. Boyd Tonkin on Albrecht Dürer, patron saint of stroppy freelancers.

• “All at once, Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret is tender, outrageous and daft.” Patrick Clarke compiles an oral history of Soft Cell’s debut album.

Yeah, it was kind of a media hype. In January [1967], the media said, [breathless] ‘Oh my god, San Francisco is the place to be. Come to San Francisco, wear flowers in your hair.’ So we had a meeting of the people in the Haight-Ashbury about how we were going to deal with so many people coming. The Diggers decided to kind of make it a university of the streets, an alternative anarchist culture.

We knew that all these people were coming to San Francisco, and we knew they weren’t going to stay. And we thought, well, the best thing we could do would be to kind of educate them about the kinds of things that are possible in society, and then let them go back to where they’re from, and they would carry these ideas. And that is what happened. We were quite successful in that.

Judy Goldhaft of the San Francisco Diggers talking to Jay Babcock for another installment of Jay’s verbal history of the hippie anarchists

• “What ‘impossible’ meant to Richard Feynman; what I learned when I challenged the legendary physicist,” by Paul J. Steinhardt.

• At Strange Flowers: part one of James Conway’s essential end-of-year shopping list, Secret Satan.

• Mixes of the week: Part II and Part III of the three-part At The Outer Marker series by David Colohan.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Olivia Duval presents…Suave: A History of Les Disques du Crépuscule.

• Mystery and Truth of the Cthulhu Myth, a Japanese guide to the Cthulhu Mythos.

• Intimacy, Loss and Hope: Inside Florian Hetz’s beautiful 2020 photo diary.

• New music: The Tower (The City) by Vanessa Rossetto/Lionel Marchetti.

• Nite Jewel’s favourite albums.

• RIP Stephen Sondheim.

• Nothing Is Impossible (1974) by The Interns | Mission Impossible Theme (1981) by Ippu-Do | Impossible Guitar (1982) by Phil Manzanera