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Fourteen views of Himeji Castle

Himeji Castle, Evening (1926) by Hiroshi Yoshida.

If you’ve ever seen Akira Kurosawa’s Ran then you’ve seen Himeji Castle inside as well as out, a memorable sight not only for its vast size—the castle is the largest in Japan—but also for its brilliant white facade. Despite the building’s great age and importance it doesn’t seem to have been a popular subject for ukiyo-e prints which makes me wonder if there was ever a prohibition against this. Or were castles an unpopular subject compared to the more familar views of shrines and temples? Whatever the reason, all the prints here are from 20th- and 21st-century artists showing the place in a variety of seasons and weathers. The castle also appears in Kurosawa’s Kagemusha, a film I haven’t seen for many years. Time for a re-viewing, I think.

Himeji Castle (1930) by Hasui Kawase.

Himeji Castle (1942) by Toshi Yoshida.

Himeji Castle (1948) by Hasui Kawase.

Himeji Castle (c.1950s) by Tomikichiro Tokuriki.

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Weekend links 712

Above and Below (1968) by Wendy Abbott.

• “Thirty-two years after the five Central Asian countries of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan appeared on the world map, little of the region has been portrayed in film. Countries associated with the -stan suffix are perceived as dangerous or sinister.” Komron Ergashev on Central Asia and cinema.

• Old music: Alice Coltrane’s Carnegie Hall concert from 1971 has been available for many years as a high-quality bootleg but never the complete recording. The first official release next month promises to at last present a full performance.

• RIP Damo Suzuki, vocalist for Can during the group’s peak years. The Rockpalast concert from 1970 captured the group in impressive form shortly after Suzuki joined.

• “I’ve always been drawn towards esoteric phenomena: the illogical, the inexpressible, the impossible.” Dorothea Tanning talking to Carlo McCormick in 1990.

• “This film was shot live on the surface of an 8mm² chemical reaction.” As Above by Roman Hill.

• New music: Floating On A Moment by Beth Gibbons, and All Life Long by Kali Malone.

• At Unquiet Things: The art of Kiyoshi Hasegawa.

• Joel Gion’s favourite music.

• Esoteric Circle (1976) by Jan Garbarek | As Above, So Below (1981) by Tom Tom Club | Esoteric Red (1997) by Tao

Cosmic Alchemy, a film by Lawrence Jordan

More alchemical collage animation, this time by one of the earliest practitioners of the form. Lawrence Jordan has been creating collage films since the 1950s, and is still doing so today. Cosmic Alchemy which dates from 2010, is a 24-minute piece that immediately attracted my attention for its use of cosmological charts and other maps of the heavens. The alchemy here is more astronomical (or astrological) than chemical, exploring a cosmos where the celestial spheres are populated by a variety of orbs and glittering stars, together with familiar figures from the Dover Publications Pictorial Archive. The droning soundtrack is by John Davis. There are more collaborations between Jordan and Davis at Davis’s Vimeo page.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Edge of Alchemy, a film by Stacey Steers
• Still Life, a film by Connor Griffith
• Hamfat Asar, a film by Lawrence Jordan
• Carabosse, a film by Lawrence Jordan
• Labirynt by Jan Lenica
• Heaven and Earth Magic by Harry Smith

Edge of Alchemy, a film by Stacey Steers

Stacey Steers’ Edge of Alchemy (2017) presents a unique approach to collage animation by combining backgrounds, objects and creatures taken from engraved illustrations with characters lifted from early cinema. The latter are two of the stars of the silent screen, Mary Pickford and Janet Gaynor, whose roles in several films are repurposed by Steers into a wordless 20-minute exploration of weird science: Pickford becomes “The Scientist”, a part she never would have been allowed to play in the silent days, while Gaynor is “The Creature”, a plant woman born from the Scientist’s experiments whose first appearance in bandages is borrowed from The Bride of Frankenstein. Bees proliferate in this scenario, very large ones with which the Creature has a natural affinity. The cumulative effect is like seeing Wilfried Sätty’s collages brought to life, in particular those in his first two books which incorporated photographic material with the engravings. The icing on the cake is a choral score by Lech Jankowski, best known for the music he composed for several of the Quay Brothers’ films.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Still Life, a film by Connor Griffith
• Hamfat Asar, a film by Lawrence Jordan
• Carabosse, a film by Lawrence Jordan
• Labirynt by Jan Lenica
• Heaven and Earth Magic by Harry Smith

Weekend links 711

Les Étrangers (1937) by Wolfgang Paalen.

• “I was picturing Monty Python’s spoof Pasolini cricket film The Third Test Match, a man frantically rubbing his groin with a cricket ball.” Paul Gallagher writing about the time that Kenneth Anger wanted to make a film about cricket.

• The week in deserts: This camera is taking a 1,000-year-long exposure photo of Tucson’s desert landscape; Explore the surface of Mars in spectacular 4K resolution.

• At the Wired YT channel: puzzle-box maker Kagen Sound talks about the creation and operation of his amazing boxes.

• RIP Wayne Kramer, the MC5’s other incendiary guitarist. Here they are kicking out the jams on Beat-Club in 1972.

• National Gallery of Ireland acquires Harry Clarke artwork for national collection.

• At Bajo el Signo de Libra: The (mostly homoerotic) Italy photographed by Herbert List.

• New music: Fragmented by Parallel Worlds, and The Crystal Parade by Cate Brooks.

• At Wormwoodiana: Aquarius, Arcania, Arcturus: Exploring New Age shops.

• At Public Domain Review: Early modern blackwork prints.

• Sun In Aquarius (1970) by Pharoah Sanders | Aquarius (1998) by Boards Of Canada | Aquarius (2018) by Beautify Junkyards