George Barbier – Page 3 – { feuilleton }

The art of Henri Caruchet

Byblis (1901) by Pierre Louÿs.

Henri Caruchet isn’t in George Barbier’s league, never mind that of Alphonse Mucha whose graphic style Caruchet appropriated. I’ve not been able to find details about his life either, all that turns up is examples of his book illustration on various websites. Author Pierre Louÿs is notable for his erotic works but it’s Caruchet’s illustrations for Jean de Villiot (via this site) which travel the furthest in that direction (see below), including another example of that deviant sub-genre, the woman being mauled by an octopus. If Caruchet had been a better draughtsman his illustrations might not have languished for so long.

There’s more decorative illustration by Caruchet at Gutenberg.org with an edition of Théophile Gautier’s Émaux et Camées. Two of Gautier’s poems from that volume are quoted by Oscar Wilde in The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Byblis (1901) by Pierre Louÿs.

Les Litanies de la Mer (1903) by Jean Richepin.

Parisienne et Peaux-Rouges (1904) by Jean de Villiot.

Continue reading “The art of Henri Caruchet”

George Barbier’s Falbalas et Fanfreluches

George Barbier’s work has been a regular visitor to these pages. Falbalas et Fanfreluches was a series of pochoir print portfolios published from 1922–1926, a catalogue of various liaisons and amours with a mildly erotic tone. There’s also some sly humour in the examples below, such as the tiny dogs menacing a dandy in L’Agression, and the eyes of the woman in Romance sans paroles wandering to the trim backside of the posing sailor (who doesn’t seem so interested in her).

In addition to being beautiful drawings, Barbier’s title has solved for me a minor conundrum: Falbalas et Fanfreluches means “Ruffles and Frills”, and the Abbé Fanfreluche is a suitably ruffled and frilled character in Aubrey Beardsley’s unfinished erotic novel Under the Hill.

Continue reading “George Barbier’s Falbalas et Fanfreluches”

02013

Vaslav Nijinsky in Fokine’s Schéhérazade. A print by George Barbier (1913).

Happy new year. 02013? Read this.

“Taking your measure”: October, 1913.

“The elevated sidewalk: How it will solve transportation problems”: July 26, 1913.

November 15, 1913.

Opium dens

The Opium Den (1881) by William Lamb Picknell.

The romantic side of the addiction business. Needless to say, there’s a lot more of this kind of thing. The ultimate opium-related pictorial art is still Attila Sassy’s remarkable Opium Dreams from 1909, a series of drawings which can be seen at 50 Watts in high-quality scans.

The Opium Den (no date) by Vincent G. Stiepevich.

Chez la Marchande de Pavots (The House of the Poppy Merchant, 1920) by George Barbier.

Opium den from Fantasio (1915) by George Barbier.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Opium fiends
• La Morphine by Victorien du Saussay
• Haschisch Hallucinations by HE Gowers
• The Dark Ledger
• Demon rum leads to heroin
• German opium smokers, 1900

Vaslav Nijinsky by Paul Iribe

Another small and obscure volume hiding in the Internet Archive, Vaslav Nijinsky is a portfolio of six ink drawings by Paul Iribe (1883–1935) with a few lines of appended verse by Jean Cocteau. Iribe was a French designer and fashion illustrator who for a while was a member of the Ballets Russes circle, hence these depictions of the troupe’s most celebrated dancer. As post-Beardsley black-and-whites go these are pretty good although Iribe’s figures lack the requisite grace for their subject. If they were the only drawings of their kind that wouldn’t be so bad but one of Iribe’s contemporaries, George Barbier, produced his own superb series of Nijinsky drawings most of which can be seen here.

Note: the date given for this book at the Internet Archive is 1900 which seems quite wrong given that Nijinsky was still a young dancer in Russia at that time. Iribe’s drawings must date at least from 1910, maybe later.

Continue reading “Vaslav Nijinsky by Paul Iribe”