Marcus Behmer – { feuilleton }

Cocorico graphics

A final visit to Cocorico, the French humour magazine of the fin de siècle. Where graphics are concerned I’ve ignored the cartoons to concentrate on the Art Nouveau decoration which is plentiful in the early issues. The star here is Louis Popineau, an artist I only knew from the excessively florid page above which is reprinted sans poem in one of my design books. Popineau enjoyed foliage running riot in this manner but the magazine also features several of his excellent coloured prints. There’s a lot more of this type of work in the complete run of the magazine which may be found at the Internet Archive.

A paean to the poppy by Jérome Doucet illustrated by Adolphe Cossard. Poppies were a very popular plant in the 1890s for obvious naroctic reasons. Cossard made them a feature of his cover for issue 32.

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Weekend links 166

The Julian House cover art for the forthcoming collaboration between John Foxx and Belbury Poly (here renamed) has been revealed. Single no. 9 in the Ghost Box Listening Centre Study Series is now available.

• In addition to new Ghost Box records there’s more Hauntological (for want of a better term) cinema on the way this summer with the DVD/BR release of Ben Wheatley’s A Field in England. The potted description at Movie Mail is “a monochrome psychedelic trip into magic and madness set during the English Civil War”. Julian House has made a trailer. Meanwhile at Fangoria, there’s a PIF mixtape from The Advisory Circle. This accompanies an interview with John Krish, director of the most bizarre of the UK’s many strange and alarming public information films from the 1970s.

• More mixes: The hour-long OH/EX/OH show for The Geography Trip on Chorlton FM. “Expect slumber / tension / euphoria in almost equal measures.” It’s marvellous. At Self-Titled mag there’s DJ Food with O Is For Orange: Boards of Canada, Broadcast, The Books, etc.

• Tangiers is a computer game based on the fiction of William Burroughs. Jim Rossignol talked to Alex Harvey about the development of the project.

Walpurgisnacht (1917) by Amadeus. A drawing that could easily be from the late 1960s. If anyone knows the full name of the artist, please leave a comment. Via Beautiful Century.

• Rebecca J. Rosen asks “What would the night sky look like if the other planets were as close as the moon?”

• The mystery of Charles Dellschau and the Sonora Aero Club.

• The Surreal Cave Paintings Of Stockholm’s Metro Stations.

• At 50 Watts: More strange art from Marcus Behmer.

• Ry Cooder in 1970. Directed by Van Dyke Parks!

• The Post Office Tower: now you see it…

• At Little Augury: 99 Meninas.

• Sartori In Tangier (1982) by King Crimson | City Of Mirage (2010) by John Foxx

German bookplates

A selection from Das Moderne Deutsche Gebrauchs-Exlibris (1922) edited by Richard Braungart, an overview of the practioners of the bookplate form in Germany and Austria during the first decades of the 20th century. Some of the German and Austrian art magazines featured here over the past couple of years included bookplate designs, and Braungart’s collection includes many artists from those magazines: Melchior Lechter, Hugo Höppener (aka Fidus), Julius Diez, Heinrich Vogeler, Marcus Behmer, Franz von Bayros, Koloman Moser, Carl Otto Czeschka, Ephraim Moses Lilien, Franz Stassen and others. 400 examples in all.

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Ver Sacrum, 1903

Concluding the series of posts about Ver Sacrum, the art journal of the Viennese Secession. The volume of issues for 1903 continues the bi-monthly format from the previous year only this time the calendar supplement is at the end of the volume. This was the last year for the journal, unfortunately, not least because the Secession had run its course, having perhaps proved its point in providing an alternative to the prevailing trends in Austrian art and design. Koloman Moser, Alfred Roller and Josef Hoffmann left to found the Wiener Werkstätte while Gustav Klimt, who again has an issue devoted to his drawings, went on to paint some of his most famous pictures, including The Kiss.

Ver Sacrum certainly ended on a high note. Most of the issues for 1903 contain woodcuts by a variety of artists with some superb examples of the form. For once there’s work by women—Irma von Dutczynska, Nora Exner and Hilde Exner—there’s more strange art from Marcus Behmer, and also a translated extract from the memorial book written by Arthur Symons following Aubrey Beardsley’s death in 1898. As before, anyone wishing to see more can browse all 498 pages or download the entire volume here.

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Ver Sacrum, 1900

Continuing an occasional series of posts about Ver Sacrum, the art journal of the Viennese Secession. The collected issues for 1900 undergo a change of design, and not necessarily for the better. Gone are the decorative covers of previous years, replaced by small emblem-like vignettes for each issue. The one above is a design by Gustav Klimt whose work is featured throughout this year. Other familiar names include the Belgian Symbolist Fernand Khnopff, Ludwig von Hofmann and Marcus Behmer. The page design is generally less interesting, unfortunately, although the magazine did retain its square format and there are many impressive examples of Art Nouveau graphics. The complete set of pages for this volume can be viewed or downloaded here.

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