Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn – { feuilleton }

The Breath of Creation (c. 1926–34) by Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn.

• At Wormwoodiana: “…Gresham was well-read enough to know that while magic can be more than a MacGuffin in a fantasy story, neither fantasy nor thriller fiction lets magic unsettle readers much. […] Even when it is good, the supernatural is never safe in a Williams story. Not conventional fantasy by half.” G. Connor Salter on William Lindsay Gresham’s enthusiasm for Charles Williams’ novels.

• At Harper’s Magazine: Christopher Tayler reviews Lawrence Venuti’s translations of Dino Buzzati’s Il deserto dei Tartari (now titled The Stronghold) which was published last year, and The Bewitched Bourgeois: Fifty Stories which will be out in January.

• Dennis Cooper’s favourite fiction, poetry, non-fiction, film, art, and internet of 2024. Thanks again for the link here!

• The Approach to J.L. Borges: A Borgesian pastiche in homage to the creator of Ficciones by Ed Simon.

• “HP Lovecraft meets Fafhrd and The Grey Mouser”: an essay from 1992 by Fritz Leiber.

• Can performing live on The Old Grey Whistle Test in January, 1974.

• DJ Food says “Let’s have some psychedelia”.

• RIP Zakir Hussain.

• Creation Dub 1 (1977) by Lee Perry & The Upsetters | Threat To Creation (1981) by Creation Rebel/New Age Steppers | Theme from ‘Creation’ (1992) by Brian Eno

The Central Spiritual Sun.

This picture appears on the cover of an album of electronic music, The Golden Apples Of The Sun by Suzanne Ciani and Jonathan Fitoussi, which was released last Friday. Being already partial to the music of both Ms Ciani and Monsieur Fitoussi I’ve been enjoying this one (although there’s no CD…bah), and was curious about the cover art which I took at first for a contemporary creation. The artist, Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn (1881–1962) was born in the Netherlands but spent most of her life in Zurich where she was friends with Carl Jung, Richard Wilhelm and other mystically-inclined intellectuals, and where she formed Eranos (later the Eranos Foundation), a conference/institute for the exchange of ideas between West and East.

Eternal Energy.

Fröbe-Kapteyn wasn’t a full-time artist, the screenprints she made in the 1930s appear to be an offshoot of her researches into archetypal symbolism, but she had an evident flair for this kind of image making. The Central Spiritual Sun is one of a series of 14 prints which are described as “Theosophist” although I can’t vouch for the accuracy of this. At least one of them (Kether, The Crown) refers to the Kabbalah, while several others have obvious Christian qualities. For those who like the Ciani/Fitoussi cover art, there’s an edition of the vinyl release of The Golden Apples Of The Sun that comes with a poster reproduction.

Kether, The Crown.

Reincarnation.

The Divine Breath.

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Mystical prints by Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn