Valenti Angelo – { feuilleton }

Virgil Finlay’s Salomé

While chasing down Virgil Finlay’s illustration for Lovecraft’s The Colour Out of Space earlier this week I came across another Finlay drawing I’d not noticed before in a book I’ve owned for years. Makes me wonder what else is lurking on the shelves. Finlay’s depiction of Salomé was an illustration for Waxworks, a story by Robert Bloch published in Weird Tales for January 1939. I’ve never read much of Bloch’s fiction, this story included, so can’t say anything about it, but Finlay’s drawing impresses for the solid black night sky, and the peculiar flaming headdress, the kind of unique detail he often added to his pictures.

Bloch and Finlay had a memorable encounter a couple of years years before when Finlay illustrated The Faceless God, another Weird Tales piece which so impressed HP Lovecraft that it inspired a poem, To Mr. Finlay, Upon His Drawing for Mr. Bloch’s Tale, ‘The Faceless God’. Lovecraft’s handwritten draft can be seen (but not necessarily read) here.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The Salomé archive

Wilhelm Volz’s Salomé

Wilhelm Volz (1855–1901) was a German artist whose work I might not have paid any attention to at all had this lithograph not been featured in that cult volume Dreamers of Decadence. As a composition it’s a lot more interesting than Volz’s paintings, the circle for a halo being an unusual detail. There’s also more of an atmosphere of horror in this representation than one usually finds with the Salomé theme. The temptress doesn’t seem very enamored of her trophy, and John the Baptist’s head for once bears a suitable expression of horror. Volz’s print was published in Pan magazine in 1896, the entire edition of which may be viewed here.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The Salomé archive

Valenti Angelo’s Salomé

And still they come… Valenti Angelo (1897–1982) was an American printmaker, author of several books for children and the illustrator of an estimated 250 classic works of fiction including this 1945 edition of Wilde’s Salomé for Heritage Press. Angelo has an engagingly simple style in this and other works, reminding me of David Sheridan’s Tarot designs. The Internet Archive has a copy of his illustrated The Imitation of Christ with drawings reminscent of Eric Gill’s woodcuts.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive
• The Oscar Wilde archive
• The Salomé archive