Only Artists

The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, by Angela Carter

Illustrated by Igor Karash (The Folio Society)

Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories (Spanish edition: “La cámara sangrienta” · Publisher: Sexto Piso, 2014)

SAINTS & FASHION

Bernardino de Villegas, Jesuit priest, against the Baroque depiction of virgin martyrs and saints in the arts - 1625 text (vs.) Francisco de Zurbarán's series of paintings of female saints:

"Is there anything more indecent than those virginal saints dressed in such profane attire, with so many pendants and such finery, that not even the wealthiest ladies wear? Sometimes, even a man might doubt whether to worship them as St. Lucy, or St. Catherine, or to glance away to avoid seeing the profanity of their garments, given that with their dresses and ornaments they do not seem heavenly saints, but earthly ladies. St. Catherine is not shown sword in hand, nor St. Lucy with her eyes on a plate, so nobody would say they could be saints, nor the most honest virgins, according to their gowns and garments in which they have been dressed."

Original text: “¿Qué cosa más indecente que (…) unas santas vírgenes vestidas tan profanamente, y con tantos dijes y galas, que no traen mas las damas más bizarras del mundo? Que a veces duda un hombre, si las adorará por santa Lucía, o santa Catalina, o si apartará los ojos por no ver la profanidad de sus trajes: porque en sus vestidos y adornos no parecen santas del cielo, sino damas del mundo. Y a no estar santa Catalina con sus espada en la mano, y santa Lucía con sus ojos en el plato, por lo que toca al vestido y traje galán con que las visten, nadie dijera que eran santas, ni vírgenes honestísimas, como lo fueron.”

Gustav Klimt and Emilie Flöge on Lake Attersee, 1913

Photographer: Friedrich G. Walker (Autochrome Lumière Plate)

Thisbe, c. 1900

1. “Amorita”, [Model, flowers in hair, head tilted], c. 1900

2. [Model, flowers in hair, head level]

TITANIA, Queen of the Fairies

Illustrations by William Heath Robinson, from "Shakespeare’s Comedy of A Midsummer-Night’s Dream" (New York, Henry Holt and Company, 1914)

Coloured Plates: ”Titania. [Act IV.]" & "Titania. Be kind and courteous to this gentleman. [Act III. Sc.1.]”

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, ‘The Sacred Grove’, 1884

Toulouse-Lautrec created this work while studying under the painter Fernand Cormon. The painting parodies Pierre Puvis de Chavannes’s “The Sacred Grove Cherised by the Arts and Muses," which was awarded the grand prize at the 1884 Paris Salon.

Marjorie Cameron, Holy Guardian Angel according to Aleister Crowley, 1966. Casein and gold lacquer on board

Marjorie Cameron, East Angel · West Angel, n.d., Graphite, ink and gold paint on paper

Épigraphe pour un livre condamné

Lecteur paisible et bucolique,  Sobre et naïf homme de bien,  Jette ce livre saturnien,  Orgiaque et mélancolique. Si tu n’as fait ta rhétorique  Chez Satan, le rusé doyen,  Jette! tu n’y comprendrais rien,  Ou tu me croirais hystérique. Mais si, sans se laisser charmer,  Ton oeil sait plonger dans les gouffres,  Lis-moi, pour apprendre à m’aimer; Ame curieuse qui souffres  Et vas cherchant ton paradis,  Plains-moi!… sinon, je te maudis!

— Charles Baudelaire · "Nouvelles fleurs du mal" (1861)

* * *

Epigraph for a Condemned Book

Quiet and bucolic reader,  Upright man, sober and naive,  Throw away this book, saturnine,  Orgiac and melancholy.

If you did not do your rhetoric  With Satan, that artful dean,  Throw it away, you’d grasp nothing,  Or else think me hysterical.

But if, without being entranced,  Your eye can plunge in the abyss,  Read me, to learn to love me;

Inquisitive soul that suffers  And keeps on seeking paradise,  Pity me!… or else, I curse you!

— Translation by William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil

* * *

RODIN & BAUDELAIRE

Illustrations for Charles Baudelaire’s 'Les Fleurs du Mal', 1887-88

Pen and brown ink, brown ink wash, on pages from a copy of the original edition of ‘Les Fleurs du Mal’ (Paris, Poulet-Malassis et de Broise, 1857)

This copy of the original edition of 1857 belonged to the book lover and publisher Paul Gallimard. The architect and art critic Frantz Jourdain used his influence to obtain the commission to illustrate it for Rodin. The brown leather binding was made by Henri Marius Michel. Represented in demi-relief on the front cover, in incised, mosaiced leather, is an ivory skull on a dark green thistle plant.

Carlos Schwabe’s llustrations for Baudelaire’s 'Les Fleurs du Mal' (Paris: Charles Meunier, 1900)

Henry Fuseli

· Titania’s Awakening (1785-1790 · Kunstmuseum Winterthur)

· Titania and Bottom (c. 1790 · Tate)