From riches
to rags
Joseph Stalin (1878 – 1953) was the dictator of the Soviet Union; he is sometimes said to be responsible for more deaths (during the Collectivization and the Great Purge) than the Holocaust, he was the definer of socialist realism and murderer of poets.
I hate dictators with a lousy taste in the arts, give me Catherine the Great any day.
Forrest J Ackerman (November 24, 1916 – December 4, 2008) was an American collector of science fiction books and movie memorabilia and a science fiction fan. Ackerman was influential to the wider cultural acceptance of science fiction as a literary, art and film genre. To a general audience, Ackerman is best remembered as the editor-writer of the magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland, as the producer of Vampirella, and as literary agent.
Vampirella magazine (France, 01/1970), published by Publicness
image sourced here.
Most of us have a passing interest in horror. In his Ways of Hearing book presentation, David Toop revealed that he discovered the Price, Corman and Poe-connection (the connection between 19th century literary horror to 20th century cinematic horror) via Famous Monsters of Filmland.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini @410
Pushing against Pluto’s face Proserpina‘s hand creases his skin,
while his fingers sink into the flesh of his victim.
Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini (December 7, 1598 – November 28, 1680) was a Italian sculptor and architect of 17th century Rome, best-known for his marble sculptures the Ecstasy of St Theresa[1] and the Beata Ludovica Albertoni[2].
Update: The Rape of Proserpina, the Ecstasy of St Theresa[1] and the Beata Ludovica Albertoni[2] are Icons of erotic art #35, 36 and 37.
The Book of the Courtier (1528) – Baldassare Castiglione
Baldassare Castiglione (1478 – 1529) was an Italian diplomat and author, best-known for his book on etiquette, The Book of the Courtier, which came to play a role in the 20th century aesthetics of cool* by having defined the concept of sprezzatura, “a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it”. To this day, the Book of the Courtier remains the definitive account of Renaissance court life.
The Works of Aretino by Samuel Putnam, illustrations by Franz von Bayros
Pietro Aretino‘s (1492 – 1556) La cortigiana is a parody of The Book of the Courtier. Like in so many of Aretino’s books, it gives center stage to a woman rather than a man (courtier is the male form of cortigiana, cortigiana entered French as courtesan and was later appropriated by the English language).
From a Jahsonic point of view La cortigiana deserves just as much attention as The Book of the Courtier.
Le notti peccaminose di Pietro l’Aretino
La cortigiana focuses on the romantic and erotic aspects of Renaissance life, a sensibility explored in the 1970s in the Italian film genre decamerotico, a subgenre of the commedia erotica all’italiana. Notable in this respect is Pasolini’s Trilogy of Life (The Decameron, The Canterbury Tales and Arabian Nights); but more so with regards to Aretino the Italian film Le notti peccaminose di Pietro l’Aretino[1], starring Adriana Asti and Elena Veronese.
While researching La cortegiana, I came across this sublime photo [2] of a female with an hourglass shaped body.
Cool Rules: Anatomy of an Attitude (2000) – Dick Pountain, David Robins [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
*”The aesthetics of cool were most successfully documented” in Cool Rules: Anatomy of an Attitude. –Sholem Stein
RIP Jim Cawthorn (1929 – 2008) (via John Coulthart [1])
The Metal Monster (1962) by Jim Cawthorn
Jim Cawthorn (1929 – 2008) was a British illustrator, comics artist and fantasy historian. Cawthorn was the first illustrator employed by Savoy Books in the early 1980s. Cawthorn was Michael Moorcock’s illustrator of choice for many years and was involved with the Moorcock-edited run of New Worlds right from the start with his cover illustrating J. G. Ballard’s “Equinox” story. He also provided reviews for New Worlds, and edited Fantasy: The 100 Best Books[1] with Moorcock.
Charles Jourdan ad, 1976
French fashion and advertising photographer Guy Bourdin (1928 – 1991) would have celebrated his 80th birthday today had he not died of cancer 17 years ago.
I’m not sure when I first consciously came in to contact with his oeuvre, but I am pretty sure it was in the terra cognita that the internet has become by way of this page[1] from the site of music and culture connoisseur Phinn.
Today, a wide selection of his videos is available on YouTube[2]; a large number of his films can be found on Flickr and on the internet at large[3].
However, and although I cannot confirm this, I feel that I had seen the imagery of Bourdin in the pre-internet world, in a Dutch-language magazine called Avenue, which my parents bought during the seventies. It was The Netherlands’ and Flander’s first glossy, and ran from 1965 until 2002. Contributors have included Paul Huf, Eddy Posthuma de Boer, Ed van der Elsken and Inez van Lamsweerde. I distinctly seem to remember the Charles Jourdan shoe photo-ads Bourdin produced during that era. Not coincidentally, Avenue reminds me of that other glossy, Nova magazine, which I covered a couple of weeks ago[4].
To me, Bourdin can only be compared to his contemporary Helmut Newton (although admittedly I’ve also tentavily compared Ralph Gibson [5] to Bourdin) because in the words of Charlotte Cotton and Shelly Verthime he “emphasised fetishism, power relationships, and the potential for sexual violence, as well as the artificiality of the image, its gloss rather than its reality.”[6]
I’ve reported on Bourdin many times, and I am glad that I saw his retrospective at the Jeu de Paume in Paris and was given as a present Luc Sante‘s first monograph on his work: Exhibit A: Guy Bourdin
You can find Bourdin’s work all over the net.
Can anyone ID the photograper of this cover image?
For something different here[7] is a photo of a cover from Avenue.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXu-8tXKWjU]
Le Jardin des délices de Jérôme Bosch
Jean Eustache (November 30, 1938 – November 3, 1981) was a French filmmaker best known for his 1973 film The Mother and the Whore and his various short subjects such as Le Jardin des délices de Jérôme Bosch[1]. Jean Eustache directed just two feature films he would make before committing suicide in 1981.
The Mother and the Whore[2] is one the last typical Nouvelle Vague films and an extended essay on male angst, the war of the sexes and the Madonna-whore complex. Clocking in at over 3½ hours, this film has a style seemingly borrowed from cinéma vérité and it tries to capture real life in post-May 1968 France. A typical scene is one where Marie comes home, puts a record on the turntable and listens to it in real time.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C08pv_YZE70]
Andrea Palladio (November 30, 1508 – August 19, 1580), was an Italian architect. The Palladian style, named after him, adhered to Roman architecture principles and a search for classical perfection. The Palladian villa format was easily adapted for a democratic worldview, as can be seen in Thomas Jefferson‘s commissioned buildings. Palladian motifs made a comeback during the postmodern era, the American architect Philip Johnson frequently used them in his doorways.
Peter Woditsch (1953, Germany) is a German-born filmmaker best known for his documentary film on the erotic furniture of Catherine the Great, and for his work on Musées secrets, secret museums, for the art television channel Arte.
Peter Woditsch was born in Stuttgart, Germany, but works and lives in Brussels. He studied philosophy in Paris and Brussels, film and animation in various places in Europe.
His debut feature Hey Stranger stars Hanna Schygulla.
His documentary film Musées secrets is an investigation of secret museums, first published in 2008 on the art television channel Arte.
Woditsch visits the Louvre, Orsay, British Library, the legendary Vatican collection and private collectors such as Gerard Nordmann.
In this documentary are the sculptures Beata Ludovica Albertoni[1], a marble by Italian sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Woman Bitten by a Snake[2], a marble by French sculptor Auguste Clésinger, both works show the intimate connection between sex and death.
![[2]](http://i31.tinypic.com/2yoe9h5.jpg){kind=link}
![[1]](http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/x0/x2893.jpg){kind=link}