For the next few weeks, I'd like to share some of my favorite finds in the world of art. I'll also leak some of my work, literary and visual, as it comes out.
The book I'll be drawing from is simply called Modern Art, and it surveys western visual art from Impressionism through Postmodernism. Lately I've been really getting into the works of the late 19th and early 20th century avant garde. Beautiful creators such as Gaugin, Beardsley, Schwabe, and Redon have been filling my eyes with wonders and philosophies of darkness and light, all poured into the canvases and parchments that they caressed to life.
I'd like to post on these lovely people for a while, sharing my finds with you. In the next few days, I think I'd like to show off Symbolism, a macabre, fantastical style of painting that borrows from Poe, Rosetti, Blake, Wagner, Friedrich and others. To begin with, let me give you a taste of Odilon Redon. These two images are charcoal sketches called, respectively, "The Crying Spider" and "The Spirit of the Forest." They are heavily oriental, and you may recognize the spirit as the Japanese kodama, a tree nymph seen in the film Princess Mononoke. Both are mystical, appalling, sexual, morbid, and human.
More to come. Hope these bizarre images inspire you with the beauty in decay.
