Idyls of Theocritus

William Russell Flint is a favorite illustrator of many, and this 1922 volume of The Idyls of Theocritus is one of my favorites of his many wonderful works. Much of Flint's book illustration derives from a beautiful blending of ancient classical style with the sensibility of early 20th century design aesthetic.

Volume 2 of this set will follow, and if you're interested in the prose, read on here. If you're interested in the artwork, you're already in the right place:

Taunting me, thus she spoke: 'Get thee gone from me!

Wouldst thou kiss me, thou—a neatherd?'

Sweet, meseems, is the whispering sound of yonder pine tree,

goatherd, that murmureth by the wells of water

She too came, the sweetly smiling Cypris, craftily smiling she came,

yet keeping her heavy anger

Ah, lovely Amaryllis, why no more, as of old,

dost thou glance through this cavern after me,

nor callest me, thy sweetheart, to thy side

Clearista, too, pelts the goatherd with apples

as he drives past his she-goats,

and a sweet word she murmurs

To hear this makes her jealous of me, by Paean,

and she wastes with pain, and springs madly from the sea

They all call thee a 'gipsy,' gracious Bombyca,

and 'lean,' and 'sunburnt,'

'tis only I that call thee 'honey-pale'

The nymphs all clung to his hand,

for love of the Argive lad had fluttered

the soft hearts of all of them

She caught up her robes, and forth she rushed, quicker than she came

Hiero, like the mighty men of old,

girds himself for fight,

and the horse-hair crest is shadowing his helmet

Then sang they all in harmony,

beating time with woven paces,

and the house rang round with the bridal song

Love stood on a pedestal of stone above the waters.

And lo, the statue leaped, and slew that cruel one

Then marvelled the king himself, and his son, the warlike Phyleus,

. . . when they beheld the exceeding strength

of the son of Amphitryon

Now Pentheus from a lofty cliff was watching all . . .

Autonoe first beheld him, . . .

and, rushing suddenly, with her feet dashed all confused

the mystic things of Bacchus the wild

'Tis for thee to caress thy kine, not a maiden unwed

Horns of Elfland

Bernard Sleigh, the artist who was 28 when he created this fabulous chiaroscuro woodcut, came to have a strong belief in the reality of faerie in his later life. Having created a number of prints for literary and artistic books and magazines, he produced three volumes of engraved faerie subjects. I have not seen those volumes, and I would dearly love to.

This print evokes for me the atmosphere of Middle Earth, like a blend of the Shire and Rivendell, and for all we know may have inspired JRR Tolkien's imagination, who would have been eight years old when this was published. Note the details of dragon and marching troops. And don't forget to notice the miniscule fairy sprites and the distant water sirens.

Bernard Sleigh —The Horns of Elfland Faintly Blowing — 1900

"O! Hark O! Hear! How Thin & Clear

& Thinner Clearer Farther Going:

O! Sweet & Far From Cliff & Scar

The Horns of Elfland Faintly Blowing"

The Siesta

A sweet little pen & ink drawing from the early 20th century:

Charles Robinson — The Siesta

You Haven't Heard the Last of This

Well, we had to skip another strip getting here, and this is the last strip I have from this storyline. We don't get perfect closure for the story, yet it seems appropriate enough to end it here.

It's sad to think I used to have nearly every Oop strip for a 6 or 7 year run, and then tossed them when I was overwhelmed with owning too much stuff. That was before I knew that other people had a manic fondness for this kind of stuff (cuz I prolly would have sold or given those strips away), and way before I could have dreamed that an ordinary guy like me would ever own a scanner.

But for some reason I kept this much of a storyline, and I've got some other intermittent Oop strips that will show up soon enough on this site. Anyway, all these Oops have been dedicated to charlie, one of those people with that manic fondness I was talkin' 'bout.

Well, Now, Isn't That Sweet

Aw, For Pete Sake

There's something perversely comforting about watching Oop's troubles.

Be prepared now, after this one there's only two strips left in this storyline. Enjoy Ceelee while you can and realize we won't have 'closure' to this arc.

Variations

Here we have two pages of watercolor studies by William Russell Flint, created when he was . . . ahem . . . eighty years young!

Sir William Russell Flint — Variations on a Theme — 1960

Sir William Russell Flint — Variations II — 1960

Word Images

This blog is about images, and this header from a pulp contents page certainly deserves to be seen in that context. Even the 'ordinary' logo-type is enticing.

But consider for a moment the notion of word images. The teaser blurbs for these stories paint vivid scenes on the canvas of my mind. What about you? Isn't this stuff what science fiction is all about?

Erupting from hyper-space in the teeth of startled DIC patrols and readying all hands for a crash=landing, adventurer Fletcher Pell could still wonder which he dreaded more—the U-235 in the hold . . . or the strange girl by his side . . .

His black science threatened the whole cosmos. Against him frail Princess Nuala thrust her ancient knowledge—but he sneeringly smashed that. And space-toughened Clark Travis stood by helplessly. Of what use here was a pair of ready fists?

Quoting one more:

They played a ghastly game on that lonely asteroid. Killer and victim-to-be danced and feinted between space beacon and ship. Only the stars knew the winner.

All the blurbs (and the stories) are worth reading. Look at those authors! Bradbury, Fox, Knight! THIS was the golden age of science fiction!

Great Victorian Themes

Shakespeare and mythology, two great Victorian era themes.

Madeleine Lemaire — Ophelia

Madeleine Lemaire — Selene

Derivative Art

I love to compare derivative art to its source. Here we see a movie background production painting compared to the original source — changing a god into an angel and showing the difference in wings and clothing, or lack thereof.

Dante's Inferno, starring Spencer Tracy —1935

Willy Pogany is credited on the technical staff for this film. I would think it's possible he had a major hand in painting this adaptive art.

William Bouguereau — Psyche et L'Amour — 1889

Is Flying Really Safe?

When everyday science was an adventure . . .

Herbert Paus —Popular Science Monthly — November 1927

Speedometer Works

Holy crap, what a dark and gritty poster. Can't you just picture this guy, 19 years later, commanding a Panzer division, blitzkrieging across Poland? That looks like a swastika disguised as a logo up in the corner.

Ludwig Hohlwein — Tachometerwerke —1920

Drame Lyrique

Yow. Ow. She done give 'im such a whack!

Georges Rochegrosse — Gismonda — 1919

Bridlington

Quite a grand epic treatment for people 'just' having fun:

Renital — Bridlington — British poster — 1925

I'd Have Bet My Whiskers

One more Oop for now, then we'll mix in some other stuff.

An Impossible Mission of Diplomatic Thievery

Again, we've skipped a bit, but we're all smart people here and kin figger out the stuff between the panels. Poor Oop is constantly being put between rocks and hard places. And Ceelee is like a yo-yo or a boomerang or a sumpin'.

charlie! email me, tell me more about yourself and your history, and your history of interest in comics. I want to do a little profile on you! email me at HallerBuchanan@hotmail.com

A Threat to th' Peace of th' Whole World

These Alley Oops are 'specially for charlie, but hopefully one or two of you are enjoyin' 'em as well.

Slightly Surprising

Boucher's work is mostly associated with light and sensual European romanticism.

So the two darker Asian images below are slightly surprising as coming from his hand . . . except that these are 'sketches' for tapestries, undoubtedly destined for the palace walls of light and sensual European romantics.

François Boucher — Audience with Emperor of China — 1742

François Boucher — La Pêche chinoise — 1742

Sensual and Erotic

François Boucher is my favorite Rococo artist, though there's a lot of his more sentimental mawkish work I don't care for. What I do like is along the line of his mythological oeuvre, which is a sensual and erotic reverie (more or less a definition of Rococo).

'Rococo' originally was a term of insult, invented by a student of the Neo-Classical artist Jacque-Louis David. It described art which was as florid and busy as the shells and rocks used to line the walls of grottos. It was synonymous with feminized erotic titillation. Yeah, so?

The term is now used without being quite so judgmental.

François Boucher — The Triumph of Venus — 1740

Triumph of Venus — detail

François Boucher — a study of Putti in Clouds

Since he's gotta have 'em in there, Boucher's putti are nice enough. But, to me, the concept of putti is off-putting (yeah, my idea of a pun). I can just imagine them whizzing around through the air, um, whizzing yellow rain, making them as bad or worse than pigeons.

A Magic Flying Horse

Aye yi yi. Only Frazetta's Shining Knight equals the majesty of the flying steed ridden by Peter Wheat and the Fairy Queen, as drawn by Walt Kelly, now showing over at Whirled of Kelly. Give it a whirl!

We Mistook 'im

I toldya there would be some gaps here and there, and here we jump a week. We can sorta tell what's goin' on.

Oh well. The story's still fun for the tellin'.

Jungle at Night

Let's get back to the Alley Oop sequence we started a while ago. It would be two years after this current time period that VT Hamlin would retire from drawing the Sunday strips, but his drawing seemed as fresh as all the decades before. Hamlin and Walt (Pogo) Kelly were two old-school masters still delivering the goods in the early 1970s.

For the decline of the comic strip, some folks blame the shrinking newspaper sizes, some blame the readers' changing tastes, some blame the zeitgeist. But let's face it, it's the individual cartoonist that makes all the difference, and when Hamlin and Kelly left the stage, the golden age of the comic strip left with them.

Western Art

I'm not a huge fan of art of the American west, yet I do continually find myself admiring the iconic western art of Charles Russell and Frederic Remington.

Way back in my Chicago days, I used to see lots of original artwork of these two, and was always astounded by the immediacy present in their work, always seeming spontaneous and unlabored.

This is one of my favorite Remington studies:

Quality of Life

Sir William Russell Flint — The Hedonists — 1920s

Hedonism is an undervalued and unappreciated quality of life.

Motoring

Let's look back to when motoring was considered a sport, a science AND an art! Not to mention that it was symbolized by a good woman.

Coles Phillips — Motor — January 1924

Howard Chandler Christy — Motor — May 1923

Look at those prices, at a time when most of the other reading material was going for a nickel or a dime.

Call of the Siren

Coles Phillips — The Siren Call — 1925

Quoting from a caption about the story behind this work:

In 1926, the city of New Rochelle issued a commemorative booklet to celebrate its 250th anniversary. Because the city was the home of some of America's most notable illustrators, they were asked to donate pictures to decorate the booklet. Among the contributors were Norman Rockwell, Orson Lowell, and Edward Penfield. J.C. Leyendecker did the cover design. Coles Phillips began this picture, "The Siren Call," in 1925, but he was unable to complete it because of his trip to Europe for medical treatment. Leyendecker was asked to finish the picture, but since he was not a watercolor artist, he declined. In the end the editors thought the picture fine enough to publish unfinished.

Interesting Ephemera

You never know what you'll find when you go through old family papers.

I finally got around to organizing some of my dad's papers that my mom had been holding onto since just after World War II (!). Among other interesting ephemera were these two calendar pages, created by Varga, pressed neatly between my dad's discharge papers.

Oh yes, these paintings have been reproduced all over the net and in books, but these particular pages haven't seen the light of day for some 65 years. They are maybe my favorite Varga pin-ups, partly because of their sweet and innocent sexiness, and partly because my dad chose to save them even though the war and its aftermath kept him plenty busy.

Ancient Times

Staying in ancient times for just another moment—an energetic advertising drawing by W.H.Hinton from early 20th century:

Nothing More Satisfying

Ah, and there was nothing more satisfying for a Roman pagan, after a hard day of celebrating Spring, than to lounge around watching the city burn.

Mucha — Nero Watching The Burning of Rome — 1887

Here Come da Pagans

Yesterday it snowed. This morning, three deer passed by my new studio window, munching on tender shoots, and by afternoon the snow was gone. Spring is in full glory, and here come the pagans to make it official:

Lawrence Alma Tadema — Spring — 1894

If I didn't know better, I'd think that was a James Gurney painting.

Spring Snow

We've had a beautiful spring snow. This is sort of how it looks here at our new place—rabbits, flowers and all:

Artist unknown — Spring Snow — 1897

The robins here are very confused, with dozens of them hanging out in one tree.

Never Lovelier

Never a more apt movie title:

Tales from Tennyson

Frances Brundage is an early 20th century illustrator remembered for sentimental depictions of children, and her work is highly collectible. Most of her oeuvre doesn't do much for me, but I think these prints, from a book of Tennyson's stories, are kind of nice.

Update: E.G.Palmer asks in a comment, whether illustrator Frances Brundage is related to illustrator Margaret Brundage of Weird Tales fame. That was a question I was going to address first time around on this post, and then promptly forgot to.

SO, the short answer is 'no', from what I can tell. Frances Brundage was born Frances Lockwood, daughter of Rembrandt Lockwood, an artist himself. Frances married William Tyson Brundage, also an artist, and they had a daughter who died as a baby. So it is possible that Margaret is related in some in-law sort of way, through her husband, but I haven't determined that yet.

A personal side-note of interest (to me) is that I find I'M distantly related to Frances, through the New Jersey Lockwoods. Rembrandt Lockwood is in my family tree, zig-zagging back aways. Though I can't say I'm particularly proud of that, when I read that Rembrandt Lockwood abandoned his family, forcing Frances to seek livelihood at the age of 17.

Frances Brundage — Elaine — Tales from Tennyson

Frances Brundage — Lady of Shalott — Tales from Tennyson

Frances Brundage — The Beggar Maid — Tales from Tennyson

Here's a Date