Aaahh!!! (Sur)real monsters*

Yesterday, this recently digitized volume of Alice in Wonderland, illustrated by Salvador Dalí, was featured over at BrainPickings (images courtesy of the William Bennett Gallery). The frontispiece is a pretty mild indicator of the strangeness of the rest of the plates, and at a quick glance some of them border on abstraction; like all good Dalí, though, prolonged observation is key to getting the whole picture.

This is all a really long-winded way of saying I want this book. I’ve always had a soft spot for unusual children’s books, especially when they skew towards the strange and surreal (or outright terrifying), and these definitely fit the bill. (They aren’t quite the creepiest, though– that honor goes to the work of the immensely talented Stephen Gammell**.)

dali

[Image credit: Salvador Dalí | Frontispiece, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 1969 | William Bennett Gallery, New York, NY]

Don’t worry, mom. I still like Kinuko Craft, too.

 

*Am I really making Klasky-Csupo animation puns?
 
**Which work? How about, oh, everything.

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modern english

sketch for a painting! I’m pretty sure the Florence Welch-meets-Rossetti thing’s been done already, but hey, why not.

Florence Welch

(I am also not 100% certain on the likeness yet, so a few more attempts will likely be necessary.)

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A blog rec, and deathly little pictures

Just in time for Halloween, the ARTstor.org blog is featuring a series of Danse Macabre and Día de los Muertos images. The former is one of my favorite themes in medieval iconography– Death is such a cheery little fellow!

danse macabre

[Image source: Jacques-Antony Chovin | Tod zum Blinden [death figure with moustache and goatee and wearing a feathered hat holds staff of blind man and extends scissors to guide dog's leash"]; from La danse des morts, 1744 | Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin]

For an updated twist on this motif, check out artist Dylan Meconis’s Danse Macabre 2.0.

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