A post for Día de los Muertos. The 16th-century Dance of Death by Hans Holbein the Younger has been copied and adapted many times, often with results that add little to the original. These engravings by Michael Heinrich Rentz (1701–1758) from Der Sogenannte Todentanz (1767) feature some impressive compositions, the subject being the traditional one of Death in skeletal form bearing all and sundry to the grave. They may lack the vigour of Holbein’s series but they compensate with a wealth of fine detail. Browse the rest of the book here or download it here.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The etching and engraving archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Holbein’s Dance of Death
• Alfred Rethel’s Totentanz
• Vanitas paintings

By: { feuilleton }
Via: Feedbin Starred Entries
Source: http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2013/11/01/rentzs-todentanz/

American artist JK Potter is another photo-montagist whose work since the 1970s has been very popular as illustration for books of horror, fantasy and science fiction. Potter’s portrait of HP Lovecraft on the October 1979 issue of Heavy Metal first introduced me (and no doubt many other people) to his work. The original version of that picture can be seen below. Despite Potter’s flair for horror imagery there’s less Lovecraft illustration than you might expect, certainly fewer than I used to hope there might be, although tentacles do feature in a number of his other pictures.

And while we’re on the subject, HPL continues to dog my footsteps. I recently autographed an enormous block of contributor signing sheets for a new doorstop anthology from Centipede Press. A Mountain Walked is a 636-page collection edited by Lovecraft scholar ST Joshi which will be published in March, 2014. Be warned that like many other Centipede volumes it won’t be cheap! Meanwhile I’m currently working on a new series of illustrations for a completely different anthology of Lovecraftian fiction. That will also be out early next year. It’s going to be a good one but I’ll say more about it at a later date.

Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos (1990).

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Heavy Metal, October 1979: the Lovecraft special
• The monstrous tome

By: { feuilleton }
Via: Feedbin Starred Entries
Source: http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2013/10/26/jk-potter-and-hp-lovecraft/

The Gates of the Inferno (no date).

The web continues to be an incomparable treat for anyone interested in art history. One of the great advantages of the BBC’s Your Paintings site is having the opportunity to see pictures by artists whose output would rarely be deemed important enough to appear in a book. Albert Goodwin (1845–1932) is one such artist, a painter of landscapes and seascapes with a sideline in fantastic scenes, some of which may have been inspired by the apocalyptic canvases of John Martin. The cover of the Viriconium anthology was my first sighting of anything by Goodwin. That particular painting appears to be in private hands so to date this is the only copy I’ve seen. The combination of minatory architecture and a nebulous atmosphere is just the kind of thing I enjoy so it’s disappointing to not find him producing anything similar.

The paintings below show some of Goodwin’s other forays into the fantastic, mostly illustration of one sort or another. The two final pictures wouldn’t be out-of-place on a collection of William Hope Hodgson sea stories; the devastated Armada isn’t fantastical per se but it reminds me of Hodgson’s descriptions of the Sargasso Sea.

Apocalypse (1903).

Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1901).

Sinbad Entering the Cavern (1879).

Sinbad in the Valley of Diamonds (1878).

The Castle of Enchantments (no date).

The Invincible Armada (1904).

The Phantom Ship (no date).

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The fantastic art archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The art of Thomas Cole, 1801–1848
• Tentacles #2: The Lost Continent
• Tentacles #1: The Boats of the ‘Glen Carrig’
• Covering Viriconium
• John Martin: Heaven & Hell
• The apocalyptic art of Francis Danby

By: { feuilleton }
Via: Feedbin Starred Entries
Source: http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2013/12/06/albert-goodwins-fantasies/