Letterforms - II

Ludwig Hohlwein
Ernemann Kinoptikon
ca. 1913
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ernst Lubbert
Vera Cigarettes
1911
lithograph (poster)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Louis Oppenheim
S. Adam - Fur Care
ca. 1910
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Hans Rudi Erdt
Nivea Haarmilch
1910
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Urban Janke
Imperial Jubilee Homage Parade, Vienna
1908
lithograph (poster)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Wilhelm Kåge
Författarelotteriet
(writers' lottery)
1955
lithograph (poster)
Röhsska Museet, Göteborg

Hans Unger
Ernemann Camera
1904
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Sebastian Lucius
Grosse-Berliner Kunst-Ausstellung
1911
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Peter Schlemihl's Amazing History
1915
color woodblock print
(title page)
Museum Folkwang, Essen

Arno Breker
Kunstmuseum der Stadt, Düsseldorf
1959
lithograph (poster)
Museum Folkwang, Essen

Anonymous Austrian Designer
Edison Kinetophon now at Kruger Kino, Vienna
1910
lithograph (poster)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Gustav Klimt
Letter to Norbert Wien
1909
ink on paper
Leopold Museum, Vienna

Anonymous French Designer
Ex Libris - Crecy
ca. 1700-1750
etching
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Anonymous German Designer
Ex Libris - Beloselsky
ca. 1750-1800
etching (printed in sepia)
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Anonymous German Designer
Ex Libris - Merkel
ca. 1700-1750
engraving
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Eric Rohman
Greta Garbo in Anna Christie
1929
lithograph (poster)
Röhsska Museet, Göteborg

Though I, Mycenae, am but a heap of dust here in the desert, though I am meaner to look at than any chance rock, he who gazes on the famous city of Ilion, whose walls I trod underfoot and emptied all the house of Priam, shall know thence how mighty I was of old. If my old age has used me ill, the testimony of Homer is enough for me. 

Adventure, thou inventor of ships (for thou didst discover the paths of the sea, and didst excite men's minds by hope of gain), what treacherous timbers didst thou fashion; what lust for gain, oft brought home to them by death, hast thou instilled into men! Of a truth the race of mortals had been a golden one, if the sea, like hell, were viewed from the land in dim distance.

After I had traversed innumerable waves of the limitless sea, and stood firm for a season on the land, I was destroyed not by the sea, the terror of ships, but on shore by fire. Who will say that the sea is the more treacherous of the two? It was the earth on which I came into being that destroyed me, and I lie on the beach, reproaching the land for the fate I expected from the sea. 

The simple covering of my cloak is enough for me; and I, who feed on the flowers of the Muses, shall never be the slave of the table. I hate witless wealth, the nurse of flatterers, and I will not stand in attendance on one who looks down on me. I know the freedom of scanty fare. 

If anyone who has reached old age prays for life, he deserves to go on growing old for many decades.
 
If thou art a man, stranger, draw water from this fountain; but if thou art effeminate by nature, on no account drink me. I am a male drink, and only please men; but for those naturally effeminate their own nature is water.*

– from Book IX (Declamatory and Descriptive Epigrams) of the Greek Anthology, translated and edited by W.R. Paton (1917)

*this seems to be a vindication of the fountain of Salmacis near Halicarnassus, the water of which had the reputation of making men effeminate

Letterforms - I

Lucas Kilian
Ornamental Letter W
1627
engraving
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Lucian Bernhard
Aviation Exhibition, Berlin
1909
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Lex Reitsma
Theo van Doesburg
2000
offset-print (exhibition poster)
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Richard Long
A Random Bicycle Ride
1981
screenprint
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Fritz Rehm
Le Délice Cigarette Papers
1910
lithograph (poster)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Anonymous German Designer
Ex Libris - Hagenreiner
ca. 1795
letterpress
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Anonymous German Designer
Ex Libris - Knöringen
ca. 1750-1800
letterpress
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Anonymous Austrian Printmaker
Fledermaus - Miss Young
1910
lithograph (poster for cabaret)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Moriz Jung
Fledermaus
1910
lithograph (poster for cabaret)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Klinger-Julius-
Osram Lampe
1908
lithograph (poster)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Eric Gill (designer)
Railway Station Advertising
ca. 1909
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Anonymous Italian Artist
Portrait of Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma
17th century
engraving and letterpress
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Hollerbaum & Schmidt (printers)
Möbelmesse
(furniture fair)
1912
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Schnebel-Karl-
Die Gartenlaube
(magazine)
ca. 1910
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Anonymous Swedish Designer
Klädd & Oklädd, Nationalmuseum
(dressed and undressed)
1996
lithograph (exhibition poster)
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Heinrich Aldegrever
Putti supporting Tablet with Roman Alphabet
1535
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

They planted me, a walnut-tree, by the roadside to amuse passing boys, as a mark for their well-aimed stones. And all my twigs and flourishing shoots are broken, hit as I am by showers of pebbles. It is no advantage for trees to be fruitful. I indeed, poor tree, bore fruit only for my own undoing. 

Zeus, who ruled the holy land of Corcyra, though thy ears be ever full of the fears of suppliants or the thanks of those whose prayer thou hast heard, yet hearken to me, too, and grant me by a true promise that this be the land of my exile, and that I may dwell in my native land, my long labours over. 

I, Sir, who once gained the crown on the banks of Alpheius, and was twice proclaimed victor by the water of Castalia; I, who was announced the winner at Nemea, and formerly, as a colt, at Isthmus; I, who ran swift as the winged winds – see me now, how in my old age I turn the rotating stone, driven in mockery of the crowns I won. 

The temple servants destined as an acceptable sacrifice to Latona's daughter a heifer big with young; but happy birth-pangs anticipated her approaching death, and she was sent to the herd to bear her child in freedom. For the goddess who presides over child-bed deemed it not right to slay creatures in labour, having learnt to pity them.

The husbandman Archippus, when, smitten by grave sickness, he was just breathing his last and gliding to Hades, spoke thus to his sons: "I charge you, dear children, that ye love the mattock and the life of a farmer. Look not with favour on the weary labour of them who sail the treacherous waves and the heavy toil of perilous sea-faring. Even as a mother is sweeter than a stepmother, so is the land more to be desired than the grey sea." 

This is the book of learned Aratus, whose subtle mind explored the long-lived stars, both the fixed stars and the planets with which the bright revolving heaven is set. Let us praise him for the great task at which he toiled; let us count him second to Zeus, in that he made the stars brighter. 

– from Book IX (Declamatory and Descriptive Epigrams) of the Greek Anthology, translated and edited by W.R. Paton (1917)

Reckonings

William Eggleston
Untitled
1983
C-print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

 

William Eggleston
Untitled (Baby Doll Cadillac)
1973
dye transfer print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Joseph Cornell
Celestial Fantasy with Tamara Toumanova
ca. 1940
collage and tempera on board
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Joseph Cornell
Marine Fantasy with Tamara Toumanova
ca. 1940
collage and tempera on board
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Luca Giordano
Susanna and the Elders
ca. 1670
drawing
British Museum

Luca Giordano
The Institution of the Eucharist
ca. 1695
drawing
British Museum

Tracey Moffatt
Doll Birth
1972
offset-print
(photolithograph with letterpress)
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Tracey Moffatt
Laudanum
1998
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Mike Slack
Shrubs of Death #0620
2014
inkjet print
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Mike Slack
Shrubs of Death #0638
2014
inkjet print
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Richard Bosman
Man Overboard
1981
color woodblock print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Richard Bosman
The Wave
1987
color woodblock print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Gilbert and George
to be with art is all we ask
1970
offset-print (book cover)
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

Gilbert and George
A Guide to Singing Sculpture
1973
offset-print (book cover)
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

Laurie Simmons
The Love Doll, Day 30 (Meeting)
2011
C-print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Laurie Simmons
Pushing Lipstick (Full Shadow)
1979
C-print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

from A Myth of Devotion

When Hades decided he loved this girl

he built for her a duplicate of earth,

everything the same, down to the meadow,

but with a bed added.

Everything the same, including sunlight,

because it would be hard on a young girl

to go so quickly from bright light to utter darkness.

Gradually, he thought, he'd introduce the night,

first as the shadow of fluttering leaves.

Then moon, then stars. Then no moon, no stars. 

Let Persephone get used to it slowly. 

In the end, he thought, she'd find it comforting.

                  *              *            *

He dreams, he wonders what to call this place.

First he thinks: The New Hell. Then: The Garden.

In the end, he decides to name it

Persephone's Girlhood.

A soft light rising above the level meadow,

behind the bed. He takes her in his arms. 

He wants to say I love you, nothing can hurt you

but he thinks

this is a lie, so he says in the end

you're dead, nothing can hurt you

which seems to him

a more promising beginning, more true.

– Louise Glück (2006)