Category Archives: Art

Taking Flight

Posted on November 3, 2022 by Brian D. Butler

One of the immense pleasures that the city of Philadelphia offers is its myriad of murals. Along with a prolific cadre of street artists, Philly is also home to the amazing Philadelphia Mural Arts Program which sponsors fantastic paintings all … Continue reading →

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Touched by the Devil

Posted on November 1, 2022 by Brian D. Butler

I have long been fascinated by the astounding paintings of the Dutch master of the grotesque Hieronymus Bosch. The documentary (below) Hieronymus Bosch: Touched by the Devil takes a deep dive into his phantasmagorical paintings and his life. In 2016, the … Continue reading →

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Sandwich of Horror

Posted on October 31, 2022 by Brian D. Butler

NB: If the H.P. Lovecraft video fails to launch please click here .  

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It’s Decorative Gourd Season

Posted on October 30, 2022 by Brian D. Butler

Here in North America folks tend to go a bit overboard with seasonal decorations. An important mainstay is the carved pumpkin. In the video below, professional pumpkin carver, James Hall, runs through 13 different levels of pumpkin carving, from the … Continue reading →

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Halloween Horror

Posted on October 29, 2022 by Brian D. Butler

 

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It’s Edgar Allan Poe Season

Posted on October 28, 2022 by Brian D. Butler

There are many excellent illustrated volumes of Edgar Allan Poe stories, but this  1944 edition with illustrations by German-American artist Fritz Eichenberg is special. Eichenberg was a German artist who emigrated to America in the 1930s; his speciality was wood … Continue reading →

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Americas’ Oldest Surviving Book

Posted on October 27, 2022 by Brian D. Butler

For the first time in more than 50 years Los Angeles’s J. Paul Getty Museum is displaying ten of the remaining pages from Códice Maya de México, the oldest surviving book of the Americas. Dating to circa 1100 CE, the Mayan Codex … Continue reading →

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nostalgie de la bibliothèque

Posted on October 26, 2022 by Brian D. Butler

While checking out book blogs I stumbled on a reference to “Spooks and Spirits and Shadowy Shapes” , featuring wonderfully atmospheric, period illustrations by Robert L. Doremus. Certainly not the most interesting Halloween reading, but personally significant as I remember … Continue reading →

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A story is a form of telepathy

Posted on October 19, 2022 by Brian D. Butler

 

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Tudor Books

Posted on October 18, 2022 by Brian D. Butler

Recently, my favorite museum in North America the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City opened an impressive new exhibition, The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England. Spanning King Henry VII’s seizure of the throne in 1485 to … Continue reading →

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