Althouse: Victorian...

May 30, 2011

Victorian...

... Surrealism.

21 comments:

The Crack Emcee said...: Very, very cool.; 5/30/11, 6:54 PM
edutcher said...: Photography was just a-borning and people were finding out how much reality could be stretched.

As Crack said, very cool, and very fascinating.; 5/30/11, 6:57 PM
The Dude said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 5/30/11, 7:07 PM
Terry said...: The Victorians are too easily stereotyped.
Here is a bit of stream of consciousness poetry from George MacDonald's "At the Back of the North Wind", a book for children. Its subject was death. It was published in 1871.

I know a river whose waters run asleep run run ever singing in the shallows dumb in the hollows sleeping so deep and all the swallows that dip their feathers in the hollows or in the shallows are the merriest swallows of all for the nests they bake with the clay they cake with the water they shake from their wings that rake the water out of the shallows or the hollows will hold together in any weather and so the swallows are the merriest fellows and have the merriest children and are built so narrow like the head of an arrow to cut the air and go just where the nicest water is flowing and the nicest dust is blowing . . .

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/225/225-h/225-h.htm; 5/30/11, 7:10 PM
deborah said...: Me no likey.; 5/30/11, 7:10 PM
virgil xenophon said...: I didn't know Salvador Dali had invented time-travel!; 5/30/11, 8:14 PM
virgil xenophon said...: Or was in to photography!; 5/30/11, 8:15 PM
Anonymous said...: Did you watch the Anne Frank film? Amazing and disturbing.

(The one fault of the film is the trendy quick cut technique. Do filmmakers think this has some impact, other than irritation?); 5/30/11, 8:16 PM
rcocean said...: Sorry, I find it dull. The old if you can't be good, be weird approach.; 5/30/11, 8:31 PM
Damon said...: A bit freaky. People who think like that scare me.; 5/30/11, 8:33 PM
Palladian said...: It's not actually Victorian surrealism, like from the Victorian period, it's Victorian-style surrealism.

For me, the real Victorians were weird and scary enough, without horns.; 5/30/11, 8:36 PM
Anonymous said...: Time to stop drinking Absinthe.; 5/30/11, 9:01 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Stat.. My Palin drip is almost out ;); 5/30/11, 9:11 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I'm seeing things on blog..; 5/30/11, 9:12 PM
Luther said...: Palladian. If you're still here. I want to apologize for coming across as an ass the other night. Though, my question to you was sincere. I've read your response. We'll talk about it another time, perhaps.; 5/30/11, 9:29 PM
Luther said...: As to the topic. Reminded me of the county fair, 10 cent tickets, see the weird in my head.

No thanks.; 5/30/11, 9:33 PM
Bob said...: Brings to mind Terry Gilliam's animations for Python.; 5/30/11, 10:35 PM
chickelit said...: "Protuberant Victorians" by Dora Carrington; 5/30/11, 10:41 PM
Penny said...: "Reminded me of the county fair, 10 cent tickets, see the weird in my head."

Thank you for sharing this, Luther! I found the pictures oddly familiar, but until you said "county fair", it remained a mystery. They look like the banners above the freak shows that I wanted to sneak into as a kid.

Really liked this guy's work. From what I read about him, he had previously been a tattoo artist. Right now he is working on a new series involving tarot cards.; 5/31/11, 12:02 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: From what I read about him, he had previously been a tattoo artist. Right now he is working on a new series involving tarot cards.

Sigh.; 5/31/11, 12:24 AM
Fred4Pres said...: I did think Monty Python;s immediately on looking at it. Now I find out that they did not think up the juxtapositioning.; 5/31/11, 8:20 AM