Peter Reavy’s blog

I came across this top 10 list of fantasy fiction.

I didn’t realise that Max Ernst’s book Une Semaine de Bonte could be bought quite as a cheap-ish paperback. I may have to treat myself, but in the meantime, some of it can be seen on the web.

Investigating another book on the list, I thought the cover looked interesting, and a bit more digging led me to the German painter Franz Stuck. Though classed as a symbolist, he reminds me a little bit of the New Objectivists I posted about recently.

I’ve been meaning to post about the exhibition Glitter and Doom: German Portraits from the 1920s (in New York, now ended) since reading about it a few weeks back.

It features portraits in the style known as New Objectivity. Wikipedia has just informed me that this is a translation of Neue Sachlichkeit.

I like the style partly because of the glitter and doom and also because it’s like early oil painting from Northern Europe - detailed and almost photographic but grotesque.

The only paintings of this school that I’ve ever seen in real life were when I visited the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, but I can’t find any examples of the paintings I saw then on their site. Despite these being the paintings I liked most at that museum.

This semi-obscurity seems to be typical of the fate of the poor Neue Sachlichkeit. But perhaps one day I will be able to see a show like the one that was on at the Met.