Merry Crisismas and Happy New Fear

Things are going bad not only in my country Greece but all over Europe and the allegedly so called Western Free World seems to face a new totalitarianism by depriving any social and human rights that were gained with blood and great social upheavals and revolution in the past centuries. So wishes like "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year" and "Peace and Love everywhere" sound much more silly and meaningless than any other year, because crisis is now knocking our door, is not far from our ass anymore!!!!

Police brutality is out of controll, especially in Greece

Happy New Fear:
This creepy ghost image is prevailing in our hearts
over the happy familiar "ghost" image of Santa Claus

Captured when leaving all these plastic
made in China crap done with child labor

Survival of the fittest obedient

Consume!!

So, if you think at last that something's going wrong with these Christmas, e-mail this card to everyone to spread the challenge:

Danse Macabre/memento mori in Ex Libris (Bookplates)

Ex Libris "from the books of..." the so called "Bookplates" are usually small prints or decorative labels pasted into a book, often on the inside front cover, to indicate its owner.

"What is to be will be"

Bookplates typically bear a name, motto, device, coat-of-arms, crest, badge, or any motif that relates to the owner of the book, or is requested by him from the artist or designer. The name of the owner usually follows an inscription such as "from the books of . . . " or "from the library of . . . ", or in Latin, ex libris .... Bookplates are important evidence for the provenance of books.

"Sed omnis una manet nox
(et calcanda semel via leti)"
"But one night waits for all
(and the road of death is to be tread once)'
Horace(Carmina, Liber I, XXVIII)

The artwork of ex libris was usually ornamental, heraldic with coat of arms or somethind simple, but some of them and during certain periods held allegorical, religious or philosophical contents, making them highy appreciated from artistic point of view. I present some with danse macabre and memento mori content, all taken from the very interesting blog Journey Round my skull

Τα Ex Libris ήταν τυπωμένα καλλιτεχνήματα σε μια από τις πρώτες σελίδες βιβλίων παλιότερων εποχών τα οποία ανέφεραν τον ιδιοκτήτη αυτού ή τη βιβλιοθήκη όπου ανήκαν. Συχνά ήταν περίτεχνες εικόνες, άλλοτε με θυρεούς, άλλοτε με αλληγορικές εικόνες θρησκευτικού, ή φιλοσοφικού περιεχομένου. θα παρουσιάσω μια σειρά από αυτά με danse macabre/memento mori θεματολογία, όλα παρμένα από το εξαιρετικό blog Journey Round my skull

artist: Michel Fingesten (1884 - 1943)

the righteous is afraid of death

artist: Michel Fingesten (1884 - 1943)

Charles Bell's surgery and anatomy illustrations

Charles Bell's Illustrations of the Great Operations of Surgery (1821). Visit Iowa Digital Library for the complete illustrations of this work.

Sir Charles Bell (1774 - 1842), was a Scottish anatomist, neurologist, surgeon and natural theologian. He and his brother had remarkable artistic gifts, and together they taught anatomy and illustrated and published two volumes of A System of Dissection Explaining the Anatomy of the Human Body.

Trephination


various procedures of limbs amputations

Charles Bell's illustrations of war injured

Sir Charles Bell (1774 - 1842), was a Scottish anatomist, neurologist, surgeon and natural theologian. He and his brother had remarkable artistic gifts, and together they taught anatomy and illustrated and published two volumes of A System of Dissection Explaining the Anatomy of the Human Body.

He also served as a military surgeon, making elaborate recordings of neurological injuries at the Royal Hospital Haslar and famously documenting his experiences at Waterloo in 1815, where the anatomist Robert Knox commented very negatively on Bell's surgical abilities; (the mortality rate of amputations carried out by Bell ran at about 90%). All these illustrations are from injured soldiers during Waterloo battle.

Bell's career was characterized by the accumulation of quite extraordinary honors and achievements, and by acrimonious disputes unusual even by the standards of medicine during the regency.

You can find more illustrations from Waterloo injured soldiers in Welcome Images by typing "Charles Bell" in search.

Album: Fate of Norns, Band: Amon Amarth (2004)

Epic Death metal at its best. More in allmusic

Mercedes Baliarda, images of skulls with flowers

Mercedes Baliarda's drawings on layered tracing paper, using ink or graphite. Visit HER SITE to see more of his work.

Madness in art

William Dickinson (Print made by),

Robert Edge Pine (After) (1775)

A female figure representing madness, with straw and a scarf in tangled hair, a rope holding a pelt around her leaving the breast bare, clutching at the chains which hold her with her right arm, twisting to the left and staring wildly towards the upper left.

Charles Bell "Madness"
The anatomy and philosophy of
expression as connected
with the fine arts (1806)

Ambroise Tardieu
Des Maladies Mentales (1838)

"Attaque Demoniaque" (1881)
by Paul Marie Louis Pierre Richer

Dr. Desiré Magloire Bourneville (1875)
The first stage of demoniacal possession:
contortion followed by insensibility.

Francisco Goya
Yard with Lunatics (1794)

This painting is his record of conditions in an institution at Zaragoza.Goya wrote that the painting shows "a yard with lunatics, and two of them fighting completely naked while their warder beats them, and others in sacks. It has been described as a "somber vision of human bodies without human reason" and as one of Goya's "deeply disturbing visions of sadism and suffering." The painting had been absent from public view since a private sale in 1922. The work was painted at a time when such institutions were, according to art critic Robert Hughes, no more than "holes in the social surface, small dumps into which the psychotic could be thrown without the smallest attempt to discover, classify, or treat the nature of their illness."To art historian Arthur Danto, Yard with Lunatics marks a point in Goya's career where he moves from "a world in which there are no shadows to one in which there is no light"

William Hogarth
The Interior of Bedlam (1763)

The Bethlem Royal Hospital of London although no longer in its original location and buildings, it is recognised as the world's first and oldest institution to specialise in the mentally ill. It has been variously known as St. Mary Bethlehem, Bethlem Hospital, Bethlehem Hospital and Bedlam. It admitted mentally deranged people from 1357, but it became a dedicated psychiatric hospital quite later. The word bedlam, meaning uproar and confusion, is derived from its name. For much of its history it was notorious for cruelty and inhumane treatment – the epitome of what the term "madhouse" connotes to the modern reader.

Delacrois "A Mad Woman" (1822)

Picasso "Mad woman with cat" (1901)

Chaim Soutine "mad woman" (1920)

Chaim Soutine "mad woman" (1919)

Mental aberration and irrational states of mind could not fail to interest artists against Enlightenment rationality. Théodore Géricault, like many of his contemporaries, examined the influence of mental states on the human face and believed, as others did that a face more accurately revealed character, especially in madness and at the moment of death. He made many studies of the inmates in hospitals and institutions for the criminally insane, and he studied the heads of guillotine victims. He was among the first to depict an abnormal mental state as an illness, rather than as a subject for laughter. Some of his painting on madness we can see below:

Cleptomaniac or Mad Assasin (1822)

Woman alienated by envy monomania
(1820-1824)

Monomaniac of Military Commander
(1819-1822)

Compulsive Gambler (1820)