The one who wrote Coraline, and co-wrote the book of Good Omens and made the TV show, also the Sandman comics writer and co-creator who made the Sandman TV show. Quite nice really.
I took a peek at the lower level of Hell (Tumblr is above Twitter. I wandered over to Twitter…) and I saw that Neil Gaiman also likes the Harry Clarke Faust illustrations.
There are times when I feel like I’m the only one in the world who likes certain things and then Neil Gaiman unintentionally reminds me that I’m not alone. I think I needed that tonight and didn’t even realize it.
These ones below were not already saved to my harddrive. The above ones were.
It’s a shame Harry Clarke never did Faust Part 2.
For those who want to read Faust but never have, here is a fairly decent English language translation of Faust Parts 1 and 2 on PDF format. It doesn’t have the Harry Clarke illustrations though.
Faust is one of my favorite stories but I strongly prefer Goethe’s version to Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. I like the ending in Goethe’s Faust Part 2 better than previous versions of the tale. I like the message about hope, love, and caring about others.
There’s also a beautiful silent film from 1926, from F. W. Murnau (who also gave us Nosferatu). It’s in the public domain so you should be able to find it easily on Youtube. It’s the only film adaptation that I know of that actually tried to adapt parts 1 and 2… well, other than the children’s show, Wishbone.
The Power metal albums “Epica” and “The Black Halo” by the band Kamelot also retell Faust Parts 1 and 2 if played back to back. They just change Marguerite’s name to Helena, and Faust’s name is Ariel. Mephisto’s name is left alone.
I went through a slight obsession a few years back…
About 21 years ago there was auction at Sotheby’s of Fantasy Art. I only managed to buy one piece in it, the cheapest of all, but that one was this Harry Clarke illustration of Mephistopheles and Faust. It brings me joy, still.
A panel from Harry Clarke’s gorgeous stained glass window, completed in 1930 just before Clarke’s death, celebrating Irish literature, made to be presented by the Irish government to the League of Nations. But the Irish government got cold feet, perhaps because it had sexual tension in it, perhaps because Clarke was so gloriously sexual even when he’s being good, and eventually Clarke’s widow bought it back from the government, to rescue it from the darkness it was being kept in. It’s now in the Wolfsonian Museum in Miami Beach, and I stared at it for as long as I could when I was there before, reluctantly, moving on.
(Beneath it, not a great picture of the whole window, all 8 panels.)
Book illustrator and Irish stained glass artist Harry Clarke’s illustrations for Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination:
“Descent into the Maelstrom”, “The Cask of Amontillado”, “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar”, “Ligeia”, “The Pit and the Pendulum”, “The Premature Burial”, “The Masque of The Red Death”, and “The Tell Tale Heart”
The first version of 1919 was restricted to monotone illustrations, while a second iteration with eight color plates and more than twenty four monotone images was published in 1923.
I collect very few things. But I have more than one illustration by Harry Clarke hanging on my walls, which means I sort of collect them. None of them are his Poe illustrations, though. (There’s a Faust, an unused Hans Christian Anderson, and some sketches for The Year’s In The Spring).
His art makes me so happy, and I could not tell you why.
Harry Clarke is one of my favourite artists - one of the very few that I collect (very lazily; I have two ink drawings and some pencil sketches by him).
