Born in 1882, Kent found fame as a painter in the early “oughts” of the 20th century. His landscape paintings  are generally considered quite special, illuminating nature and its power in a very sumptuous way. His work is mostly attributed to the American Social Realist movement.

What drew me to Kent, however, was his technique with printing and illustrating. His pen and ink work is absolutely stunning and like nothing else I’ve seen. Call it Art Deco, humanist, sensationalist, propagandistic, stark, deliberate or luminescent. Whatever it is, his style absolutely owns itself and his age. It’s thoroughly unique and relegates any homage to looking simply like “copying.” It’s a little like Gorey in that way.

According to the Plattsburgh State University of New York webpage devoted to Kent, his work stands out because of its use of symbolism. They write:

“Humanity was the hero in most of his prints, which are symbolic representations of certain intuitions about life’s destiny and the meaning of existence. Many of the prints seem to depict humanity in a struggle to capture ultimate reality, to penetrate into the mystery of the dark night of the universe, and to discover the reasons for existence.”

Ken’t illustrations are so evocative and original that they actually contributed to the renewed interest of a classic work of literature. Asked in 1926 to illustrate Two Years Before the Mast a sea story by Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Kent offered instead to illustrate a reissue of Moby Dick. This version not only cemented his fame to thousands who wouldn’t have otherwise heard of him, but exponentially increased interest in Melville’s classic. I think it’s fair to say that Kent’s otherworldly illustrations were perhaps the principal reason for this. Reprints can be found cheaply, but I’ve seen the 1st issue and it’s just gorgeous. If you’d like to pick up an original edition, be prepared to pay in excess of $10,000.

As with The Eric Carle Museum, I missed out on a great opportunity to spend some time with Kent’s work while I was in Massachusetts. Off Route 6A in Cape Cod, literally down the street from the Gorey House, sits the Cape Cinema, a lovely movie theater on its own, but even lovelier for its Rockwell Kent ceiling mural that was commissioned from him in 1930. Why did I miss out on this? I guess I was too busy with Gorey. Next year I’ll visit.

A letter by Poe showcasing his prominent signature.

Make this cool Edgar Allan Poe toy.

Cannibal Man cover praised; plot summarized.

Seven horror novels masquerading in other genres.

H.P. Lovecraft’s creepy little short story “The Outsider.”

“Slicin’ up eyeballs / Oh oh oh oh.”

Excellent gallery of illustrated horror film posters.

Stephen King explains how to make vampires scary again.

Stephen King sucks.

Hot freaks.

28 Weeks Later is a good film, but it hates children.

Harry Clarke illustrates Faust.

The gang from The Office makes a slasher film.

On Michael Jackson’s Ghosts.

Brendon Small (Metalocalypse, Home Movies) schedules 24 hours of horror films.

“You are tearing me apart Lisa!”

Jack Nicholson.

Kate Mosse’s top 10 ghost stories.

After winning a gold medal at the Dublin Art School in Ireland for his work The Consecration of St. Mel, Bishop of Longford, by St. Patrick in 1910, Clarke continued his education in stained glass work and then moved to London when his schooling was complete.

There, his interest in stained glass continued though he initially sought work as a book illustrator. Clarke’s work shows a clear influence by other illustrators of his time, including Edmund Dulac, Kay Nielsen and Aubrey Beardsley. This appears to have served him well, since he was hired by the publisher George Harrap to illustrate a version of Hans Christen Andersen’s Fairy Tales as a fairly young and untested new discovery.

Over the next 15 years, Clarke managed to complete illustrations for 6 books, including an edition of Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination. His illustrations for this book are the source of my introduction to Clarke, as I discovered them while reading my parent’s copy when I was very young and was fascinated by their intricacy, but also by their grotesqueness.

Throughout his life, Clarke remained loyal to his first passion, stained glass. While he contributed his illustration talents to only a small number of major books, he also managed to create over 130 stained glass pieces through his studio. Still, he clearly raised the bar for intricacy and detail in illustrative works and his stained glass expertise had a profound effect on this aspect of his legacy. Clarke and his brother worked together and both were ill of health in their later years (toxic chemicals used in stained glass are one of the suspected culprits). Both died within a year of each other, Clarke in 1931.

Buy Poe books with Clarke Illustrations.

Buy Clarke print reproductions from Poe’s stories.

I love love love these illustrations of Edgar Allen Poe’s novels by Harry Clarke. See more!

[via butdoesitfloat, AGAIN]

(Window by Harry Clarke, about whom more below.)

These days, though, I am too busy with editing work, volunteer work, writing, and countless other activities, online and off, to afford art more than a few evening hours at a time. No doubt many of you can empathise. The business of a busy world is to become busier in spite of one’s efforts to simplify.

Owing to all this industry and distraction, I don’t update Sentence first as often as I would like to. Thank you to my readers for your visits, comments and patience. Many recent posts have been lightweight ones about signs or typos, rather than detailed ones about English grammar and usage, since the latter type require more care and research. Luckily the content here does not date quickly!

Earlier in the week I was walking along the Promenade and noticed a series of drawings of dogs, presumably left by their altruistic artist. They were stuck on bins and walls, and one was simply propped up on a bench. I took a few photos and wondered about the who and the why. Here are a couple of them:

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(The text on the mural says: “These are the days we hang our souls upon, and high above them, as the sun withdraws we hang up the moon.”)

Later, inspired by an intriguing set of photos at Doubtful’s place, I decided to upload a few photos here under the general theme of art. (Imagine a capital A on the word, if you prefer; me, I’m easy.) The plan was to showcase found art or seen art. Public art. Visual evidence of Everyman’s and Everywoman’s ever-potential everyday creativity. Not this man’s, though: I will spare my readers my own efforts, for now.

Although Galway has its architectural gems, it is not renowned for this artistic form — but it is full of talented painters, illustrators, sketch artists and so on. Musicians, too, but that’s another year’s work. While organising my digital photos — two steps forward, five steps back; see also: books — I set some snaps aside for blog posts dedicated to local street art and imaginative shop fronts. All (or at least some) in good time. Here is one recent example of each:

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Finally, a dose of the sublime:

And the… well, I haven’t figured this one out yet, but it seems that some circuses treat their animals too well:

The camel-kissing image is on the side of a circus lorry currently in town. The sculpture is in the excellent Crawford Art Gallery in Cork, which I visited a few months ago. I’m sorry I lost the sculptor’s name. In the gallery I had the good fortune to stumble on a small exhibition of illustrations and stained-glass windows by Harry Clarke, whose work reveals a virtuoso originality.

A friend of mine wrote her thesis on Clarke’s illustrations for Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination, a favourite book of my then-twenty-something self. An evening of thumbing through her lush edition of the book, complete with Clarke’s intense, beautiful and nightmarish contributions, was my first proper exposure to his illustrations.

It took a while for me to sleep that night: not through fear of Clarke’s macabre visions, but because my mind raced with the unexpected thrill of being witness to his genius. Creativity is inherent in life, and though it manifests more purely in some than in others, the decision to make art for its own sake is both amazing and perfectly natural.

Everyone is capable of picking up a pen, a brush, or a piece of plasticine, and tuning in to something deeper and stranger than our “selves”. The art I see on the walls, streets and bins of Galway might not attain the inspired heights of historical masterpieces, but it is no less vital for that. We need art now more than ever, and whether it’s good or bad is far less important than whether its intent is noble.