Archives

Elihu Vedder’s Rubáiyát

Elihu Vedder’s Rubáiyát. Sylvia Yount.
American Art, 29 (2015), 2, pp. 112–118.

The distinctive work and career of Elihu Vedder have proven difficult to categorize in the history of American art. Part academic naturalist, part progressive symbolist, the artist is best remembered for his allegorical and literary paintings. Yet a more contextual examination of Vedder’s production challenges the standard view of him as a visionary out of step with the art world of his time and unconcerned with the broader cultural reach of his work.

Love and Death in Elihu Vedder’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

Love and Death in Elihu Vedder’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Akela Reason.
American Art, 29 (2015), 2, pp. 119–125.

Spiritual uncertainty figured in many of Elihu Vedder’s works. The artist acknowledged his fascination with this theme, writing in his autobiography, The Digressions of V., “it delights me to tamper and potter with the unknowable, and I have a strong tendency to see in things more than meets the eye.” Especially preoccupied by the mystery of death, Vedder returned to the subject again and again. Death comes in many forms in Vedder’s art—from “all-devouring” sphinxes presiding over desert wastes to the fratricidal conflict of the Old Testament, and devastating medieval plagues.

The Art of Omar Khayyam: illustrating FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat

The Art of Omar Khayyam: illustrating FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat. Illustrated lecture given to the Iran Society on 22nd November 2007. W.H. Martin, S. Mason.
Journal of the Iran Society, 2 (2008), nr 7, p. 1-8.

The lecture is mainly concerned with the Rubaiyat and the extraordinary publishing phenomenon that is associated with it, particularly the extensive and continuing production of illustrated editions of FitzGerald’s version of the poem. In it, the authors draw extensively on their recently published book on the subject.

The illustration of FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát and its contribution to enduring popularity

The illustration of FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát and its contribution to enduring popularity. W.H. Martin, S. Mason.
In: FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Popularity and neglect. Ed. by A. Poole et al. London, Anthem Press, 2011. pp. 233-248.

In this paper, the authors aim to shed more light on how it is that Edward FitzGerald’s short poem became one of the most widely illustrated books of all time. They consider the social and economic framework within which publication of FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát reached its zenith and the critical role played by technical change in this important period. They examine in more detail the role of certain key actors, notably individual publishers and their illustrators, in the process of Rubáiyát publishing. And, by looking at the longer term evolution of Rubáiyát publishing through the twentieth century, they try to reach a clearer view of the importance of illustration to the enduring popularity of the poem.

‘A restrained but full-blooded eroticism’ …

‘A restrained but full-blooded eroticism’. Letters from John Buckland Wright to Christopher Sandford, 1937-1939. Edited by Roderick Cave.
In: Matrix (1988) 8 (Winter), pp. 56-79.

Discusses the illustrating history and process of the Golden Cockerel Rubaiyat by Buckland Wright, and shows the erotic character of the illustrations.

Intersemiotic translations of Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam by Iranian and Thai illustrators: a comparative study

Intersemiotic translations of Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam by Iranian and Thai illustrators: a comparative study. Saber Atash Nazarloo, Hossein Navidinia.
Asia Pacific Translation and Intercultural Studies, 5 (2018) 1, p.p. 72-81.

Summary

One way of transferring the culture and identity of a nation is through book illustrations as a kind of intersemiotic translation. Omar Khayyam is an Iranian poet whose fame, thanks to FitzGerald, is now worldwide. Khayyam’s works have been translated to many languages and even some illustrators have tried to transform Khayyam’s quatrains into illustrations. Transferring textual materials into signs of non-verbal system is called intesemiotic translation. The aim of this paper is to analyze and compare samples of two successful illustrators, namely Muhammad Tajvidi, an Iranian illustrator who knows Persian, the language of Khayyam’s original works and Niroot Puttapipat, a Thai illustrator who does not know Persian, and therefore, the source of his illustrations is FitzGerald’s translations. Findings indicated that Puttapipat’s illustrations conveyed more cultural elements than Tajvidi’s, since the former is translated for a foreign audience.

Edmund Dulac’s Book Graphics and the Problem of Orientalism in British Illustration of Edwardian Era and the Second Decade of XXth Century

Edmund Dulac’s Book Graphics and the Problem of Orientalism in British Illustration of Edwardian Era and the Second Decade of XXth Century. Dmitry Lebedev.
In: Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Art Studies: Science, Experience, Education. Atlantis Press, November 2019.

Summary

At the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, Europe-wide enthusiasm about the Eastern art, which varied from Iranian miniature to Japanese engraving, led to the popularity of many artists whose works were impacted by Orientalism. In these circumstances, large London publishers, annually producing luxury gift books for Christmas, trying to adjust to the mass excitement around the Eastern art, invited young and promising graphic artists to illustrate these publications. Among the invited artists who actively cooperated with such publishers was the outstanding French-English illustrator Edmund Dulac (1882-1953). The article reveals one of the key aspects of Dulac’s oeuvre. The author considers artist’s attempts to convey the thematic and stylistic originality of the Oriental art in the context of book illustration of the Edwardian era and the second decade of XXth century. The work traces Edmund Dulac’s creative career and examines the cycles of his illustrations in order to identify both typical and original stylistic and compositional techniques used by the author to create works in the spirit of orientalist aesthetics. The article also deals with oriental works of Dulac’s contemporaries and analyses them in comparison with each other.

The Hunter Rubáiyát: illustrating Edward FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam in an contemporary Australian setting

The Hunter Rubáiyát: illustrating Edward FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam in an contemporary Australian setting. Tallulah Cunningham. Newcastle, University of Newcastle, 2015.

Summary

Edward FitzGerald’s poem Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám has been illustrated over a hundred and fifty times during the decade and a half since its first publication. These illustrations have depicted exotic, arcadian other-places that ignore the poem’s frequent endorsement to live with immediacy. My Practice-based Creative PhD project has focused on producing a visual interpretation that reflects the immediate landscapes of my own physical situation: modern Australia. I have crafted illustrations that use the current landscapes and biotic content of the Hunter Valley, NSW, to emphasise not only the ongoing relevance of this poem to the brevity of human life but also my interpretations of the poem. To describe the poem’s frequent references to the passage of time I have drawn on my experience as a Natural History Illustrator, integrating the cycle of seasonal climatic events, plant and animal behaviour into my visual interpretation. I have also inverted the existing trend of exotic illustrations in a familiar physical context (that of a book) by presenting my depiction of the familiar, local environments in two exotic formats. These formats are based on Japanese narrative-scrolls and woodblock prints, providing unusual and intentionally tactile creative objects.