Saturday, January 17, 2009

1895 Calendrier Magique Lithographs


Colored Lithographs by Manuel Orazi. A rare piece of occultist ephemera, printed in an edition of 777 copies to commemorate magic for the coming year of 1896. Each double page spread mimics the Christian calendar in some respect (name days, iconography). The document is at once a spoof and an attempt to chart the year of magic. Its surviving interest resides in the extravagant and compelling illustrations, especially the full-page right hand plates, by Manuel Orazi (from the Fantastic in Art & Fiction collection from Cornell University)


This red text page is also the colophon / naked hag with book open in lap, sitting on stool, within circle set with candles; gold flames; pentagram, star of David.


owl carrying keys; bat carrying seal


diagram of solar system; listing of dates for days of the week; chant / naked women at Sabbat; satan as winged anthropomorphous goat

sun with cloud interior indicating cardinal directions; charts; spells / bearded man holding up open book; death gazing down; naked woman in foreground

chart of days of week; pentagram with broken circle; le maudit blaspheme / dark angel, naked; moon and skyline

star of David; medieval frieze: procession of priests and nobility; tarot card The World / skeleton of king in coffin; single candle; crowns, sword, staffs, orb


tree; chalises; frog; bird; love potion / exhibitionist bat-winged woman; necromancer gazing, gesturing into glowing cauldron, with familiar strutting on his head

poem; frog / naked woman in arms of dark man; feminine demons coming from smoke of extinguished candle; creatures of the night

laboratory instruments; poem / Alchimist lying on floor of his laboratory, black cat at his feet

chalice on table with legs, ears / woman lying prone on table with chalice on back; men in dark robes around her; satan as goat


charts; poem / demon rolling past moon; procession of dark-robed people into cemetary; abracadabra


charts, bound demon / entranced naked woman crouched down looking upon embers of crosses burning within a circle, a demon is just visible in the smoke

calendar chart; spell / naked old man sitting, creating voodoo doll; bird-like demon silhouetted by moon; hand gripping sword; row of dolls; heart pierced by nails, knife


poem ‘le Héraut’; calendar chart; star diagram with suns at points, labeled: l’être est, réalité, justice, raison, vérité / man in ecclesiastical garb, bearing flag with crosses, holds forth an opened message with broken seal; figures tied to stakes and village rooftops in background


chart or various good end evil spirits; chart of planetary influences upon hours of the days of the week; lions; owl; snake; bird food / chart of the good and bad spirits/influences that can be magically used on the different days of the week

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see the entire Fantastic in Art & Fiction collection [here]

3 comments:

PIGNOUF said...

Oh yes ! Fantastic ...!
Merci Joel pour ce lien, et bonne année...:)

micha michelle said...

this is an amazing blog you have here, joel. i look forward spending some time to explore it fully.

i also wanted to note that i just published a post about the calendrier magique. http://obscurehollow.blogspot.com/2009/05/manuel-orazi-1895-calendrier-magique.html

i made sure to acknowledge your blog and this particular post. i didn't notice the "create link" button at the bottom of your post until just now though [after i've already posted]. i've never seen or used that before. so sorry if done this in a round about way.

take care,
micha.

crabula said...

WOW. Thank you thank you thank you for posting this! I'd never seen this before. This man was clearly a master craftsman and visionary artist.

 
*please cite or link when reposting*