LuminousDebris

Art With Fat--the Horrible Beauty of Making Art with Hundreds of Pounds of Pure Fat

Discovering "new" genres of art is nearly as rare as the discovery a new human bone.  As an iconographic archaeologist, I do believe that I have uncovered an art form that may be visually dead now for decades, and I am sure that it has not enjoyed a writer's light touch in as long a time; it has itw own bit of spectular-ness about it, though not necessarily in a good way. This new art form may be as welcome as a nervous twitch, but, be that as it may, I'd like to reintroduce Fat Art.

In the world of found book objects, few I think are as deeply removed and as deeply obscure as the hopefully iconic 1941 work by Otto F. Fleiss called White Art in the Meat Food Business.  A Practical Handbook for Butcher, Pork Stores, Restaurants, Hotels and Delicatessens on How to Make Lasting and Transferable White Art Decorations out of Bacon Fat Back for Window Displays, Ornaments on Meat Food Cold Buffets and for Exhibits and Advertising Purposes.  Enrich yourself with Personal Knowledge.

(Now, aside from the fact that the author is making art out of fat, what in the name of god's baggy pants is "transferable" fat art? )

If the title of this book could itself be described in terms of food, I think that I'd have to call it a (warm) Slim Jim Egg Frosty with a crust of French fries, baked.  Or something like that.  If the exhaustive, exhausting title didn't stop you in your tracks, though, the slim pamphlet holds some indelible, indigestible, eyebrow-burning, flat-out remarkable images.  Working your way through this pamphlet is as much fun as stringing together dirty diapers:  you can enjoy instructions on how to make a vase of roses out of strips of fat, or produce the reverse (?!) portrait of Santa Claus in slabs of fat, or marvel at the photos of Mr.

Fleiss' "first prize" (?) 200-pound fat sculpture of a cathedral done entirely in slips and chunks and strips of fat.  (We are told of  Fleiss' "Master Piece" that  "the church is still in existence, having become petrified".  What a spectacular aside!

This simply must be the most sublime work ever produced on Fat Art.

And, in the annals of art, I should think that Black Velvet Sparkly Liberace paintings may have moved up a level from the most secret depths of the Inferno to make way for Fat Art--or, dare I say it, "FAART"

. 

The Great Wine Strike 1907

This fabulous image is titled "Marcelin Albert, the Napoleon of the South", administering the Oath to the Wine-Growers' Federation at Montpell.  It was printed in  London by the Illustrated London News,   June 22, 1907   Terrific image of Albert (striking in this photo, looking like a thin Castro) speaking to hundreds of thousands of "agitators". He is pictured administering the oath, and the huge throng before him show their acceptance by raising their hands. Marcelin Albert (b 1851) led campaigns for the defense of vine growers in 1900, 1903 and 1905. He headed an association of Languedoc vine growers in the great agitation of 1907 (against restrictions on home distillers, taxes on sugar, etc) and achieved an exalted social persona--at one meeting more than 600,000 people voiced their support for the Albert-led strike.

Mother Knows Best--Cooking in 1932

This is simply a glorious cover for the "Presto" cook book, providing recipes "for little girls and their mothers".  Is there anything about this that doesn't say "1932"?  It makes me nostalgic (even for a time before-my-time) and annoyed, all at the same time.  I'm sure Mrs. Presto here was having a glorious time, and as a kid I'd've liked to have been poking my nose over the edge of the table to see what Mother was doing with that cake; on the other hand, that apron looks really, really tight, and the smile just a little pinched. 

 

Not Exactly a Disney Character--the Mermaid, 1822

Contrary to common belief and image saturation, the Mermaid was not exactly a cuddly, whimsically enchanting, luxuriously beautiful creature, as this woodcut from the British "The MIrrour" magazine attests.  The mermaid is old and world-wide, but in British storytelling, it is mostly an ominous creature, creating havoc, provoking doom and destruction, and perhaps even devouring ships (as they could be enormous in size, 150 feet and up).  The syrienic beauties of John Waterhouse and Frederic Leighton et al, with beauty and intrigue dripping from their brushes, had little to do with most of the legends of these creatures.  This is one of the most fascinating of these images that I've seen--in a pitched battle between The Kraken and this 150' mermaid, I think that the she-demon would win.