![]() The book is cleverly organized according to Crumb’s philosophical affinities with existentialist and countercultural thinkers: Kerouac, Sartre, Kafka, Phillip K. Moreover, Calonne’s knowledge of literary history and cultural/political movements of the twentieth century is impressive. " is engagingly written in a conversational and dynamic style. Crumb: Literature, Autobiography, and the Quest for Self is extensive, evocative, and invaluable. Calonne has done excellent work gathering up the proliferate allusions throughout Crumb’s oeuvre, and he has made outstanding observations on Crumb’s drawing style and changes over the decades. "Excepting a few obscure studies and essays, no one has pursued this otherwise obvious avenue of research into both comics and Crumb. Those interested in comics studies would be well served to consider how Calonne is able to deftly blend an analysis of Crumb’s art style and his influences. Calonne does an excellent job of constructing and supporting his thesis: that Robert Crumb was deeply influenced by certain artists and ideas and that it is possible to see those ideas reflected in his comics. Calonne demonstrates how Crumb’s love for literature led him to attempt an extremely faithful rendering of the texts he admired while at the same time highlighting for his readers the particular hidden philosophical meanings he found most significant in his own autobiographical quest for identity and his authentic self. Dick, as well as Crumb’s illustrations of biographies of musicians Jelly Roll Morton and Charley Patton. Crumb: Literature, Autobiography, and the Quest for Self contains six chapters that chart Crumb’s intellectual trajectory and explore the recurring philosophical themes that permeate his depictions of literary and biographical works and the ways he responds to them through innovative, dazzling compositional techniques.Ĭalonne explores the ways Crumb develops concepts of solitude, despair, desire, and conflict as aspects of the quest for self in his engagement with the book of Genesis and works by Franz Kafka, Jean-Paul Sartre, the Beats, Charles Bukowski, and Philip K. Crumb’s genius, according to author David Stephen Calonne, lies in his ability to absorb a variety of literary, artistic, and spiritual traditions and incorporate them within an original, American mode of discourse that seeks to reveal his personal search for the meaning of life. Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg, as well as religious classics including biblical, Buddhist, Hindu, and Gnostic texts. 1943) read widely and deeply a long roster of authors including Robert Louis Stevenson, Charles Dickens, J. The Book of Genesis was quite magnetic, a lot of people were standing exploring each of its page from the very beginning till the end.Robert Crumb (b. It was shown in Arsenale in a white space, each sheet of paper was framed in black correlating with the pages in black and white. ![]() How did people dress? Did they have doors? Did they have a door on hinges, or what? The Bible says, Lot closed the door and wouldn’t let the men come in, but what’s the door made of?”Īt the 55th Venice Biennale The Book of Genesis was chosen by curator Massimilliano Gioni as a part of the main project. It’s hard to find Mesopotamian visual imagery that goes that far back. “You have to go way back, to the beginning of Mesopotamian civilization, because the stories of Abraham and all that-that’s like 2000 b.c. And this challenge was one more primary issue for him. It goes without saying that before starting to work on such a project, Crumb had had to make a serious research for Genesis. But in the artistic point of view it is of a great importance that he followed his statement of leaving every word of the original text unchanged and illustrated every scene the text tells about. Sex in a book of sacred text is out of the question. But, of course, he understood that ingenuous drawing of nudity, violence, and In the interview to the Paris Review Crumb said that he really tried to stay respectful. He also left the story stand without interference: all its sex, violence, and Edenic nudity remain uncensored. ![]() Each word of the biblical text is incorporated. The Book of Genesis illustrated by Robert Crumb consists of all 50 chapters on 207 pages of black-and-white drawings. “I just can’t help myself-obsessive-compulsive disorder”, – Crumb commented. As for comics it is usually totally meaningless because the reader does not want all the details, they interfere with the flow of the reading process. When started working, Crumb was too concerned about the details. Having been published in 2009, The Book of Genesis has become the most ambitious work of his to date. It was an enormous work to draw such a Book. It was a commercial project but soon Crumb regretted it. In 2004 Robert Crumb started to work on The Book of Genesis.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |