Gothic Wonderland

'A place where tigers are happy to sleep on the soil next to a human, weird, white ghost chase young girls through the forest and the hometown of Red Riding Hood...'

Bleaq is an art blog collecting visual inspiration focussed on the melancholic, bleak and dark side of fine arts, design, illustration, photography and fashion. They have a wonderful collection of stills from Russian artist, Katrina Plotnikova.

http://www.bleaq.com/2013/katerina-plotnikova

Innocent folk often mistake Castelul Bran near Brasov for Dracula’s real-life castle:

It isn’t, Poenari is:

Oh, dear. Comparing the two, it isn't difficult to see why more visitors go to the former rather than the latter.

Mind you, Brasov is definitely a must-see, one of the best preserved baroque cities in Europe and home to Colette’s Bakery (fine wine bar upstairs) and the extraordinarily surreal Festival ’39 restaurant. I spent a lot of time in Brasov, based in an apartment next to Sex Shop off Republicii. When I wasn’t writing, Dimitris of Salonika plied me with souvlaki and local prostitutes told me to ‘eat their cat’ – I suspect

something got lost in translation – and I avoided the crowds at Bran Castle and the Vlad tankards. But I did have an encounter of the gothic kind in a high-end music bar.

It was four years ago and this is what I wrote at the time…    

A strange painting has turned up at the Art Bistro. It appeared as if by magic last night above the bar. No one knows how it got there. In the painting is a little girl in a black cowl sitting on the back of a two-headed red dragon. The dragon has opened one eye and looking straight at me. The girl’s eyes are cast down at the dragon. They appear to be in a cave but, on closer inspection, it is the silhouette of Kronstadt forming a circle around them. Maybe the mouth of a cave, maybe not. Is the dragon guarding the girl? The girl is the mistress of the dragon? Guarding the city? Not a single person in the Art Bistro knows what the painting signifies but everyone likes it.   

There is something archetypal about the painting. At first the tones and style of the painting remind me of the work of Hieronymus Bosch: the dragon could come from The Garden of Earthly Delights. But then I’m not so sure. It’s too gentle, connecting. Then I look at the girl again. Now I get it: the creatures and people in Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away. Western and Eastern archetypal connections.

The next day I return to the Art Bistro but the painting has gone.

Siamese Gothic

"When I was young I wanted to change the world, forge an empire, discover the secret of immortality and wear outrageously priced waistcoats decorated with those gold ankhs you can buy in Mrs Miggins' occult shop in Chelsea. But now my knees hurt and I just want leave the room with a little dignity - Fortuna has not been kind to me, Camille."

"Have another cup of green tea and stop complaining, uncle."

"You don't sound terribly sympathetic."

"I'm not. You've no-one to blame but yourself."

Baron H. Parzifal talking to his niece
Bangkok, 1821

Shadows across Paris

Zodiac of Dendera

Occult vision of Paris inspired by Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt in 1798 and Carter’s discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb. The former led to the Rosetta stone, Zodiac of Dendera and the Sacred Ibis. Carter’s discovery to a mania for everything Egyptian in movies, art, fashion and even furniture design.

The first Cleopatra movie

I love the idea of a comedy adventure in a ‘Cleopatran’ Paris. The capital of a Napoleonic empire dominated by Egyptian stele, lurking things in the sewers under the cobblestone streets, occult bookshops and an abandoned cartload of sarcophagi.  

The early action in Shadows and Pagodas unfolds in this weirdly skewed city: 

frompariswithlove

‘Eventually, she reached a dead end. And a shop. It had a drunken facade, bowed down by disrepute and a smell of damp animal hides. There was a door on the left and bulging shop window to the right, and hanging above the door was a lantern with a miniature sphinx atop, fashionably painted in glistening garish colours. Isabella went up to the door and cleared the soot off the plate: 

Madame Sebbotendorf of Ekatrinburg

Seller of Rare Books and Acquirer of Fine Curios

  Specialist in Root Race Antiquities

     Breeder of Lhasa Apsos of Distinction

Isabella turned her attention to the window, cupped her hands against one of its convex glass panels and peered in...’

Contemplating the secrets of the Ancients, 1798

Vampire taking a break

Wonderful shot of the actor Max Schrek sitting like, well, Max Schrek.

On the set of Nosferatu in 1922.