Bizarre
  1. Lepic, Ce qui Restait du Puissant Guillaume de Naillac
  2. Claeaz, Dancers with Death
  3. Anonymous American, A Naked Man and Horse
  4. Klinger, Amor, Tod und Jenseits (Love, Death and the Hereafter)
  5. Surugue, La Folie pare la Décrépitude
  6. Legros, La Légende du Bonhomme Misère : La Mort dans le Poirier
  7. Rops, L’Enlèvement
  8. Sadeler, Allegory of Opulence, Fornication and Stupidity
  9. Mohlitz, La Vierge aux Étrons (The Virgin of Turds)
  10. Legrand, Épaves de Famille (Oddballs of the Family)
  11. Jacquemart, L’Écurueil (sic)
  12. Benassit, L’Absinthe!
  13. de Bry, Punishment of the Mutinous Indians
  14. Goncourt, Le Singe au Miroir (The Monkey at the Mirror)
  15. Callot, Les Martyrs du Japon
  16. Dillon, Les Mendiants (The Beggars)
  17. Barberis, The Witch
  18. Budzinski, The Thirsty Giant
  19. Meryon, Le Ministère de la Marine
  20. Torre-Bueno, Death’s Arrival
  21. van Meurs, Animals of America
  22. Redon, Félinerie
  23. Chagall, Le Vixe
  24. Martin, Indécision (Tête de Femme)
  25. Rops, Le Calvaire
  26. Rops, Les Frères de la Bonne Trogne
  27. Gillray, Tentanda via est qua ve quoque possim Tollere humo
  28. Underwood, Simian Ecstasy
  29. Veber, Beheaded!
  30. Strang, Death and the Ploughman’s Wife: Frontispiece
  31. Corman, The Temptation of Saint Anthony
  32. Bliss, Gargoyles Spouting
  33. Castellón, Of Land and Sea
  34. Eichenberg, Isaiah 11
  35. Rops, L’Idole (The Idol)
  36. Master MZ, Aristotle and Phyllis
  37. Bracquemond, “Hors de mon soleil, canailles!"
  38. Spare, Nemesis
  39. Higgens, Forgotten
  40. Anonymous, Jewish Amulet to Protect Mother and Child
  41. Daumier, Une Expérience Qui Réussit Trop Bien
  42. Seligmann, Le Roi du Charbon (King Charcoal)
  43. Braun, The Release of Force
  44. Callot, Le Grand Rocher
  45. Forest, Bâstard Foetus Hérédité, Comte D’Averton Mort-Né
  46. Jacque, La Souricière
  47. Veber, “Ah! Qu’il fait chaud"
  48. Pastelot, Les Sorcières
  49. Lepic, Le Verger du Roi Louis (The Orchard of King Louis)
  50. Grandville, Résurrection de la Censure
  51. Tidemann, The Earth Swallows Up the People of Korah
  52. Shields, The Descent
  53. Redon, C’est le diable
  54. Sadeler, Ita Erit et Aventus Filii Hominis

24. Henri Martin
(1860-1943)
Indécision (Tête de Femme)

(click on image to print)
Martin, Indécision (Tête de Femme)

Indécision (Tête de Femme)

Lithograph, ca. 1895, 262 x 345 mm., Juskievenski/Coustols 135 ; B. N. Inv. N.D. (lacking in the collection). A very fine, fresh impression, with the remarque, on chine-volant with full margins. The work also exists without the remarque, as published by the Societé des Peintres-Lithographes and with their stamp. In my early learning days, it was revealed to me that a symbol, at least in artistic terms, was a symbol because it didn’t mean one thing. For the Symbolist painters and print makers, and perhaps especially for Martin, woman has proved to be the ultimate symbol (rarely does a woman mean one thing). Before the catalog cited above, no one seemed to know the title of this print, and trying to derive it from the facial expression led to many different choices in different directions. Such is Symbolism. But what one should really notice about this print is the way it is constructed entirely of textures -- rather like a Seurat charcoal drawing – the holly in the margin being the only element defined by line. The image is haunting in every way, not least in its invitation to be looked at again and again, and each time to appear to express something different.