Anne Bachelier and Edgar Allan Poe! Anne Bachelier Illuminates the Spirit
of a Nineteenth Century Gothic Master in a New Volume from CFM Gallery
Books ... As soon as one learns
that gallerist and collector Neil Zukerman's most ethereal art star has
teamed up with that immortal master of the macabre, it seems clearly a
match made in one of the nether regions of Heaven. For what living visual
artist could possibly be better suited to illuminate the words of the
haunted American writer who once said "The death of a beautiful woman
is the most poetical topic in the world" than the retiring French
painter of wraithlike ingenues who personify the Victorian ideal of "pale
"tubercular" beauty? The occasion for this
auspicious marriage is "13 Plus One By Edgar Allan Poe," a profusely
illustrated volume about to be released in both a standard edition and
a Deluxe Collector's Edition by Zukerman's publishing company, CFM Gallery
Books. Bachelier's abilities as one of the few contemporary colorists
capable of approaching the Old Masters for evoking subtle chromatic qualities
were made manifest in her previous illustrations for the same imprint,
most particularly those for Gaston Leroux's gothic classic "The Phantom
of the Opera," where she evoked the opulent setting of the Paris
Opera House -- its sweep and grandeur, as well as its shadowy eaves --
with such breathtaking skill. Her line and her colors were a bit lighter
and brighter in her illustrations for "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,"
as befit Lewis Carroll's more fanciful prose style and whimsical characters,
yet her interpretation of the text was every bit as stunningly on the
mark. For the present volume,
however, in keeping with Poe's dark vision, Bachelier has chosen to create
oils on panel in black and white grisaille, substituting for her usual
radiant hues a plethora of subtle monotones and dramatic chiaroscuro effects
that fully complement his melancholy magic. The volume opens with
Poe's best known and most tragic romantic poem, "Annabel Lee."
Some believe this syncopated masterpiece about the loss of an early love
was prompted by the death, two years before it was written, of Poe's wife
Virginia, whom he had married when he was twenty-six and she thirteen.
( In fact, the poem inspired Vladimir Nabokov's novel "Lolita,"
whose pedophile protagonist's lifelong obsession with "nymphets"
was stirred by a prepubescent infatuation at a seaside resort with a girl
named "Annabel." And that the first nineteenth century American
poet and short story writer to attempt to survive solely by his writing
continues to exert a wide cultural impact is heard in poet and art rocker
Lou Reed's tribute to him, an entire album of songs entitled "The
Raven.") For "Annabel Lee,"
Bachelier evokes the setting of a "kingdom by the sea" in bravura
fashion, with just the most exquisite painterly suggestion of shadowy
spires rising amid moonlit mists, turbulent white waves, and the cloud
out of which covetous angels "not half so happy in Heaven" sent
down a cold wind, "chilling and killing" and chilling the narrator's
star-crossed sweetheart. In the lower right area of the composition, we
see the girl in her long white gown, already brilliantly, spectrally oblivious,
as her grieving suitor reaches out for her hopelessly in the all-pervasive
gloom. Already there is nought for him to do but lie with her nightly
in the necrophile's marriage bed of her tomb by the sea. Next comes "The Black
Cat," Poe's terrifying horror story about an alcoholic whose love
for a pet feline takes a perverse turn, causing him to gouge out one of
the animal's eyes with a penknife in a drunken rage and later hang it
by the neck from a tree in his garden. Through a complex chain of such
circuitous circumstances as Poe alone could plot, he ends up killing his
wife and cementing her body into a cellar wall of a new house he moves
into after the first one mysteriously burns down. The police, investigating
her disappearance, hear another one-eyed cat, with which he had replaced
the one he killed, wailing inside the wall. It turns out he inadvertently
buried it alive along with the corpse of his wife. Although Aubrey Beardsley
made a famous illustration for this story, Bachelier surpasses its merely
decorative art nouveau appeal with an image more spookily worthy of Poe's
harrowing tale. Contrastingly lovely,
if also supernatural, is Bachelier's illustration for "Eulalie"
yet another Poe eulogy for a beautiful woman gone too young to the grave.
Although Poe does not make her demise as explicit in the finished text
as he does in Annabel Lee," he scrawled the phrase "Deep in
Earth" on the original manuscript page. And Bachelier makes it crystal
clear in her image of a ravishing ivory-skinned nude with tresses showering
in luminous ripples of "humble and careless curl" beyond her
slender shoulders, as she stands like a cold ivory statue in the portal
of her skull-canopied tomb. For "The Raven" (along with "Annabel Lee," one of Poe's best-known poems), Bachelier embodies the sheer terror of the verse in a monstrous avian figure -- More frightfully formidable than any of the birds of prey in Leonard Baskin's "Raptors" series. Hovering midair in moonlight that reflects off the glistening black impasto which gives palpable weight and depth to its feathers, the frightful creature dwarfs Poe's harried narrator, as he shields his eyes with one hand and with the other attempts to wave it away. Here, finally, is the
visual complement for which this immortal work has long been pining. Here, as always, Anne
Bachelier actually interprets the texts that inspire her, rather merely
than exploiting them as a platform for showcasing her own style and sensibility,
as all too many fine artists do when they condescend to work in book form
today -- and even as many full-time illustrators do, for that matter,
in an era when picture books geared to adult readers have become precious
rare. It is clear from her visual storytelling that she does not consider
illustration a minor art form, but a high calling on a par with painting
or sculpture, which she undertakes in the spirit of equal collaboration
with her close friend and publisher Neil Zukerman. Zukerman, whose dynamic
designs invariably return the favor by respecting and complementing her
pictures, seems singlehandedly dedicated to restoring the stature that
the illustrated book once enjoyed among grownups, as well as younger readers.
And in Bachelier, an artist with a natural humility to match her genius
(a rare combination, for sure, in an age of runaway egos!), which enables
her to enter into a full collaboration with the author as well, Zukerman
has apparently found the perfect accomplice. Her drawings and narrative
paintings -- as the monochromatic oils in this volume can only properly
be described -- not only thoroughly and thoughtfully translate the spirit
of Poe into visual terms, but faithfully capture the spirit and setting
of each specific story or poem. For example, for "William Wilson
#2," the story of a man of noble descent who has been plagued since
his school days by a "double" who shares even his name (in which
Poe can be said to have anticipated the modern problem of "identity
theft" in his own peculiar manner), Bachelier depicts the climatic
moment when Wilson finally confronts his namesake and nemesis at a ball,
before dragging him into an antechamber and stabbing him to death -- only
to later be haunted at the man's bloodied image in his mirror. Also including Bachelier's
illustrations for stories and poems such as "Hop-Frog," "Lenore,"
"The Mask of the Red Death," "Spirits of the Dead,"
"Tamerlane," "The Tell-Tale Heart," Ulalume,"
and "Epimanes," this is arguably the most lavish and handsome
edition of any work by Poe ever printed. -- Ed McCormack Artist's book signing:November
8, 2012, 4:30 - 8:30pm CFM Gallery, 236 West 27th St., 4th floor
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