52 + 2 Book Covers

This is a brilliant project by Aurora Cacciapuoti where she has a set herself the task of drawing one book per week.. such a lovely style.

'My name is Aurora, I am an Italian illustrator. I am from Sardinia and I am based in Cambridge (UK). My project is about drawing 52 + 2 book covers in 2012.'

http://auroracacciapuoti.tumblr.com/

Brünnhilde Sleeps

I absolutely adore Brünnhilde Sleeps by Anselm Kiefer.

From the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History:

'Near the end of Wagner’s second opera of the Ring cycle, Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), the Valkyrie Brünnhilde, having attempted to help the sibling lovers Siegmund and Sieglinde against their fathers’ wishes, is punished for her betrayal. Wotan puts her to sleep and surrounds her with a ring of fire (she will be awakened in turn by her nephew Siegfried, the incestuous son of Siegmund and Sieglinde, in the third opera of the cycle).

Kiefer portrays the dormant Brünnhilde as French actress Catherine Deneuve in François Truffaut’s film Mississippi Mermaid, using a photograph he snapped in a movie house in 1969. In the film, Deneuve plays a deceitful mail-order bride who comes to the island of Réunion to marry a plantation owner, played by Jean-Paul Belmondo. Aside from the parallels of love and betrayal in both the Ring Cycle and Truffaut’s film, Kiefer thought the choice of Deneuve for Brünnhilde both ironic and amusing: she was for him “the contrary of Brünnhilde. Very slim, very French, very cool, very sexy,” hinting that no man would go through fire to obtain Wagner’s corpulent, armored Valkyrie.'

Brünnhilde Sleeps, 1980.

You are.

Wednesday.

Hugo.

Last weekend my french cousin Hugo came to visit from Paris. We visited Finchcocks in Goudhurst, Kent  - a Georgian manor house with a vast selection of pianos, harpsichords and organs dating from the late 18^th and early 19^th century. Hugo is exceptionally talented and aiming to study at the Conservatoire de Paris.