Tuesday, April 17, 2012

The Weird Art of Clark Ashton Smith.


The brilliant author of feverish, verbose, and decadent pulp fiction Clark Ashton Smith is often regarded as second only to HP Lovecraft among the writers associated with the seminal pulp magazine Weird Fiction. However, whereas Smith lacked the visionary character and originality of Lovecraft's imagination, he was arguably the better writer in terms of form and prose, and a figure of various talents besides: Smith wrote poetry, sculpted, painted, and drew. The quality of his artwork varies, but some of it is very striking indeed: very otherworldly and downright weird. The following selection is taken from the eldritch dark, a website which contains an excellent miscellany of CAS materials:


the sciapods


forbidden barrier


scene in Atlantis


Atlantean priest


racornee


worship


untitled humanoid



weird sketch



hashish demon


Finally, a couple of covers for translated editions of CAS that caught my eye, also from eldritch dark:



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