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Pegasus, v. 2, issue 1, Summer 1943
Page 17
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Pegasus Perhaps the best example is the frontispiece of the volume, in which shapes float in space, trailing swirl upon swirl of translucent draperies in a progression almost mystical in import. Vassos employs such formless swirls many times throughout the book (there is an illustration to about every two pages of text), masterfully and with effect. The work is all in tones of gray from black to white; and -- here is a matter to note well -- there is almost never any gradation of tone in a given area. Shading is obtained by a succession of contours or laminae, forming bands of greater and greater density as the shading progresses from light to dark. Yet each strip has the same weight throughout its area. The result is highly individual and -- better still -- highly effective. The projections are not all composed of filmy impressions. Even the lightest of his touches is clean and sharp in outline; three is no fuzziness here. And many of the projections have a strength and impact that is startling. Vassos is quite proficient at the modern game of heaping blocks and angles and masses of indeterminate shape and making a picture of it. He is more successful than some -- but be prepared for a impressionism with no apologies. But to abandon an over-analytical viewpoint, a word or two is in order about certain of the pictures, individually. His conception of a city of the future is inspiring; the towers strike upward to the heavens, and the flying spans leap from building to building with a lightness that testifies an imagination far from earthbound. Another illustration, a scene under the sea, suggests ponderous shapes undulating through a well-nigh congealed field, between great white crystals that thrust up from the sea floor like the bones of a ruined temple. And the ice in his illustrations is cold. This is art that is living and new; the artist has refused to observe the bounds of conventional subjects and has applied his craft and daemon to a rare subject. ULTIMO is commended to your attention as a book of a sort that is not often encountered. It may be difficult to obtain; but it is worth much effort to that end. finis Variations on a Theme by Gustav Holet The planets roll their endless course / O, ellipse eternal, it is of thee / And of thy cosmic, primal force / That man will draw his final fee. -- BJ 14
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Pegasus Perhaps the best example is the frontispiece of the volume, in which shapes float in space, trailing swirl upon swirl of translucent draperies in a progression almost mystical in import. Vassos employs such formless swirls many times throughout the book (there is an illustration to about every two pages of text), masterfully and with effect. The work is all in tones of gray from black to white; and -- here is a matter to note well -- there is almost never any gradation of tone in a given area. Shading is obtained by a succession of contours or laminae, forming bands of greater and greater density as the shading progresses from light to dark. Yet each strip has the same weight throughout its area. The result is highly individual and -- better still -- highly effective. The projections are not all composed of filmy impressions. Even the lightest of his touches is clean and sharp in outline; three is no fuzziness here. And many of the projections have a strength and impact that is startling. Vassos is quite proficient at the modern game of heaping blocks and angles and masses of indeterminate shape and making a picture of it. He is more successful than some -- but be prepared for a impressionism with no apologies. But to abandon an over-analytical viewpoint, a word or two is in order about certain of the pictures, individually. His conception of a city of the future is inspiring; the towers strike upward to the heavens, and the flying spans leap from building to building with a lightness that testifies an imagination far from earthbound. Another illustration, a scene under the sea, suggests ponderous shapes undulating through a well-nigh congealed field, between great white crystals that thrust up from the sea floor like the bones of a ruined temple. And the ice in his illustrations is cold. This is art that is living and new; the artist has refused to observe the bounds of conventional subjects and has applied his craft and daemon to a rare subject. ULTIMO is commended to your attention as a book of a sort that is not often encountered. It may be difficult to obtain; but it is worth much effort to that end. finis Variations on a Theme by Gustav Holet The planets roll their endless course / O, ellipse eternal, it is of thee / And of thy cosmic, primal force / That man will draw his final fee. -- BJ 14
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