[BOOKS] Journey Into The Abyss

Journey to the Abyss: The Diaries of Count Harry Kessler, 1880-1918, a collection of fascinating, never-before-published early diaries of Count Harry Kessler—patron, museum director, publisher, cultural critic, soldier, secret agent, and diplomat—present a sweeping panorama of the arts and politics of Belle Époque Europe, a glittering world poised to be changed irrevocably by the Great War. Kessler’s immersion in the new art and literature of Paris, London, and Berlin unfolds in the first part of the diaries. This refined world gives way to vivid descriptions of the horrific fighting on the Eastern and Western fronts of World War I, the intriguing private discussions among the German political and military elite about the progress of the war, as well as Kessler’s account of his role as a diplomat with a secret mission in Switzerland. The diaries present brilliant, sharply etched, and often richly comical descriptions of his encounters, conversations, and creative collaborations with some of the most celebrated people of his time: Otto von Bismarck, Paul von Hindenburg, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Richard Strauss, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Diaghilev, Vaslav Nijinsky, Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis, Sarah Bernhardt, Friedrich Nietzsche, Rainer Marie Rilke, Paul Verlaine, Gordon Craig, George Bernard Shaw, Harley Granville-Barker, Max Klinger, Arnold Böcklin, Max Beckmann, Aristide Maillol, Auguste Rodin, Edgar Degas, Éduard Vuillard, Claude Monet, Edvard Munch, Ida Rubinstein, Gabriele D’Annunzio, Pierre Bonnard, and Walther Rathenau, among others. Remarkably insightful, poignant, and cinematic in their scope, Kessler’s diaries are an invaluable record of one of the most volatile and seminal moments in modern Western history. You can purchase the book here. 

The Accursed Poets

Paul Verlaine

Nineteenth-century French poete maudits (accursed poets — poets who lived outside or rebelled against society), such as Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud and Comte de Lautreamont, have inspired numerous artists of various eras. An exhibition in Japan showcases etchings and prints of 20th-century artists, including Maurice Denis, Salvador Dali and Roberto Matta, who celebrated such French poetry. On view are around 180 works, including Matta's interpretation of Rimbaud's "Une Saison en Enfer" and a copy of de Lautreamont's "Les Chants de Maldoror," which inspired print works by Bernard Buffet as well as illustrations by Dali. On view until August 7 at the Machida City Museum of Graphic Arts, (042) 726-2771, 4-28-1 Haramachida, Machida-shi.