Expressionism & Film

Rudolf Kurtz wrote Expressionismus & Film in 1926, and it was published in German. It was written at the height of Expressionism's influence, long before other studies of Weimar cinema such as From Caligari To Hitler (Siegfried Kracauer).

After ninety years, this seminal text is now available in English as Expressionism & Film. The new edition, translated by Brenda Benthien, also includes a long essay on the book's impact by editors Christian Kiening and Ulrich Johannes Beil (which first appeared in a 2007 German reprint).

Oriental Rugs

Oriental Rugs: An Illustrated Lexicon Of Motifs, Materials, & Origins is an expanded second edition of The Oriental Rug Lexicon, by Peter F Stone. It was intended as "a single source for commonly accepted definitions of oriental rug terms" and it's certainly an authoritative dictionary of oriental rugs.

The book covers not only Persian and oriental rugs, but also Indian, European, and Native American examples, making it a comprehensive reference. It also has an extensive bibliography. Around 1,000 colour images are included, though the rugs they illustrate are not dated, and some of the photographs are printed at quite a low resolution.

Oriental Rugs & Carpets: A Comprehensive Study, by Arthur Urbane Dilley, was one of the first histories of oriental rugs in English. Oriental Rugs: A Comprehensive Guide, by Murray L Eiland, is an excellent modern history of the subject. (The second edition of Eiland's book has additional coverage of Indian rugs, and better illustrations; Stone consulted Eiland during the writing of The Oriental Rug Lexicon.)

A History of Textile Art (by Agnes Geijer, illustrated in black and white) and 5,000 Years Of Textiles (a definitive study, edited by Jennifer Harris) are general surveys of textiles and weaving. The Encyclopedia Of Antique Carpets (by Abraham Levi Moheban), published in two volumes, is a comprehensive guide to all areas of carpet production.

St. Kitts Music Festival

50 Cent was arrested after appearing at the St. Kitts Music Festival on Saturday night. Performances containing profanity are illegal in St. Kitts, though 50 Cent sang P.I.M.P., which includes lyrics such as "I'm a motherfuckin' P.I.M.P."

The concert was held at Warner Park in the St. Kitts capital, Basseterre. 50 Cent was briefly held in custody, and left the country on Sunday after paying a fine.

Map

Map: Exploring The World, edited by Rosie Pickles and Tim Cooke, features 300 maps from the past 3,000 years, including works by acclaimed cartographers such as Abraham Ortelius, Gerard Mercator, Andreas Cellarius, and Joan Blaeu. The maps are "organized in complementary or contrasting pairs," with 200-word descriptions, and a detailed chronology provides historical context.

The book includes not only realistic cartographic maps, but also illustrated examples, such as an 1877 map depicting Russia as a giant octopus, its tentacles reaching out into Europe (Serio-Comic War Map, by Frederick W Rose; based on an 1870 design by JJ van Brederode). James Gillray's personification of England as George III excreting onto France (A New Map Of England & France, 1793) is equally satirical. Maps by artists are also included, as are infographics such as Joseph Minard's representation of Napoleon's Russian campaign (1861).

Map follows the same format as The Fashion Book, The Art Book, The Photography Book, The Pot Book, and The 20th Century Art Book, also published by Phaidon. It includes useful biographies of key cartographers, though the bibliography is limited to very recent publications.

The Story Of Maps, by Lloyd A Brown, was the first guide to cartographic history. Leo Bagrow's History Of Cartography (revised by RA Skelton) is the most comprehensive single-volume history of the subject. The History Of Cartography, a multi-volume work edited by David Woodward, is the definitive global survey of cartography.

Logo Modernism

Logo Modernism, published in folio format by Taschen, features 6,000 logos designed between 1940 and 1980. The logos are reproduced in black and white, and classified into three categories: "Geometric", "Effect", and "Typographic". Julius Wiedemann edited Information Graphics and Understanding The World in addition to Logo Modernism.

The book begins with an introduction by Jens Muller giving a brief account of the evolution of logo design, illustrated with historical examples. A 300-page logo directory is followed by profiles of seven key graphic designers, including Yusaku Kamekura, whose book Trademarks Of The World (1956) is described as "a standard work for the period." There's also an extensive bibliography.

Marks Of Excellence (by Per Mollerup) remains the most comprehensive guide to logos and trademarks. The two leading histories of graphic design both include chapters on logos: "Corporate Identity and Visual Systems" in A History Of Graphic Design (by Philip B Meggs and Alston W Purvis), and "Corporate Identity in Germany and America" in Graphic Design (by Stephen J Eskilson).

Scarves

Scarves, by Nicky Albrechtsen and Fola Solanke, is a comprehensive guide to scarf designs of the twentieth century. More than 250 scarves are included, all photographed in colour, followed by biographies of fifty key scarf designers. The book itself is lavishly produced, with a padded satin cover.

Albrechtsen also wrote The Printed Square, about handkerchief designs, though Scarves is superior in many ways. Whereas The Printed Square (also published by Thames & Hudson) is a compact book, with examples from only four decades, the large-format Scarves covers the entire twentieth century. Unlike The Printed Square, each illustration in Scarves is dated and attributed, and each chapter begins with an introduction.

"Scarves are works of art in their own right," as the book clearly demonstrates. It features scarves from Europe, America, Asia, and Australia, in a wide variety of styles including abstract, geometric, figurative, and commemorative. The scarves are beautifully reproduced as vibrant, full-page illustrations.

Like handkerchiefs, scarves are a largely overlooked example of fashion accessories and printed textiles. The Scarf (1989), by Andrew Baseman, is the only previous guide to scarf designs. The early histories of scarves and handkerchiefs are summarised in Accessories Of Dress (1940), by Katherine Morris Lester and Bess Viola Oerke.

National Enquirer

In recent months, the National Enquirer has broken several UK injunctions: PJS, NEJ, and RA. Now, it has broken four more, by naming three football players and a manager who were granted injunctions to prevent details of extra-marital affairs being published.

The four men were named on the Enquirer's website on 1st June, though the site is geo-blocked outside the United States. One of the footballers was named in the magazine's issue dated 13th June: "The ENQUIRER this week names more celebs and sports stars who've desperately tried to hide their sordid secrets using the British courts! One of America's top soccer players, Robbie Keane, is among them!"

All four are named in the issue dated 20th June: "Three players - Robbie Keane, star of the LA Galaxy, Gareth Barry and English goalkeeper Joe Hart - were named by The ENQUIRER. Married English soccer boss Alan Pardew got a court to hide his sleaze".

Some of these injunctions are almost a decade old, and UK football is not a particularly popular sport in America. It seems either that the Enquirer is scraping the bottom of the barrel in its search for exclusives, or that it is breaking the injunctions so that UK tabloids (especially The Sun) can use the American media coverage to justify lifting the reporting restrictions in the UK.

The Printed Square

The Printed Square: Vintage Handkerchief Patterns For Fashion & Design, by Nicky Albrechtsen features more than 200 reproductions of handkerchiefs from the 1920s to the 1950s: "The early twentieth century was a particularly innovative and inspiring period of design, stimulated by the popularity of the printed handkerchief as an essential accessory."

The book (which is square, to match its title and subject) begins with a brief social history of handkerchiefs and their designs. The selected handkerchiefs are floral and geometric, arranged according to their colour schemes. Full-page colour photographs make this a useful design sourcebook, though it's not a work of reference because it has no details about the dates, designers, or manufacturers of the handkerchiefs.

Albrechtsen is a co-author of Scarves (also published by Thames & Hudson), which covers another largely overlooked aspect of fashion accessories and printed textiles. The early histories of handkerchiefs and scarves are also summarised in Accessories Of Dress (1940) by Katherine Morris Lester and Bess Viola Oerke.

The Art Of The Pastel

The Art Of The Pastel, by Thea Burns and Philippe Saunier, is "the only comprehensive history of this most appealing medium." It was originally published in French as L'Art Du Pastel, edited by Emmanuelle Gaillard; the English edition was edited by Nicole Lanctot.

The book begins with Renaissance drawings in chalk, including Leonardo's portrait of Isabella d'Este, "the only extant drawing incorporating red, black, and yellow chalks traditionally attributed to him". In the seventeenth century, pastel emerged as an art form in its own right, though it "oscillated conceptually between drawing and painting".

Pastel's heyday came in eighteenth-century France: "The eighteenth century is rightly regarded as pastel's golden age, and the French artist Maurice Quentin de La Tour in particular is considered one of the most talented pastel masters of all time." La Tour dominated French portraiture of the period, though Jean-Etienne Liotard's works in pastel are equally outstanding. Liotard is also interesting for his Turkish affectations: he wore a full beard and styled himself as "le Peintre Turc".

The authors also discuss pastel's revival in the nineteenth century, and its use by Impressionists and Symbolists. This is a stunning book, with over 300 lavishly reproduced colour illustrations, many of which are full-page. The definitive history of pastel as an artistic medium, it also has an extensive bibliography.

Brick

Brick, edited by William Hall, is a survey of over 150 brick buildings, from a 4,000-year-old ziggurat in Iraq to a twenty-first century structure built by a robotic arm. Published by Phaidon, it follows exactly the same format as Hall's earlier Concrete: full-page photographs with extended captions, arranged in themed chapters.

In his introduction, Hall notes that "no illustrated books have been published on the subject for over a decade." The last history of brick architecture - James WP Campbell's comprehensive Brick: A World History - was indeed written around ten years earlier (in 2003). The first international survey of brick buildings - Brickwork: Architecture & Design, by Andrew Plumridge and Wim Meulenkamp - was released a decade before that (in 1993).

Stanley Kubrick & Me

Stanley Kubrick & Me, the autobiography of Kubrick's personal assistant, Emilio D'Alessandro, was published in Italian in 2012. An English translation, Stanley Kubrick & Me: Thirty Years At His Side, was released last month. The memoir was written by Filippo Ulivieri, and translated by Simon Marsh.

D'Alessandro, an Italian driver living in London, first met Kubrick in 1971, and eventually became his most trusted assistant: "I'd been hired as a driver, but in fifteen years I'd become an electrician, plumber, vet, gardener, carpenter, and builder. Every day there was something new. I spent less and less of my life away from Stanley."

As Ian Watson wrote in his essay Plumbing Stanley Kubrick (2000), D'Alessandro was a central figure in Kubrick's life: "Emilio became much more than merely a driver. Short, dark, and wiry, he had kept practical matters ticking over at the manor house for many years, playing a major role in trying to steer catastrophes back into mere mishaps."

Kubrick's production operation "consisted of dozens and dozens of cogs: some small, some large, but all of them important. Each one was a necessary working part of the engine that was Stanley Kubrick." D'Alessandro was one of the largest cogs in that machine, and his relationship with Kubrick was closer and longer than that of any other staff member (and arguably closer than anyone outside Kubrick's family).

D'Alessandro was Kubrick's driver and personal assistant for almost thirty years. (D'Alessandro was a former racing driver, though Kubrick's driving was somewhat less accomplished: "Whenever he drove me somewhere, I felt I was staring death in the face.") He dealt with Kubrick's personal possessions, his correspondence, and, above all, his beloved pets: "Stanley's love for animals was limitless, bordering on the preposterous, and was extended unconditionally to all living creatures."

Ulivieri writes in his afterword: "If you asked, and I did want to ask, any random day spent with Kubrick would have been enough to fill a hundred pages." His book contains new Kubrick anecdotes on every page, and it reveals more of Kubrick's character than any previous book on the director.

D'Alessandro was the last person to see Kubrick before he died, during the post-production of Eyes Wide Shut: "He had reached the absolute limit of physical and mental exhaustion". The book's final chapters deal with Kubrick's funeral and D'Alessandro's return to Italy. (D'Alessandro was interviewed at his home in Cassino for S Is For Stanley, a feature-length documentary inspired by Stanley & Me.)

D'Alessandro and Ulivieri allow us, for the first time, to see the real Kubrick: "In the collective imagination, Stanley Kubrick was a kind of ogre. A misanthrope, who lived alone in his castle, isolated from the world. Stanley was quite the opposite: he was an altruistic man, capable of generosity without the need for recognition, an artist who valued his privacy because it allowed him to devote himself to what he cared about most of all: his family, his animals, and the cinema."

The Italian edition has a more comprehensive index, though in other respects the English version is superior. It has more colour illustrations and longer captions than the Italian edition, and the photographs have been enhanced. (Kubrick completists will want to have both editions, as they each include a different selection of location photographs taken by Kubrick at Mentmore Towers. An Italian digital edition, Stanley Kubrick & Me: 30 Anni Al Suo Fianco, includes even more photographs.)

Reading between the lines, D'Alessandro seems somewhat estranged from Kubrick's estate. "Out of respect for Stanley," he declined to attend the European premiere of Eyes Wide Shut. He was not interviewed for the official documentary A Life In Pictures (Jan Harlan, 2001). His appearance in the documentary The Last Movie (Paul Joyce, 1999) was cut out when it was released on DVD. Anthony Frewin and Leon Vitali (two former employees) have become de facto spokesmen for Kubrick's estate, though D'Alessandro's book contains no mention of Frewin and only a passing reference to "an actor named Leon Vitali".

Although there are plenty of books on Kubrick's films, and a couple of unauthorised biographies, there are very few memoirs of Kubrick by those who knew him well. Frederic Raphael's Eyes Wide Open is incredibly self-serving. ("S.K.: Caesar's Gallic Wars... Have you read it? F.R.: Stanley, I read it in Latin when I was nine years old.") Michael Herr's Kubrick is a concise and affectionate tribute. ("I reminded him that he hadn't turned the computers off. "They like to be left on," he said ironically, factually, tenderly.") But Stanley Kubrick & Me is the most intimate and moving portrait of the world's greatest director.

Ends Of The Earth

Ends Of The Earth: Land Art To 1974 was "the first large-scale museum exhibition of Land Art" and "the most comprehensive survey of Land Art to date." The exhibition, curated by Philipp Kaiser and Miwon Kwon, was held in San Francisco in 2012, and its catalogue was edited by Michelle Piranio.

The catalogue includes essays by Virginia Dwan and Willoughby Chase, who organised the first Land Art exhibitions: Earthworks (1968) and Earth Art (1969), respectively. It also features an interview with Germano Celant, author of Art Povera (1969). A detailed chronology covers Land Art from 1933 to 1974, followed by an extensive bibliography. Illustrations include sketches, notes, and magazine articles, in addition to photographs of Land Art.

Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty (1970) is perhaps the most famous example of Land Art, and Smithson is one of the movement's pioneers: "Walter De Maria, Michael Heizer, Charles Ross, Robert Smithson: These are the high priests of Land Art". De Maria and Heizer "chose not to participate" in the exhibition, though photographs of their work - including "arguably the most iconic piece of Land Art," Heizner's Double Negative (1969) - are featured in the catalogue.

Jeffrey Kastner's Land & Environmental Art (1998) is an equally comprehensive study of Land Art. It includes reprints of seminal essays such as Notes Toward An Understanding Of Earth Art (Willoughby Sharp, 1969), A Sediment Of The Mind: Earth Projects (Robert Smithson, 1968), and The Spiral Jetty (Robert Smithson, 1970).

Mid-Century Modern Complete

Mid-Century Modern Complete, by Dominic Bradbury, is a survey of design in the post-war era. The book, published by Thames & Hudson, follows the same format as Alastair Duncan's Art Deco Complete: profiles of the major designers in each medium (including Charles and Ray Eames, Dieter Rams, and Alec Issigonis), and an alphabetical guide to other designers and manufacturers.

The book includes concise essays on mid-century glassware (Glass Design, by Joy McCall), ceramics (Mid-Century Ceramics, by Alun Graves), textiles (Artist-Designed Textiles, by Sue Pritchard), industrial design (From Computers To Corporate Identity, by Jana Scholze) and, especially, graphics (Mid-Century Confluences, by Steven Heller). There are also more than 1,000 colour illustrations, including many full-page plates.

The Mid-Century Modern style was first described by Cara Greenberg in Mid-Century Modern: Furniture Of The 1950s (1984; not listed in Bradbury's bibliography). Greenberg's book focused on furniture and interior design from 1947 to 1957, though Bradbury covers furniture, interiors, lighting, glass, ceramics, textiles, products, and graphics from the mid 1940s to the late 1960s.

As Bradbury writes in his introduction, the period he surveys "was an age of ages - the atomic age, the space age, the jet age, the computer age". Inevitably, this is beyond the scope of a single book, even one with more than 500 pages, and some areas receive more attention than others. There are profiles of individual designers, though no general overviews of trends in furniture or interior design. While American and European designers are well represented, Japanese design (such as Sony's transistor radios and televisions) is largely excluded.

The post-war period, especially in America, was an era of consumerism, with the rise of branding, fast food, and international popular culture. Bradbury describes it as "a sustained era of golden growth that spurred demand for a whole new spectrum of goods, products and services, which the world of design was happy to provide."

Post-1945 design has also been covered by other books, including Modern Furniture Classics (Charlotte and Peter Fiell, 1991), Cold War Modern (David Crowley and Jane Pavitt, 2010), and The Art Of Things (Dominique Forest, 2014). The forthcoming third volume of Victor Margolin's World History Of Design will also cover post-war design.

The Irish News

The head of the Police Service of Northern Ireland unsuccessfully attempted to prevent The Irish News from printing the name of a man suspected of involvement in the 1976 massacre at Kingsmill. Last Friday, the newspaper's website named the suspect as Colm Murphy, and revealed that his palm print had been found on the killers' getaway vehicle.

An inquest into the Kingsmill massacre has been opened, and the PSNI contacted the newspaper on Friday night, threatening it with a High Court injunction to prevent it from naming Murphy in the next day's print edition. There was an emergency session at the High Court after midnight on Saturday morning, though the case was adjourned.

By that time, the Saturday edition was already being printed, and the newspaper refused to stop the presses and remove Murphy's name. The front page featured a large photograph of Murphy, and he was named in a subheading ("Colm Murphy claims he is being set up to 'protect' Sinn Fein").

National Enquirer

The National Enquirer has broken two celebrity injunctions in the past few weeks: those granted to PJS (partner of YMA) and NEJ. The American supermarket tabloid has now breached a third injunction, by naming RA, who had obtained a High Court injunction to prevent the media reporting that he is being sued for sexual harassment by his hairdresser.

According to the Enquirer's issue dated 6th June, RA is YMA: Elton John obtained a second injunction after his hairdresser filed charges against him. The two-page article boasts that "The ENQUIRER takes the bold step of naming Elton's hairdresser" (John Fallows). It does not describe the alleged "sexual misconduct" in any detail, though the headline is clear enough: "HE TRIED TO GROPE ME!" (Similar charges brought by the singer's bodyguard have already been widely reported.)

The Enquirer also has its sights set on yet another injunction. In its issue dated 30th May, it described "sickening naked photos" of Ned Rocknroll, husband of Kate Winslet: "The Enquirer can reveal the shocking truth about the photos the celebrity twosome desperately fought to hide". The magazine does not have access to the images, and its article relies on unverified descriptions of them. (The photographs were injuncted in 2013, after The Sun newspaper attempted to publish them.)

The 3rd Silent Film Festival In Thailand

The 3rd Silent Film Festival In Thailand opens in Bangkok later this month. Both of the previous festivals featured gala screenings of classic silent films (The Lodger at the 1st Silent Film Festival in 2014, and The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari at last year's festival), and this year's event opens with FW Murnau's Nosferatu.

Like Caligari, Nosferatu is a masterpiece of horror and German Expressionism. It contains some of the most iconic images in silent cinema, especially the sequence in which the vampire - seen only as a shadow - climbs the stairs and extends his talons to clutch his victim's heart.

The Festival also includes Murnau's The Last Laugh and Sunrise. The Last Laugh, a Kammerspielfilm (chamber film), is notable for its mobile camera, and for its lack of inter-titles. Sunrise, which Murnau directed in Hollywood, is one of Sight & Sound's ten greatest films of all time.

The Festival begins on 16th June with Nosferatu at the Scala cinema. Eight other films, including The Last Laugh and Sunrise, will be shown at the smaller Lido cinema. The Last Laugh will be screened on 18th and 20th June, and Sunrise on 19th and 21st June. This year, every film will have a live musical accompaniment, and the Festival will close on 22nd June.

Trasher

The Dhammakaya organisation, a Buddhist sect which has its headquarters at the vast Wat Phra Dhammakaya temple in Pathum Thani (north of Bangkok), is suing the organisers of Trasher, a Bangkok club night. Dhammakaya has accused Trasher of mocking its sect and disrespecting the Buddhist religion.

At Trasher's most recent event (Bitch You Better Work It Work Work Work It Out) at CentralWorld on Sunday, images of Wat Phra Dhammakaya and the sect's leader Chaiyabun Dhammachayo were shown on a video screen on the dance floor. Trasher has issued a statement apologising for any offence caused, and acknowledging the possibility of a court case brought by Dhammakaya. (The statement concluded with the first verse of Like A Prayer by Madonna.)

Dhammakaya has been described as a cult, and a distortion of Buddhist teaching. It solicits large donations from its rich followers, promising them salvation in exchange for their financial contributions, and there have been allegations of corruption against Dhammachayo for more than fifteen years. Thailand's Supreme Patriarch recommended that he should be defrocked in 1999 after he registered 600 acres of donated land in his own name instead of transferring it to his temple.

The Department of Special Investigations is currently investigating Dhammachayo for receiving millions of baht in embezzled funds from a banker convicted of fraud. Since 2015, the DSI has repeatedly summonsed Dhammachayo to face questioning, though each time he has refused to appear, citing illness.

Last Thursday, he apparently passed out on his way to the police station, and returned to his temple. Although an arrest warrant has been issued, police have made no attempt to detain him. (Thailand's patronage system ensures that well-connected suspects such as Dhammachayo [and others, including Sondhi Limthongkul, Orachorn Thephasadin na Ayudhya, and Vorayuth Yoovidhya] either avoid conviction or receive suspended sentences.)

Tongpan

There will be a free screening of Tongpan on 3rd June at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya, near Bangkok. Tongpan (1977) is a dramatisation of a seminar that took place in 1975, which was organised in order to debate the construction of the Pa Mong dam on the Mekong river. The film's eponymous central character is a farmer who had been displaced due to a previous dam.

Sulak Sivaraksa (author of ค่อนศตวรรษ ประชาธิปไตยไทย, Rediscovering Spiritual Value, and Love Letters To Dictators) also appears, and makes a passionate speech against the proposed dam: "Development only serves a few people in Bangkok. Do we see the disadvantages of electricity? Electricity brings radios and TVs that tell people to buy things. The Japanese and the farang industries just get richer. And what about the destruction of our country? The whole province of Loei will be flooded by this Pa Mong Dam."

The Pa Mong dam project was abandoned, though environmental threats to the Mekong region continue to this day. China has built six hydroelectric Mekong dams and more are currently under construction. (Apichatpong Weerasethakul has made several recent films in the region, including Mekong Hotel, Cactus River, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, A Letter To Uncle Boonmee, Phantoms Of Nabua, Cemetery Of Splendor, and his Primitive installation.)

Tongpan was banned in Thailand during the anti-Communist purge of the 1970s, and the film's epilogue explains the repressive political conditions of the period: "In October 1976, shortly after the shooting of this film, a violent coup d'etat of a magnitude never before seen in Thailand brought to an end Thailand's three-year experiment with parliamentary democracy."

National Enquirer

After naming PJS and YMA, the National Enquirer has now broken another injunction by identifying actor Hugh Bonneville, who had previously been referred to only as NEJ. Bonneville was granted a High Court injunction against The Sun newspaper in 2011, to stop it from revealing that he had slept with a prostitute, Helen Wood.

Under the terms of the original injunction, neither Bonneville nor Wood could be identified, though the restrictions were partially relaxed and Wood's identity was disclosed. Bonneville had already been mentioned by the Herald On Sunday newspaper in New Zealand on 24th April, in an article about PJS (headlined "Celebs, threesomes and ridiculous privacy laws"), though the Herald didn't disclose any details of his case.

Emboldened by the publicity it generated after exposing PJS and YMA, the National Enquirer named Bonneville in its issue dated 16th May. In an article headlined "'DOWNTON ABBEY' star in HOOKER & SEX TOY SCANDAL!", the supermarket tabloid summarised the more sensationalist aspects of this "shocking revelation". The Enquirer is published in America, and the injunction applies only in England and Wales.

As the Daily Mail had done following the PJS and YMA coverage, The Sun printed the Enquirer's article with the incriminating details redacted. In its current issue, dated 23rd May, the Enquirer boasts that it "refused to back down from publishing all the lurid details of the jaw-dropping story."

Poem Of The Pillow & Other Stories

Poem Of The Pillow & Other Stories is an anthology of shunga, a genre of erotic ukiyo-e woodblock prints. Poem Of The Pillow is a translation of Kitagawa Utamaro's Utamakura, "the most famous erotic album in the history of Japanese art". The collection was compiled by Gian Carlo Calza (who edited a recent monograph on Katsushika Hokusai) and published by Phaidon.

The book is significant because it reprints each of the selected shunga works in full. Thus, all twelve sheets of Utamakura (1788) are included, along with others including Torii Kiyonaga's equally acclaimed Sode No Maki (1785; also a dozen sheets). There is also a useful glossary and an extensive bibliography.

The British Museum's Shunga exhibition catalogue (2013) is the most comprehensive survey of shunga. The first academic study of the subject was Sex & The Floating World (1999) by Timon Screech. Images From The Floating World (1978), the classic study of ukiyo-e prints by Richard Lane, includes several examples of shunga.

Treasures Of Heaven

Treasures Of Heaven: The Story Of Relics & Reliquaries, written and presented by Andrew Graham-Dixon, is a documentary examining the Medieval cult of relics and the reliquaries in which they were contained. Relics of saints and New Testament figures were venerated by Christians throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, and goldsmiths and silversmiths created ornate reliquaries to display them.

The programme shares its title with a British Museum exhibition and book from 2011, and several of the reliquaries from the exhibition are included. A reliquary of Saint Sebastian designed by Hans Holbein (1497; now at the Victoria & Albert Museum) is described by Wendy Beckett as "the apotheosis of all reliquaries".

Arguably the most fascinating reliquaries are those relating to the crown of thorns that Jesus wore at his crucifixion. Graham-Dixon visits the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris - "the single most beautiful Medieval building in the world" - a Gothic chapel built to house the crown of thorns. He also examines the Holy Thorn Reliquary, "possibly the single most remarkable object to have come down to us from the Middle Ages" (circa 1390; now at the British Museum).

Treasures Of Heaven was directed by Paul Tilzey and first broadcast on BBC4 on 20th June 2011. Relics and reliquaries are also discussed in Restless Bones (1985) by James Bentley and two books by Paul Koudounaris (The Empire Of Death, 2011; Memento Mori, 2015).

"There is no public interest...in publishing kiss-and-tell stories"

In January, David Furnish applied to the High Court for an injunction against an article The Sun On Sunday newspaper was planning to publish about his extra-marital affair. The High Court initially rejected the injunction, on the grounds that publication would expose the inaccurate image of marital commitment that Furnish and his husband, Elton John, had promoted in their media interviews. Furnish appealed this decision, and the Court of Appeal granted an injunction on the basis that publication would invade his privacy, and that of his children.

The injunction, which is still in force, only applies in England and Wales. Furnish has been named by three American magazines (the National Enquirer, the Star, and OK!, all owned by the same publisher), and newspapers in Scotland, Canada, New Zealand Singapore, Italy, and Belgium. The Enquirer's cover story appeared in its issue published on 6th April (though dated 18th April). The Star's article was published on the same day (and also dated 18th April). OK!'s article appeared in its issue dated 2nd May. The story appeared in the Sunday Mail in Scotland on 10th April, the Toronto Star in Canada on 12th April, the Herald On Sunday in New Zealand on 24th April, Corriere Della Sera in Italy and The Straits Times in Singapore on 21st May, and the Gazet Van Antwerpen in Belgium today.

The National Enquirer, the archetypal supermarket tabloid, reported the scandal in typically lurid fashion. It claimed that Furnish's "sordid affair" with Daniel Laurence had caused "a devastating marriage crisis"; with characteristic hyperbole, it described its four-page kiss-and-tell interview as a "jaw-dropping" story containing "shocking bombshells". The Enquirer revealed further "sickening details of what happened" in its issue dated 25th April (though published on 13th April). (In America, celebrity gossip is protected by the constitution; even if a story is untrue, proof of 'actual malice' is required for a successful libel action.)

The Star's two-page article, headlined "Elton's CHEATING HUSBAND!", was slightly less sensationalist. Unlike the Enquirer, it referred to the Court of Appeal injunction: "The sordid story has come to light only after Elton filed suit to prevent a British newspaper from reporting it. Unfortunately for the knighted rocker, the injunction in the U.K. does not apply in the U.S." OK! had the same headline as the Star ("ELTON'S CHEATING HUSBAND!"), and even used the same main picture. In fact, although OK! claimed that its two-page story was "a bombshell report you'll only read here", its article was largely a reprint of the Star's, with only occasional minor changes.

In Scotland, the Sunday Mail announced on its front page: "Elton John and his husband David Furnish are the A-list couple behind a court injunction silencing the press in England, we reveal today." In an editorial, the newspaper justified the decision by arguing that it named them simply because it could: "we are publishing the identities of Elton John and David Furnish today because there is no good reason not to. Because there is no legal reason not to publish in Scotland what has been banned in England and Wales."

A fortnight later, New Zealand's Herald On Sunday also named the couple, in an article on page eleven headlined "Celebs, threesomes and ridiculous privacy laws". The Herald wrote: "The law does not apply here so the Herald on Sunday can tell you the man involved is David Furnish". The paper also noted the "Streisand effect", named after Barbra Streisand, whereby injunctions and censorship draw attention to the material in question and thus have a counter-productive effect.

Canada's Toronto Star reported the injunction in a story headlined "Tabloids in a tizzy over court ban". The article, on page two, began: "British tabloids won't let the sun go down on a sordid sex story seemingly involving Elton John's Toronto-born husband David Furnish, despite a controversial court ruling." Interestingly, while the other newspapers have named Furnish only in print, the Toronto Star has published its article both in print and online. (The three American magazines have geo-blocked their websites outside America.)

Meanwhile, English newspapers, magazines, and broadcasters are still legally prevented from publishing the names of the couple, or any information that might lead to their identities being revealed. Thus, they cannot even print the titles of the publications that named them. Furnish can only be referred to as "PJS", the random code assigned to him in the injunction; John's code is "YMA". On 8th April, the Daily Mail printed the National Enquirer's original article, with occasional paraphrasing and extensive redactions, to highlight the restrictions imposed on it.

The situation recalls the case of Ryan Giggs in 2011, when he took out an injunction to prevent the news of his affair with Imogen Thomas from being made public. As in the Furnish case, the injunction only applied to English and Welsh media, and Giggs was named by the Scottish newspaper the Sunday Herald on 22nd May 2011. The following day, MP John Hemming used parliamentary privilege to name Giggs in the House of Commons. This opened the floodgates, and the next day's newspapers all named Giggs despite the injunction.

In another case from that year, actor David Threlfall sought an injunction to prevent the News Of The World from revealing his affair with his co-star Pauline McLynn. The injunction was granted, and Threlfall and McLynn were identified only as ETK and X, respectively. However, they were named on the front page of the Sunday World newspaper in Ireland on 5th June 2011. On 4th March 2012, the same newspaper referred to the story again: "Pauline was last year named in British court documents as being accused of having an affair with Shameless star David Threlfall while in the show." No other publications have since named the actors, and the injunction remains in force.

In the case of PJS and YMA, the injunction is also unlikely to be lifted in the foreseeable future. The Sun On Sunday appealed against it last month, and it was lifted on the grounds that Furnish had already been named by the Enquirer and other publications, though reporting was still restricted pending a further appeal by Furnish to the Supreme Court. His appeal was heard three days later, on 21st April, though no decision was made. The Supreme Court finally announced its judgement almost a month later, on 19th May, when it granted Furnish's appeal and upheld the injunction.

The Supreme Court's conclusion rested on the issue of privacy, and set a new precedent: "There is no public interest, however much it may be of interest to some members of the public, in publishing kiss-and-tell stories or criticisms of private sexual conduct, simply because the persons involved are well-known, and so there is no right to invade privacy by publishing them." The case will now go to trial some time later this year.

To A Turkish President

Boris Johnson has been announced as the winner of the "President Erdogan Insulting Poetry Competition" after he composed a limerick about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Johnson was interviewed for today's issue of Die Weltwoche, a weekly Swiss magazine, and asked to improvise a verse satirising Erdoğan. His response was:

"There was a young fellow from Ankara
Who was a colossal wankera
Till he sowed his wild oats
With the help of a goat
But he didn’t even stop to thankera".

Douglas Murray, who organised the poetry competition, declared that Johnson had won, though the result is questionable for several reasons. Murray had previously requested that poems would not be considered if they included made-up words, specifically "wankera". Also, Johnson is a former editor of The Spectator, the magazine that ran the competition. And the deadline for entries was 23rd June, so today's announcement is rather premature.

Die Weltwoche printed the limerick with the words "colossal wankera", though when it was published in The Spectator (in the current issue, dated 21st May), it was changed to "terrific wankera" and titled To A Turkish President. The competition, and the winning limerick, mocked Erdoğan in solidarity with Jan Boehmermann, who is under investigation after reciting a poem insulting the President on German television last month.

The Little BookOf Typographic Ornament

The Little Book Of Typographic Ornament, by David Jury, is a guide to decorative borders, fleurons (ornamental symbols), and stock blocks (stereotyped pictures). According to the introduction: "This book offers a brief historic overview of typographic ornament and a generous number of examples, the earliest from about 1557 and the last from 2014."

There are over 700 examples, some of which have been tinted in different colours. Unfortunately, no dates or other details are provided. There are brief notes, though no bibliography. Jury's previous book, the excellent Graphic Design Before Graphic Designers, also includes examples of decorative printing elements.

Daily Mail

The Daily Mail has been fined £40,000 by a magistrates' court in Westminster, London. The newspaper had pleaded guilty to the offence of revealing the identity of an alleged sexual-assault victim.

In 2014, the Metropolitan Police launched an investigation known as 'Operation Midland', after a man identified only as Nick alleged that he had been sexually abused by several politicians in the 1970s and 1980s. He provided no evidence for these allegations, and the police investigation ended without any prosecutions.

On 19th September last year, the Daily Mail published an article about Nick (written by Paul Bracchi and Stephen Wright), which included a pixelated photograph. Only the centre of his face was pixelated, and some personal details were included: "Nick is 47. A former nurse, he is now a manager in the NHS. Previously in a long-term relationship, he has a teenage child".

Nick complained that the article could lead to his identification; the article is still available on the newspaper's website, though Nick's photograph and details have been removed. The case is similar to that of The Sun, which was found guilty of the same offence earlier this year. The Sun and The Daily Telegraph had both published a pixelated photograph of a teenager who accused Adam Johnson of sexual assault.

Bolshoi Babylon

Bolshoi Babylon, an HBO documentary that also received a theatrical release, examines the volatile atmosphere backstage at Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre company. How volatile? One of the Bolshoi's dancers paid someone to throw acid in ballet director Sergei Filin's face.

The film, directed by Nick Read, includes an interview with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who explains candidly that the company is an essential element of Russian soft power: "The Bolshoi is our secret weapon". Bolshoi Babylon opens at the SF World cinema in Bangkok tomorrow, with screenings presented by the Documentary Club.

The Black Presidency

The Black Presidency: Barack Obama & The Politics Of Race In America is Michael Eric Dyson's assessment of attitudes towards race since 2008. Dyson claims that this issue is at the heart of Obama's presidency: "Race is the defining feature of our forty-fourth president's two terms in office."

However, while Obama's race was central to his identity as a young man (as David Maraniss argues in Barack Obama: The Story), as President he "has often been slow to command the rostrum to address race." Arguably, his presidency has instead been dominated by his response to the economic crisis and his healthcare policy. (Dyson covers the 'Black Lives Matter' movement, perhaps the most significant racial issue of Obama's presidency, in only a single chapter.)

Dyson was able to interview Obama in the Oval Office, though only after some persuasion: "I'd had a tough time getting on his schedule, since race was not a subject the Obama White House had been eager to embrace. I'd used all my influence to talk to the president, reminding his trusted adviser Valerie Jarrett that I had... known him for nearly twenty years. After I'd politely declined an offer to speak to the president for ten minutes, I eventually negotiated a twenty-minute interview that turned into half an hour."

"A person's honour is under attack..."

A German MP has recited Jan Boehmermann's poem mocking Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Boehmermann read the poem on his late-night comedy show Neo Magazin Royale on 17th March, and he is currently facing a police investigation following a complaint from Erdoğan.

In the German Bundestag on Thursday, MP Detlef Seif defended Erdoğan: "I read this to you so that you know what was actually said. A person's honour is under attack here." He then proceeded to recite the entire poem, thus effectively compounding the insult.

Boehmermann's producers have deleted videos of the Neo Magazin Royale broadcast, though Seif's recital has been widely circulated online. In solidarity with Boehmermann, The Spectator launched a "President Erdoğan Insulting Poetry Competition" last month.

Contemporary Drawing

Contemporary Drawing From The 1960s To Now, by Katharine Stout, is "the first comprehensive account of drawing in contemporary art practice from the 1960s to the present day." Stout begins with some historical context, noting that Giorgio Vasari regarded drawing as the progenitor of sculpture, architecture, and painting. She also cites Marcel Duchamp's LHOOQ and Robert Rauschenberg's Erased de Kooning Drawing as examples of "the way in which artists have used it to enact some of the most transgressive moments in twentieth-century art."

There are ten thematic chapters, each dealing with different forms of drawing, ranging from "the non-representational line as a subject and material means of making drawing" to "drawing that is temporal, either because it is enacted during a live performance, realised in a peripatetic manner, or takes the form of an architectural intervention". Richard Kenin's The Art Of Drawing (1974) covered drawing from the Renaissance to Impressionism, with illustrations mainly from the British Museum. Andrew Graham-Dixon's BBC2 series The Secret Of Drawing (2005) was a potted history of artistic and technical drawing.

The Cult Of Beauty

The Cult Of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900 was published to accompany an exhibition of the same name at the Victoria & Albert Museum in 2011, a comprehensive survey of the Victorian Aesthetic Movement. The Cult Of Beauty was "the first exhibition ever to bring together many of the greatest Aesthetic pictures as well as the finest furniture, decorative arts and fashion of this extraordinary movement".

The catalogue, edited by Stephen Calloway and Lynn Federic Orr, features essays on an extremely wide variety of Aesthetic arts: literature, photography, ceramics, wallpaper, textiles, furniture, metalwork, jewellery, sculpture, and bookbinding. It also includes introductory essays by both editors, and biographies of Aesthetic designers and writers. (Strangely, the dust jacket and spine have the original subtitle, but the title page has the American subtitle, The Victorian Avant-Garde.)

Pictograms, Icons, & Signs

Pictograms, Icons, & Signs: A Guide To Information Graphics, by Rayan Abdullah and Roger Hubner, is the first book to examine the development and design of pictograms. More than simply a catalogue of examples, the book summarises the pictogram's connection to semiotics and visual communication.

The authors trace the origin of modern pictograms to 1909, when four visual traffic signs were adopted in Paris. They show the evolution of pictograms with examples of successive Olympic symbols, and signs for various transport and communication systems. They also discuss digital desktop icons, such as those created by Susan Kare ("regarded as the mother of the icon").

Present Continuous

Present Continuous, a retrospective exhibition of videos by Omer Fast, opened on 18th March at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, UK. It will close on 26th June. The exhibition includes several videos, all playing in different rooms connected by dark corridors. The exhibition catalogue, edited by Laurence Sillars, includes transcripts of each video.

Everything That Rises Must Converge (2013) is a four-screen video following a day in the lives of four porn stars. (The content is explicit, so the exhibition is restricted to adults only.) The effect is similar to Timecode (2000) by Mike Figgis, and the title is taken from a collection of short stories by Flannery O'Conner.

The New Day

The New Day's slogan was "Life is short, let's live it well" and with only fifty issues its life turned out to be very short indeed. As editor Alison Philips writes on page three, "today we are producing the final edition. We tried everything but sadly we just haven't reached the sales figures we needed to make the paper work financially."

The New Day had an attractive design, with full-colour printing and a clean layout, though it was unable to compete with other national tabloids, especially the i. With an emphasis on magazine-style features, its news coverage was too limited, and its content seemed bland in comparison with its rivals. The front pages of all fifty issues are reprinted on pages 22-23 of today's final edition.