Rerun: Deadly Roses & Haunting Wells: Katsushika Hokusai - “House of Plates”, 1831-32 // Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh - “La Mort Parfumée (Perfumed Death)”, 1921
Hello!Our SCARY releases continue . . . well, RERUN in this case.
In celebration of our new 2025 Creature Double Feature episodes, we went back to the vault and added VISUALS to our Creature Feature episode with Japanese ukiyo-e printmaker Hokusai (1760-1849) and Scottish Spook School alum Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh (1864-1933) and their terrifying contributions to spooky art history.
You can check it out here!
Both works were inspired by female protagonists who were WRONGED: a yokai from ancient Japanese folklore and the other, a goddess via the imagination of a fascist Italian playwright.
A woodblock print, House of Plates, 1831-32 by Hokusai.
Perfumed Death, a mixed media painting from 1921 by Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh.
In Part One, we briefly discuss the environment in which Ukiyo-e blossomed in 17th - 19th century Edo Japan, 3 ghostly prints from Hokusai’s series One Hundred Ghost Stories and the Featured: House of Plates print while discovering that Okiku’s story ends . . . well (no bueno).
In Part Two, we introduce the 1913 play, La Pisanelle written by Gabriele D’ Annunzio* which inspired Margaret’s featured work: La Mort Parfumée (perfumed Death). We also dive into Margaret’s life as she rejected Victorian gender roles and ideologies; her mesmerizing work, which embodied the Glasgow Style, as well as her overlooked contributions to art history, especially the Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau movements, which would inspire artists like Vienna’s Gustav Klimt.
Topics include: Weird Al & Hawaiian shirts, triggering Glassdoor HR responses, playing pinball with plate-bodied ghosts and big, floppy bow ties.
*Gabriele D’Annunzio was a POS who inspired fascism and Margaret was likely unaware/had no connection to this when she saw and/or heard of the play.
The Art Pantry this week is Rhythm.
Special thanks to Bryan Knotts, designer of our Art Slice pizza box logo, for lending us his voice for the intro.
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You can check it out here!
If you missed our newest Creature Feature Release of Irish illustrator and stained glasser Harry Clarke, catch up here:
