I recently posted about an autobiographical book by Sven Berlin named “The Dark Monarch” which had quite an impact on me. One of the reasons for it’s great effect on me was my great interest in the subject matter and St Ives (the place the book is set) not to mention the gut wrenching tragedy’s which were inflicted upon Sven in that part of his life.
Well I have just returned from another trip to St Ives with another book by Sven entitled ‘Virgo in Exile‘. Sven called these books “Autosvenographys” and even though I am only a quarter of the way through this one I think they are absolutely brilliant. The way they are written is beautiful and they are a great insight into an artists mind and artists of that period. “The Dark Monarch” was set almost solely in St Ives and I thoroughly enjoyed reading about how he experienced the place. In the “Virgo in Exile” Sven is forced to leave St Ives and take residence as a sort of gypsy living in a forest. Simply the way Sven describes his surroundings and life in general is absolutely wonderful.
Another interesting thing about these books is the hardback covers… On the outside it looks exactly like what you’d expect a small artist’s publication to look like - a self portrait and some quite awkward large text with the basic author name and book title. However! When you take these plasticy covers off each one has a gold Sven Berlin logo embossed into a red hard back cover. I think the logo is Svens own invention and it really is quite a pleasant surprise after looking at the garish paper cover. Anyway there is no major point to this post other than I think Sven Berlin was a brilliant writer.
Early this year after a visit to St Ives Cornwall I read ‘The Darch Monarch’ by Sven Berlin and I absolutely loved it. The reason I came across the book was because of an exhibition of the same title in tate St Ives which was on at the same time as my visit. As explained in the video above the exhibition was about showing relationships between British modernism and the supernatural, the magical and the paranormal. The exhibition begins with a beautiful unicorn piece by Damien Hirst which leads you onto a bevy of mystical related pieces of modernism including a few pieces by Sven Berlin himself, I absolutely loved it, so I bought the book! The book itself is a kind of autobiography of Sven and life in St Ives at the end of the 2nd World War. The subject matter of the book was very controversial as many of the characters were depicted as comic but unsavory and were clearly based upon people Sven new whilst living in St Ives. Despite changing all the names of the central characters in a loose attempt to cover up their true identities Sven was sued and the following court battles bankrupted him and forced him to leave St Ives. The book is very well written with brilliant descriptions of St Ives as a place and the almost magical or supernatural feeling it has. The book is great in its own right however having visited St Ives on a regular basis for the past 15 years and having experienced what an impact it has on a person or an artist made the book all the more fantastic.
This is a 'Design blog', well kind of! I use the term loosely as not all the posts are design related, apart from being posted by me, a designer! Some posts are my work but most will be work by others discovered by endless searching of the web. Anyway hopefully you will find a feast of visualy exciting links and posts here. my email is: info@jeffreyshield.co.uk
You are currently browsing the archives for the Sven Berlin category.
