Boris Artzybasheff

Decorations for a book about death

The Undertaker’s Garland was published in 1922, with writing by John Peale Bishop and Edmund Wilson, Jr., and decorations by Artzybasheff. The text assigns individual pieces to the two writers; the artist supplies a separate visual contribution. Wilson’s preface connects their choice of death as a subject with the aftermath of the First World War and their disappointment in the commercial civilisation to which they returned. Artzybasheff’s images participate in that darkly comic world without making him the author of its arguments.

In one illustration, a pale centaur and a human figure appear before a towering black city silhouette. The figures occupy a small area below architecture that dominates the page. In another, a coffin with a cross and wreath is surrounded by candles and mourners. Ornamental bands weave stylised faces, creatures and foliage into dense patterns. Strong contrasts of black and unprinted paper let the images alternate between flat decoration and scenes of theatrical depth.

The existing cover uses another of the book’s decorations: skeletal figures rush diagonally across a black field beneath a large pale disc. Its theatrical movement suits a collection in which funerals, gods, mythical creatures and contemporary social types share the stage. These early designs show Artzybasheff’s ability to give fantastic subjects a precise visual structure. They also reveal a macabre strand of his imagination before the industrial figures and magazine portraits for which he later became better known.