click the images!

I've recently become re-obsessed with the work of Harry Clarke, after watching the documentary Darkness in Light. While his stained glass work is wonderful (especially his last works, like his notorious window for the League of Nations in Geneva), I'm much more a fan of his book illustrations. A combination of his macabre and grotesque medieval sensibility with the Viennese art nouveau style that was gaining in popularity at the time, his illustrations are both disturbing and beautiful. Here are some of my favorites, most of which are from his illustration of Edgar Allen Poe stories (you'll have to click the images because blogspot is kinda of a bitch with big images, and making them a small size would do them no justice):

"It is worth noting that the highest proportion of graffiti attacks (an extreme form of unofficial visual language) take place in schools, the institutions responsible for the maintenance of the official language and on local authority (state) property"

-David Crow Visible Signs

Funny how graffiti, a deviation from the "official language" (ie that used in university systems, or government offices, for example), was once completely dismissed as a form of valuable art.  Now, pieces of graffitied walls are torn off and sold, or boarded over in plexiglass to preserve specific works.  I'm wondering what this means for the value of "official" language; it seems like while the dichotomy between "official" and "unofficial" language systems (both linguistic and visual) is still present, that capital is now being awarded to individuals who have a high level of skill in nonofficial language systems (rappers, graffiti artists), while previously, capital was awarded more so based on an individual's command of the official language systems (represented through an award, like a diploma).  Will we ever see a merge of nonofficial language systems with the official as the internet generation reaches adulthood and begins holding positions of power?  I for one would like to see a future presidential debate in which candidates talk like lolcats while their responses are projected in text on the tv screen... "moar taxes?  ur a fukin fag!!! welfare for all ya'll bitches ftw!"