Opus

Encyclopædia of the sublime

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The Pencil of Nature

The Pencil of Nature, published in six instalments between 1844 and 1846, was the first photographically illustrated book to be commercially published. Written by William Henry Fox Talbot,  the book detailed Talbot's development of the calotype process and included 24 calotype prints, each one pasted in by hand, illustrating some of the possible applications of the new technology. Since photography was still very much a novelty and many people remained unfamiliar with the concept, Talbot felt compelled to insert the following notice into his book: "The plates of the present work are impressed by the agency of Light alone, without any aid whatever from the artist's pencil. They are the sun-pictures themselves, and not, as some persons have imagined, engravings in imitation."

Take Ivy

Take Ivy, originally published in Japan in 1965, set off an explosion of American Ivy style fashion amongst the students of the Ginza shopping district in Tokyo. Take Ivy has been the Ivy League Bible for the Japanese baby boomers, who were very much into the whole Ivy League look, having been a very rare find in the West, garnering auction prices as high as $2000. Take Ivy was authored by four Japanese sartorial style enthusiasts and is a collection of candid photographs shot on the campuses of America’s elite Ivy League universities.

Truman Capote

Truman Capote's legendary masked ball, at New York City's Plaza Hotel on November 28, 1966, was a hyped-up media event meticulously masterminded by the self-promoting, social-climbing author of In Cold Blood. Actress Candice Bergen was bored at the ball; Capote's elevator man danced the night away with a woman who didn't know his pedigree; and Norman Mailer sounded off about Vietnam. This frothy effort retreads ground already covered by Gerald Clarke, George Plimpton and Sally Bedell Smith, among others.

The Overcoat

The Overcoat is an unfinished animated feature film that has been the main project of acclaimed Russian director and animator Yuri Norstein since 1981. It is based on the short story by Nikolai Gogol with the same name. Around 25 minutes were completed by 2004. The unfinished film has been shown publicly in several exhibitions of Norstein's work around the world and clips of it have been included in a few documentary films about Russian animation and culture. In 2007, Norstein stated that he planned to release the first 30 minutes of the film with a soundtrack into theatres by the end of 2007. However, to date, the film remains unfinished, its production time of over thirty years the longest for any motion picture in history.