Tag: Illustrator Robert Jonas

The Old Man, by William Faulkner – November, 1948 (1939) [Robert Jonas]

When I first discovered this 1948 Signet Books edition of William Faulkner’s The Old Man, I assumed that the very phrase – “the old man” – referred to the novel’s protagonist.  Well, it does, but only in a symbolic sense, for the title actually refers to the Mississippi River, a “character” inanimate yet very much alive.  The only work of Faulkner’s that I’ve read is The Reivers, which was an assigned reading for freshman English in Easton College, as a novel reflecting an ideological orientation focusing (and this was decades ago) on the concept of the “anti-hero”.  I was highly unimpressed by the story then (really, I was, even accounting for age) and remain so, now.   

As you can see from the very title of this post (!), this Signet Books cover art is by “Jonas” – that’s Robert Jonas – who created the cover art for many a monograph in the Mentor Books series.  Unlike Jonas’ covers for those books, which are typified by bright, bold, contrasting colors, and geometrically-situated patterns, symbols, and objects, there’s something about this painting that’s vastly different:  It’s very reminiscent of WPA (Works Progress Administration) murals from the late 1930s through early 1940s in post offices. 

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The novel, starring Jeanne Tripplehorn and Arliss Howard, was adapted for film in 1997.  Here’s the trailer, from Video Detective’s YouTube channel…

…and, here’s the full movie, at Chzz77 Dacan’s YouTube channel, uploaded November 7, 2023:

Take a listen: At thepostarchive, William Faulkner reads from his novels “A Fable” and “The Old Man”…

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This 1948 edition of The Old Man features a biographical blurb about the author on the rear cover, accompanied by his photograph.  In this case, Faulkner is seen in front of his home (I guess it’s his home?) in Oxford, Mississippi, in a photograph by Henri Cartier-Bresson. 

Here’s the image as it appears on the rear-cover, published in halftone format… 

…while this version, obviously scanned from a photographic print, was found at Pinterest.

Evidently, the above image was one of a sequence of photos (how many – two? – three? – more? – I’ve no idea) of Faulkner at Oxford.  This is revealed by the photo below, also taken by Cartier-Bresson, showing Faulkner in a vertical format.  For this image, the author seems to have stepped back a foot or two – or has Cartier-Bresson stepped forward a little bit? – from where he was standing in the previous photo.  The picture, from artsy.net, is described as “Gelatin silver print, printed later – 17 3/5 × 11 7/10 in | 44.8 × 29.8 cm”.

Clever, how Cartier-Bresson got Faulkner’s dogs (I guess they’re his dogs?) in the picture.  

Some Other Things to Read…

The Old Man (Novel)…

…at Good Reads

…at Book Marks

…at All Things Crime (“Honor Among Thieves in William Faulkner’s “The Old Man”)

…at Jaysanalysis (“Esoteric Symbolism and Allegory in Faulkner’s Old Man”)

…at Wikipedia (an interwoven story in “If I Forget Thee, Oh Jerusalem”)

The Old Man (1997 Movie)…

…at All Movie

…at Variety

Henri Cartier-Bresson…

…at Brittanica.com

…at MoMA

…at Magnum Photos

Out of My life and Thought, by Albert Schweitzer – February, 1957 (1933) [Jonas]

Like the covers of other 1950s-era Mentor books, that of New American Library’s 1957 edition of Albert Schweitzer’s Out Of My Life and Thought was designed by Robert Jonas.  However, perhaps by virtue of Schweitzer then being still very-much-alive (!), Jonas’ cover is a simple and direct representation of its subject, set against an equally literal background.  This is quite unlike Jonas’ typical use of either a limited number of bold, primary colors, or, softly varying hues of the same color, with subjects geometrically arranged and visually simplified within his compositions.  

The back cover is devoid of explanatory text – presenting only an endorsement by John H. Holmes of the New York Herald Tribune – instead displaying Erica Anderson’s photograph of Schweitzer…

…which is shown here:

Some Other Things to Read…

Albert Schweitzer, at…

… Wikipedia

… Project Gutenberg

… Internet Archive

… Albert Schweitzer Papers (Syracuse University Libraries – Special Collections Research Center)

… Vimeo (“1957 documentary produced and directed by Jerome Hill.  Cinematography by Erica Anderson.  Music by Alec Wilder.  Narrated by Burgess Meredith and Fredric March.”)

… ZBW Press Archives (Newspaper Clippings)

… NobelPrize.org

Robert Jonas, at…

… Penguin Series Design

Mentor Library, at…

… Publishing History

The Revolt of the Masses, by José Ortega y Gasset – 1950 (1930) [Robert Jonas]

A very colorful cover by Robert Jonas, for a very serious work…

“…experimental science is one of the most unlikely products of history.
Seers, priests, warriors and shepherds have abounded in all times and places.
But this fauna of experimental man apparently requires for its production
a combination of circumstances more exceptional than those that engender the unicorn.”

“The civilisation of the XIXth Century is, then,
of such a character that it allows the average man to take his place in a world of superabundance,
of which he perceives only the lavishness of the means at his disposal,
nothing of the pains involved. 
He finds himself surrounded by marvelous instruments,
healing medicines,
watchful governments,
comfortable privileges. 
On the other hand,
he is ignorant how difficult it is to invent those medicines and those instruments
and to assure their production in the future;
he does not realise how unstable is the organisation of the State
and is scarcely conscious to himself of any obligations. 
This lack of balance falsifies his nature,
vitiates it in its very roots,
causing him to lose contact with the very substance of life,
which is made up of absolute danger,
is radically problematic.”

Reference

Jose Ortega y Gasset photo – Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona)

Almayer’s Folly, by Joseph Conrad – 1947 (1895) [Robert Jonas]

Here is Penguin Books’ 1947 edition of Joseph Conrad’s first novel…   

Though the portrait of Conrad on the book’s rear cover is undated, in terms of his general appearance and style of dress, the image is similar to Alvin Langdon Coburn’s photogravure of March 11, 1916 (at bottom), as seen in Conrad’s Wikipedia profile.

References

Joseph Conrad, at Wikipedia

Joseph Conrad, Alvin Langdon Coburn photogravure of March 11, 1916, from New York Public Library Digital Collection (Item 297498): “The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. “Joseph Conrad, London, March 11th, 1916.” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1922.”

Male and Female – A Study of the Sexes in a Changing World, by Margaret Mead – 1949 (November, 1955) [Robert Jonas]

Winesburg, Ohio, by Sherwood Anderson – 1946 [Robert Jonas]

It will perhaps be somewhat difficult for the men and women of a later day
to understand Jesse Bentley. 
In the Last fifty years a vast change has taken place in the lives of our people. 
A revolution has in fact taken place. 
The coming of industrialism, attended by all the roar and rattle of affairs,
the shrill cries of millions of new voices that have come among us from over seas,
the going and coming of trains,
the growth of cities,
the building of the interurban car lines
that weave in and out of towns and past farmhouses,
and now in these later days the coming of the automobiles
has worked a tremendous change in the lives and the habits
of thought of our people of Mid-America. 

Books,
badly imagined and written though they may be in the hurry of our times,
are in every household,
magazines circulate by the millions of copies,
newspapers are everywhere.
In our day a farmer standing by a stove in the store in his village
has his mind filled to overflowing with the words of other men.
The newspapers and the magazines have pumped him full.
Much of the old brutal ignorance that had in it also
a kind of beautiful childlike innocence is gone forever.
The farmer by the stove is brother to the men of the cities,
and if you listen you will find him talking as glibly and senselessly
as the best city man of us all.

 

Christ Stopped at Eboli, by Carlo Levi – 1948 [Robert Jonas]

christ-stopped-at-eboli-carlo-levi-1948-jonas_edited-1The truth is that the internecine war among the gentry is the same in every village of Lucania. 

The upper classes have not the means to live with decorum and self-respect. 

The young men of promise, and even those barely able to make their way, leave the village. 

The most adventurous go off to America, as the peasants do, and the others to Naples or Rome; none return. 

Those who are left in the villages are the discarded, who have no talents, the physically deformed, the inept and the lazy; greed and boredom combine to dispose them to evil. 

Small parcels of farm land do not assure them a living and, in order to survive, these misfits must dominate the peasants and secure for themselves the well-paid posts of druggist, priest, marshal of the carabinieri, and so on. 

It is, therefore, a matter of life and death to have the rule in their own hands, to hoist themselves on their relatives and friends into top jobs. 

This is the root of the endless struggle to obtain power and to keep it from others, a struggle with the narrowness of their surroundings, enforced idleness, and a mixture of personal and political motives render continuous and savage. 

Every day anonymous letters from every village of Lucania arrived at the prefecture. 

And at the prefecture they were, apparently, far from dissatisfied with this state of affairs, even if they said the contrary.

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All that people say about the people of the South, things I once believed myself: the savage rigidity or their morals, their Oriental jealousy, the fierce sense of honor leading to crimes of passion and revenge, all these are but myths.

Perhaps they existed a long time ago and something of them is left in the way of a stiff conventionality.

But emigration has changed the picture.

The men have gone and the women have taken over.

Many a woman’s husband is in America.

For a year, or even two, he writes to her, then he drops out of her ken, perhaps he forms other family ties; in any case he disappears and never comes back.

The wife waits for him a year, or even two; then some opportunity arises and a baby is the result.

A great part of the children are illegitimate, and the mother holds absolute sway. Gagliano has twelve hundred inhabitants, and there are two thousand men from Gagliano in America.

Grassano had five thousand inhabitants and almost the same number have emigrated.

In the villages the women outnumber the men and the father’s identity is no longer so strictly important; honor is dissociated from paternity, because a matriarchal regime prevails.