Arch-fantasist Druillet is a dab hand at pulling-off graphic tricks in his universe of the deadly and eggly. The top page appears to feature a breed of cosmic roosters, while in the other the Earth rests resplendent, poached on a plate.
The 6 Voyages of Lone Sloane
The dark origin of dark gods that he traces is given a trick of realism with the judicious use of perspective, both for the space-wall and the view of Earth. There is a connection here to the Renaissance narrative art of the likes of Botticelli or Titian.
Myth springs from the night, the land where the perspective illusion of day is sorely lacking. Giving the semblance of reality to such visions is a neat trick. The classical trick is to retain the sombre vision while giving it a semblance of illusory reality.
In the modern scene, the dark, cosmic vision has well nigh ceased to exist. One can see the scope of this in Greek myth, where Zeus claimed the sky, Poseidon the sea and Pluto the underworld (with Gaia shared between them.)
Scientifically, this entire area is covered by the carbon and nitrogen cycles that flow through sea, sky, earth. So, it's clear that both scientifically and mythically all these zones depend one on another.
Nevertheless, the dark reality of that truth of cosmic debauchery and decay is nowhere seen. Unlike Druillet, who simply tricks the eye into accepting his gloomy fantasms, the modern eye is deluded into imagining such cosmic visions belong to history.
In other words, instead of a perspective illusion acting as an interesting trick, it deceives us into thinking reality IS a perspective illusion! The way this is done is simply with parallel lines, since the more parallel lines there are the more visible perspective there is.
For example, if Bezos builds a space-station, it will be full of cylinders and simple geometrical shapes. No one is going to build a Gothic cathedral in space!
Vanishingly small - Bezos's erection
I don't know about you, but Druillet's pages put me in mind of lush scenes of animated nature that one might find at Knossos or old China.
The dark forces of nature incorporate also the splendor of sea and sky, the flocks and shoals that cruise globally. Chinese porcelain or the Cretan dolphins (see prev.)
Druillet's structure is also vastly more massive than the egg-like Earth, representing a symbolism of the forces that animate the globe.
Animated life breeds, eats or is eaten, decays to the seabed or through earth. This in turn is sustenance for microbes that breed, and the cycle continues. The vast scope of this cosmic wheel amounts to far more than simple human motivation.
It is animation itself that Druillet seems to celebrate; the dark that leads to the light. The strength can be repellent, but one is still drawn to its spell.
This atmospheric reality is often what appears to be missing in modernity. It is the ripe smell of flesh at a market; the mud of a riverbank; gangplanks and blisters.
To take a current example, the recent British film Last Night in Soho sets out to celebrate the seediness of 60s and 70s Soho. Rita Tushingham of 70s classic A Taste of Honey (prev) has a cameo.
But where A Taste of Honey had genuine squalor somewhat skin to tribal mud huts on a riverbank, and Tushingham an animal-like sense of abandon, the modern stars gad about with no innate sense of melancholy.
What seems to be lacking is any celestial sense of realism, as opposed to the purely human. In our culture, to be human is to be a copy as opposed to an original spawn of the universe.
The likes of Bezos and Zuckerberg symbolise this trait. A copy is something that is very accurate but has no depth of light or shade.
The mirror of illusions, or electromagnetism, is a reflection that appears real. The more accurate it becomes the more realistic it appears. The 'Metaverse' of Zuckerberg is simply another perspective illusion that replaces visceral reality.
A Metaverse is always going to be composed of straight-lines (that appeal to the ego); what is missing is the animated realism of what is not human. Humans respond to this realism in original ways, culturally.
Culture and nature have this type of symbiotic relationship. The gods represent the animation that is not simply human motivation. Fate decrees otherwise. Byronic Fortune and destiny.
