South Korean author Han Kang, winner of the Man Booker international prize for her novel The Vegetarian, has been selected as the fifth writer for the Future Library project, conceived and launched by the Scottish artist Katie Paterson in 2014. Each year, one writer is asked to contribute a book, which will not be printed or read for 100 years. A forest of 1,000 Norwegian spruce trees has been planted outside Oslo to provide the paper for these books in 2114.

Other authors who have contributed a book to the Future Library are Margaret Atwood, David Mitchell, Turkish novelist Elif Shafak, and Iceland’s Sjón. The Princeton University Library is proud to own a certificate entitling us to one copy of each paper book.

Speaking to the Guardian newspaper, Han said she considered the Future Library to be a project about time. “In Korea, when a couple gets married, people bless them to live together ‘for 100 years’. It sounds like almost an eternity,” she said. “I cannot survive 100 years from now, of course. No one who I love can survive, either. This relentless fact has made me reflect on the essential part of my life. Why do I write? Who am I talking to, when I write?” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/aug/31/han-kang-bury-book-100-years-norwegian-forest-future-library

Han will deliver her manuscript, which can be a length of her choosing, to Paterson at a ceremony in the Norwegian forest in May. It will be held in a room in the Deichman library, Oslo, alongside the unpublished and unread manuscripts by Atwood, Mitchell, Shafak and Sjón, until 2114, when it is finally printed.

For now, read: Han Kang, The White Book, translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith (London: Portobello Books, 2017). East Asian Library–Western PL992.26.K36 H8413 2017

Sophia Giacomelli [Madame Chomel]. Le Paradis perdu, en douze figures (Paris: chez Salmon, 1813). Engraved title and 12 plates bound after Dante, La Divina Comedia. cioé l’Inferno, il Purgatorio, ed il Paradiso (Paris: chez Salmon, [n.d., ?1813]). Engraved title and 99 plates.

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired this single volume with two works bound together, previously owned by the politician, statesman and writer Prosper de Barante.

At first glance, you might think these were prints by John Flaxman R.A. (1755–1826) , who often worked in this linear, outline fashion but in fact, both the Milton sequence  and the Dante prints were engraved by Genevieve Sophia Giacomelli (sometimes called Madame Chomel), who was both an accomplished graphic artist and popular singer.

Justin Croft points out that the 100 plates of the Dante sequence are directly after Flaxman but the Milton are unique. “While Flaxman had always intended to illustrate Milton, he never published a Milton sequence, and Sophia Giacomelli’s 12 plates for Paradise Lost can be considered largely original. It is remarkable they are so rare.”

The Journal des arts, des sciences, et de littérature reviewed her Milton collection in 1813:

‘…les amateurs conviendront sans peine que la collection des douze figures de Mme Giacomelli est une des productions les plus agréables que la gravure nous ait offertes depuis long-temps. Nous vivons dans un siècle où les femmes ont conquis, dans la littérature, le rang le plus distingué: il suffit de jeter les yeux sur cet ouvrage, pour s’apercevoir que le domaine des arts ne leur est pas non plus étranger. Déjà le dessin et la gravure ont mérité à Mme Giacomelli d’honorable suffrages; son talent comme cantatrice avait avantageusement brillé dans plusieurs concerts…’ (vol. 15, p.62) [Amateurs will readily agree that the collection of the twelve figures of Madame Giacomelli is one of the most agreeable productions that engraving has offered us for a long time. We live in a century when women have won the most distinguished rank in literature: it is enough to look at this work to discover that the field of the arts is not foreign to them either. Already drawing and engraving have earned Madame Giacomelli honorable votes; her talent as a singer had advantageously shone in several concerts.

A brief note was published in The New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1 1814, “Madame Sofia Giacomelli has drawn and engraved in a style worthy of the best school of Italy twelve figures illustrative of Milton’s Paradise Lost. These figures as well as those which she has executed from the Divina Comedia of Dante, display a vivid imagination, replete with fire and originality.”

See also Giacomelli listed in the Proceedings of the Musical Association, Volume 9 (Stanley Lucas, Weber & Company, 1883).

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a complete set of the early Soviet art magazine Tvorchestvo (roughly translated as Creation) including all 23 issues running from 1918 to 1922. A popular magazine, unfortunately the print runs gradually decreased: 10,200-20,200 copies in 1920, 10,000 copies in 1921, and 5,000 copies in 1922.

According to the dealer, “In 1918 [Tvorchestvo] was probably produced by the first illustrator of the Soviet science-fiction Anatolii Shpir (?-1951). Dmitrii Mel’nikov (1889–1956) completed the cover design of other issues, created the linocuts for internal design, and has written some articles. He was a propaganda poster maker and the artist of satirical magazines Krokodil and Bezbozhnik. At the same time the magazine design had a notable contributor, artist Nikolai Sinezubov (1891-1948), close to the art of Kandinsky and supporting him in theoretical discussions. In this period he participated in the Exhibition of the Four (1920) with Rodchenko, Kandinsky and Stepanova. Sinezubov created the linocut for one cover and a number of linocuts for the internal design.”

The earliest issues were principally literary and were full of revolutionary traces. Later the magazine began to include critical articles on contemporary art, with the beginnings of Soviet art history developing on these pages. In particular, the journal includes early articles by Soviet art historian Aleksei Sidorov (1891—1978), notable figure in the Soviet art and book design. Some of these pieces are critical of the new Museum of Artistic Culture, which flourished from 1919 to 1929, directed by V. Kandinsky in 1919-20 and A. Rodchenko during 1921-22.

Vladimir Markov, Russian Futurism: A History (University of California Press, 1968)