Cover of 1915 edition of J. M. Barrie’s novel, first published in 1911, illustrated by F. D. Bedford
Illustration of Peter Pan playing the pipes, by F. D. Bedford from Peter and Wendy (1911)
Peter Pan is a character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie. A mischievous boy who can fly and never grows up, Peter Pan spends his never-ending childhood having adventures on the small island of Neverland as the leader of his gang, the Lost Boys, interacting with mermaids, Native Americans, fairies, pirates, and occasionally ordinary children from the world outside Neverland. In addition to two distinct works by Barrie, the character has been featured in a variety of media and merchandise, both adapting and expanding on Barrie’s works. These include an animated film, a dramatic film, a TV series and other works.
J.M. Barrie created his character based on his older brother, David, who died in an ice-skating accident the day before he would have turned 14. His mother and brother thought of him always as a boy. The “boy who wouldn’t grow up” character has been described as a variety of ages. It is also based on Pan, the Greek deity.
J. M. Barrie first used Peter Pan as a character in a section of The Little White Bird (1902), an adult novel.
He returned to that character as the center of his stage play entitled Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, which premiered on 27 December 1904 in London. The play was highly popular, running to 1913.
Following the success of the 1904 play, Barrie’s publishers, Hodder and Stoughton, extracted chapters 13–18 of The Little White Bird and republished them in 1906 under the title Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, with the addition of illustrations by Arthur Rackham. Barrie adapted and expanded the play’s story line as a novel, published in 1911 as Peter and Wendy
Peter Pan ( Herbert Brenon, 1924). Silent film released by Paramount Pictures, the first film adaptation of the play by J. M. Barrie, starring Betty Bronson as Peter
Peter Pan (Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, and Hamilton Luske, 1953), the American animated fantasy-adventure film produced by Walt Disney. A sequel titled Return to Never Land was released in 2002
Hook (Steven Spielberg, 1991), live-action sequel starring Robin Williams as the adult Peter Banning, Dustin Hoffman as Hook and Julia Roberts as Tinker Bell
“Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.”
George Bernard Shaw
Frontispiece portraits of George Bernard Shaw after the bust by Rodin. Photographed portraits by Frederick H. Evans and Alvin Langdon Coburn. The front free endpaper inscribed “From Max Beerbohm for Holbrook Jackson 1908.”
The portraits of Bernard Shaw having been humorously altered in black ink and captioned Max Beerbohn. Beerbohm’s alterations to the portraits transform Shaw into an increasingly demonic figure and are captioned as follows: the frontispiece (after Rodin), “- showing how little, really, one nation can understand another”; the first portrait (unattributed), “awaiting the bugle call of life”; the second portrait (by Frederick H. Evans), “sophisticated* by success”; the third portrait (by Alvin Langdon Coburn), “the last Phase.” Included in the lot is a second, unaltered, copy of the same book.
*In Ancient Greece, σοφία (sophia) was the special insight of poets and prophets. This then became the wisdom of philosophers such as sophists. But their use of rhetoric to win arguments gave sophistication a derogatory quality.
The Holy Mountain (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1973) movie poster
René Magritte‘s The Son of Man appears in Alejandro Jodorowsky’s film The Holy Mountain, on a wall in the house of Jupiter. The film was produced by Beatles manager Allen Klein of ABKCO Music and Records, after Jodorowsky scored an underground phenomenon with El Topo (The Mole) and the acclaim of both John Lennon and George Harrison (Lennon and Yoko Ono put up production money).
Robin Williams in Toys (Barry Levinson, 1992).
The set design, costumes, and promotional poster reflect the painting’s style.
A parody of the painting, with Bart behind the floating apple, can be seen briefly at the start of The Simpsons episode No. 86 Treehouse of Horror IV (1993)
The painting appears briefly on the video for Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson’s song Scream , on the “Gallery” section:
Still from Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson’s Scream music video (Mark Romanek, 1995)
The Thomas Crown Affair (John McTiernan, 1999)
The Son of Man appears several times in the 1999 version of The Thomas Crown Affair, especially in the final robbery scenes when men wearing bowler hats and trench coats carry briefcases throughout the museum to cover Crown’s movements and confuse the security team.
Stranger Than Fiction (Marc Forster, 2006)
This is not an Apple, illustration by John Cox, 2007
In the film Mr Magorium’s Wonder Emporium (Zach Helm, 2007), the painting is seen hanging on the wall half finished; at the end of the film Mr Magorium is seen to be painting the rest of it.
This painting also shows up at the end of the film Bronson (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2008). British prisoner Charlie Bronson takes a hostage and turns him into this particular portrait
In the movie 500 Days of Summer (Marc Webb, 2009), the bowler hat and green apple can be seen in Summer’s apartment
The cover of the book Rubies in the Orchard: How to Uncover the Hidden Gems in Your Business (2009) has a version of the painting, with a pomegranate
In Jimmy Liao’s illustrated book Starry Starry Night (2011), the protagonist girl, with the painting illustrated behind her, imitates the painting to express her protest against her parents’ long term fighting.
In Gary Braunbeck’s novel Keepers (2005), the antagonist figures (the “Keepers” of the title) resemble the nattily-dressed, bowler-hatted figures of Magritte’s painting. Also, in the opening scene of the book, the reference is directly made and explained to this resemblance because of an apple-scented car air freshener printed with the image of the painting hanging in the protagonist’s car.
In Lev Grossman’s 2009 novel The Magicians the antagonist is a man wearing a suit, with his face obscured by a leafed branch suspended in midair.
Jim Morrison, Robby Krieger and Ray Manzarek, New York City, 1967
Brian Jones and Mick Jagger, New York, 1966
Paul and Michael, Sussex, 1981
Paul, Stella and James, Scotland, 1982
My Love, London, 1978
Self-portrait, Bathroom, London, date unknown
John Lennon In Colour, London, 1969
Johnny and Kate, London, 1995
Allen Ginsberg, Sussex, 1995
Intimate, personal, and without pretense is probably the best way to describe Linda McCartney’s style of photography. Having been a photographic enthusiast for years before that fateful Beatles album launch in 1967, she used her talent to capture images others could only dream of. An all-access pass to the world of rock ‘n’ roll over three decades allowed her to shoot the likes of Jim Morrison onstage, Allen Ginsberg over a drink and conversation, pre-ThrillerMichael Jackson on a farm and Johnny Depp with Kate Moss hanging out on a porch in the midst of young love.
Collaborative work by Warhol and Basquiat, featuring a Basquiat’s painted depiction of Billie Holiday
Angel of Harlem is a song by Irish rock group U2. It was released in December 1988 as the second single from their album, Rattle and Hum. Written as a homage to Billie Holiday, it was released with two different B-sides; one was an original U2 song called A Room at the Heartbreak Hotel, while the other was a live version of Rattle and Hum‘s Love Rescue Me.
The lyrical content of the song refers to various New York City-area landmarks, including JFK airport, WBLS radio and Harlem. It also refers to jazz-related history including John Coltrane and A Love Supreme, Birdland club, Miles Davis and Holiday herself (“Lady Day”).
Angel of Harlem was written during 1987’s Joshua Tree Tour and the in-studio performance on the Rattle and Hum movie dates from a recording session at Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee during the later stages of the tour’s third leg. The song was a regular on 1989’s Lovetown Tour and was played with B.B. King‘s band.
The song has also been performed on 2009’s 360° Tour with dedications to Michael Jackson, and included snippets of Man in the Mirror and Don’t Stop ’til You Get Enough. In the Berlin concert of the 360° Tour three young fans from Prague, Czech Republic, held signs asking to play Angel of Harlem together with U2, Bono invited them to the stage, the band lent them the instruments and they played the song together.
Take a Bow is a midtempo pop ballad with a “Sukiyaki”-like Japanese touch, performed by American singer-songwriter Madonna. It was released as the Bedtime Stories‘ second single on October 28, 1994. The song also appears on her compilation albums Something to Remember (1995), GHV2 (2001) and Celebration (2009).
Following the release Madonna’s first book publication, Sex, the erotic thriller, Body of Evidence, and the album, Erotica, in the early 1990s, the media and public’s backlash against Madonna’s overtly sexual image was at a peak. Released in early March, 1994, her first musical release after Erotica was the tender ballad I’ll Remember from the soundtrack of the film With Honors. When Madonna appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman on March 31, 1994 to promote the single, her coarse language and behavior—which was provocative, seemingly random at times, full of double entendres (at one point asking Letterman to sniff her panties), profanities, and ended with a refusal to leave the set—caused yet another large public controversy. Following this, Madonna decided to tone down her image and move her career into a new direction. Musically, she explored new-jack R&B styles with a generally mainstream, radio-friendly sound. This new R&B sound was reflected in Bedtime Stories. For Take a Bow, Madonna wanted a more “romantic vein” so she worked with Babyface on the track because he had proved himself to be very successful in his previous works with smooth R&B, working with other artists such as Whitney Houston, Boyz II Men, and Toni Braxton.
The chorus expresses the theme of saying goodbye to a lover who had taken her for granted. The title plays upon the verse in the song “all the world is a stage and everyone has their part,” a reference to the line by William Shakespeare in his play As You Like It, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women mere players”. In his book Madonna: An Intimate Biography, J. Randy Taraborrelli describes the song as a “somber, sarcastic, all-the-world’s-a-stage song about unrequited love… [about a subject] whose phoniness might have fooled everyone else, but not her.” He goes on to say that in the song Madonna tells the subject of her unrequited love to take a bow for “rendering a great, transparent performance in life and love.”
The music video for Take a Bow was directed by Michael Haussman, and is a lavish period-style piece filmed from November 3–8, 1994 in Ronda and in the bullring of Antequera, Spain. It was outfitted by famed stylist Lori Goldstein who received the VH1 Fashion and Media award for best styling. The plot, set in the 1940s, depicts Madonna as a neglected lover of a bullfighter, played by real-life Spanish bullfighter Emilio Muñoz. Madonna’s character yearns for the bullfighter’s presence, with erotic heartbreak. A total of three different bulls were used during the production of the music video. It generated controversy with animal rights activists who accused the singer of glorifying bullfighting.
In the video Madonna wears fitted, classic suits by British fashion designer John Galliano. In an interview with MTV’s Kurt Loder on the set of the music video, Madonna said that when she was initially writing Take a Bow the inspiration for the song was an actor, but she wanted the male character in the video to be to be a matador instead because she wanted the video to be about an “obsessive, tragic love story that doesn’t work out in the end” and a matador would be more visually effective in expressing the emotion of the song. The style of the music video has been compared to Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar‘s 1986 film Matador, starring Antonio Banderas. The music video for Madonna’s 1995 single You’ll See is considered a follow up to the Take a Bow music video, as Madonna and Emilio Muñoz reprise their roles. In that video Madonna’s character walks out on Munoz’s (bullfighter) character, leaving him behind in despair. Madonna’s character is then seen on the train and later on a plane, while Munoz’s character tries to catch up with her in vain.
Madonna requested that Haussman give the video a Spanish theme because, at the time, she was lobbying for the role of Eva Perón in the film version of Evita. She subsequently sent a copy of the video to director Alan Parker as a way of “auditioning” for the role. Madonna eventually won the role of Perón.
The music video for Take a Bow inspired Justin Timberlake‘s video for SexyBack (Michael Haussman, 2006) and was later tributed by Britney Spears‘ video for “Radar” (Dave Meyers, 2009). Madonna won Best Female Video honors at the 1995 MTV Video Music Awards for the Take a Bow music video. It was also nominated for Best Art Direction in a Video, but lost to Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson‘s Scream.
Twenty Foreplay is a song by American singer-songwriter Janet Jackson from her first greatest hits album, Design of a Decade 1986/1996. It was released as the album’s second and final single on January 8, 1996. The title is a play on the word “foreplay” and “24 hours a day”.
The 1950s look of the video, directed by Directed by Keir McFarlane, was inspired by Dorothy Dandridge, whom Jackson considers to be America’s first African American sex symbol. The video was shot in black-and-white and depicts Jackson in the glamorous Hollywood life such as movie premiere, press conference, and videotaping of her on the backlot of a movie set. The video has never been released commercially. McFarlane is best known for Sheryl Crow‘s If it Makes You Happy (2004) music video
Stills from Alice in Wonderland (Clyde Geronimi; Wilfred Jackson and Hamilton Luske, 1951). This British-American animated fantasy comedy-adventure film was produced by Walt Disney Productions and based primarily on Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland with several additional elements from Through the Looking-Glass
‘And then there’s the Butterfly,’ Alice went on, after she had taken a good look at the insect with its head on fire, and had thought to herself, ‘I wonder if that’s the reason insects are so fond of flying into candles — because they want to turn into Snap-dragon-flies!’
‘Crawling at your feet,’ said the Gnat (Alice drew her feet back in some alarm), ‘you may observe a Bread-and-Butterfly. Its wings are thin slices of Bread-and-butter, its body is a crust, and its head is a lump of sugar.
‘And what does it live on?’
‘Weak tea with cream in it.’
A new difficulty came into Alice’s head. ‘Supposing it couldn’t find any?’ she suggested.
‘Then it would die, of course.’
‘But that must happen very often,’ Alice remarked thoughtfully.
‘It always happens,’ said the Gnat.
After this, Alice was silent for a minute or two, pondering. The Gnat amused itself meanwhile by humming round and round her head: at last it settled again and remarked, ‘I suppose you don’t want to lose your name?’
‘No, indeed,’ Alice said, a little anxiously.
Lewis Carroll Through the Looking Glass
Chapter 3, Looking-Glass Insects
“The characterizing McQueen trademarks were very much still there – the exaggerated silhouettes, the bold prints, the drama – but Burton presented them in a much freer way, with a lightness and femininity that contrasted with the dark and complex collections of the past – and it all felt so right. The McQueen woman has not changed, she has evolved.”
Sarah Burton
Alexander McQueen Spring-Summer 2011 Ready-to-Wear collection
Sarah Burton said before the show that she didn’t feel she was as dark as Alexander McQueen, and the dresses – featuring the same McQueen exaggerated, stiffened silhouettes – had a lightness of subject matter despite being as brilliantly and painstakingly constructed. Gold painted corn ears made up incredible regal dresses with trains of pheasant feathers, stunning butterfly print dresses had feathery butterflies clustering out of the necklines and silk ivy coated in black or gleaming gold grew around nude sheaths.
Michael Jackson’s I’ll Be There played Burton out to her standing ovation and us back out into the Parisian rain, many in tears – the extraordinary poignancy of the Alexander McQueen story once again breathtaking.
“The nexus of Born This Way and the soul of the record reside in this idea that you were not necessarily born in one moment. You have your entire life to birth yourself into becoming the ultimate potential vision that you see for you. Who you are when you come out of your mother’s womb is not necessarily who you will become. Born This Way says your birth is not finite, your birth is infinite.”
Lady Gaga
(talking about the meaning of Born This Way)
The first song written and recorded for the album was the title track itself which she wrote in Liverpool and Manchester, England, described by Lady Gaga as a “magical message” song. She wrote it in ten minutes and compared the process to an Immaculate Conception.
“I want to write my this-is-who-the-fuck-I-am anthem, but I don’t want it to be hidden in poetic wizardry and metaphors. I want it to be an attack, an assault on the issue because I think, especially in today’s music, everything gets kind of washy sometimes and the message gets hidden in the lyrical play. Hankering back to the early ’90s, when Madonna, En Vogue, Whitney Houston and TLC were making very empowering music for women and the gay community and all kind of disenfranchised communities, the lyrics and the melodies were very poignant and very gospel and very spiritual and I said, ‘That’s the kind of record I need to make. That’s the record that’s going to shake up the industry.’ It’s not about the track. It’s not about the production. It’s about the song. Anyone could sing Born This Way. It could’ve been anyone.”
Nick Knight directed the accompanying music video, which was inspired by painters like Salvador Dalí and Francis Bacon and their surrealistic images. Gaga is depicted as giving birth to a new race during a prologue. A series of dance sequences later, the video concludes with the view of a city populated by this race. Critics noted cultural references to the work of Madonna, Michael Jackson, Björk, late fashion designer Alexander McQueen, as well as to Greek mythology, magical realism and surrealism.
Laurieann Gibson explained the inspiration behind the video to MTV News:
“When she played it for me, it took me a while to find out the visual interpretation that I could give back to her. And so I woke up one night and I got it, and I said, ‘I got it: We have to birth a new race.’ From the gate, Gaga was like, ‘I want Nick Knight for this video. I want a visual.’ She was always birthing something visual in her head, and Nick Knight is just, well, he’s prolific but he’s so genius. It was about pushing the bar of what a music video should be and can be. […] It’s a different time; it’s a different era; there are no limits. It is a viral message. I think that there’s something in there for everyone, and that’s what’s so amazing about the video and so specific about the message.”
Released on Monday, February 28, 2011, the video begins with a brief shot of a unicorn’s silhouette in a steam-filled alley, inside a pink triangle frame. The triangle transitions to a shot of Gaga, with two opposite facing heads, inspired by Janus, the Roman god of transition and beginnings, sitting in an ornate glass throne amidst a star-filled space. As Bernard Herrmann‘s prelude to the movie Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) plays, Gaga tells the story of the creation of an extraterrestrial race that “bears no prejudice, no judgment, but boundless freedom.” Gaga sits in the throne, giving birth to a “new race within the race of humanity.” She explains that this was followed by the birth of evil, due to which Gaga splits into two opposing forces of good and evil. Her new half gives birth to a machine gun and fires it. The prologue concludes with Gaga questioning, “How can I protect something so perfect, without evil?”
The video featured full-bodied tattooed model Rick Genest (Rico), better known by his stage name Zombie Boy. Gaga painted her face in a similar way to Genest, in one of the main series of sequences. She said that the sequences displayed the fact that she would not allow society or critics to dictate her sense of beauty. “I tell you what I think is beauty, and hence the scene was of me and Rico defining ourselves in artistic way and not relying on society to dictate it,” she added. The costumes for the video were designed by Nicola Formichetti, who blogged about the various designer pieces shown in it. In the opening sequence of the video, Gaga wore a head accessory by Alexis Bittar, a diamond neckpiece by Erickson Beamon with earrings by Pamela Love, and a stained-glass dress by Petra Storrs. Finger rings were provided by Erickson Beamon and chiffon clothes by Thierry Mugler. For the skeletons sequences, both she and Rico wore tuxedos by Mugler while the slime during the orgy scenes were courtesy of Bart Hess. For her Michael Jackson impression in the alley at the video’s end, Gaga wore shirt and pants by Haus of Gaga, shoes by Natacha Marro, a Billykirk belt and LaCrasia gloves.
From left: Stella Tennant in Stella McCartney, Cecilia Chancellor in Luella Bartley, Erin O’Connor in John Galliano, Jacquetta Wheeler in Nicole Farhi, Naomi Campbell in Julien Macdonald, Liberty Ross in Clements Ribeiro, Kate Moss in Hussein Chalayan, Elizabeth Jagger in Russell Sage and Philip Treacy, Jade Parfitt in Paul Smith, Rosemary Ferguson in Markus Lupfer, Jasmine Guinness in Boyd, Lisa Ratcliffe in Sophia Kokosalaki, Karen Elson in Betty Jackson, Georgina Cooper in Antonio Berardi, Alek Wek in Belville Sassoon by Lorcan Mullany, Sophie Dahl in Matthew Williamson, Vivien Solari in Robert Cary-Williams and Jodie Kidd in Vivienne Westwood. Photo by Mario Testino for Vogue, January 2002
January 1989: Gianni Versace shows first couture collection in Paris. The Good Fortune of Friendship, a film by Sergio Salerni about Versace’s relationship with the choreographer Maurice Béjart, debuts. The Versus line bows. Dresses for Thought, an exhibit of Gianni’s designs, opens in Milan.
On October 21, 1990, the San Francisco opera season opened with Richard Strauss‘ Capriccio, with costumes designed by Versace. The following year the fragrance “Versus” was debuted and “Signature,” Versace’s classic line, was launched. Elton John, an ardent admirer of Versace, began his world tour for which Versace designed the costumes. In New York, for the Italian Trade Commission, Versace inaugurated the charity Gala “Rock’N Rule,” with profits given to the Amfar anti-AIDS Association. A retrospective show at the Fashion Institute of Technology featured Versace’s work.
Around 1989, Elton was deeply affected by the plight of Ryan White, an Indiana teenager with AIDS. Along with Michael Jackson, John befriended and supported the boy and his family until White’s death in 1990. Confronted by his then-lover, John checked into a Chicago hospital in 1990 to combat his drug abuse, alcoholism, and bulimia. In recovery, he lost weight and underwent hair replacement, and subsequently took up residence in Atlanta, Georgia.The One was John’s first album project since his rehabilitation from drug and alcohol addictions and bulimia in 1990.
In 1992, he established the Elton John AIDS Foundation, intending to direct 90 percent of the funds it raised to direct care, 10 percent to AIDS prevention education. He also announced his intention to donate all future royalties from sales of his singles (beginning with The One) in the U.S. and U.K. to AIDS research. That year, he released the Number Eight album The One, his highest-charting release since 1976’s Blue Moves. Also in 1992, Gianni designed costumes and album cover for Elton John’s world tour.
The One (1992), the 23rd studio album by British singer/songwriter Elton John. It was dedicated to Vance Buck, and its cover artwork was designed by Gianni Versace. Photography by Patrick Demarchelier
Julian Schnabel’s Plate painting portraying Elton John. Front cover of The Big Picture
The Big Picture is the 26th studio album by Elton John, released in 1997. It was dedicated to John’s friend, popular fashion designer Gianni Versace, who was murdered a few months before the album’s release. This was the last album to date to be produced by Chris Thomas, who had worked with John almost nonstop since 1981’s The Fox. This is the only album in which neither Davey Johnstone nor bassist Bob Birch provide backing vocals. Drummer Charlie Morgan was let go from the band shortly after the album’s release and soon replaced by Curt Bisquera and John’s old drummer Nigel Olsson, who remains in the lineup to this day.
The video for the song (which is dedicated to the memory of Gianni and Diana, Princess of Wales, who also died that year) featured actors and actresses from the UK television programme This Life, as well as supermodels Kate Moss and Sophie Dahl. It’s regarded as one of Elton John’s best videos. John has publicly revealed (through his “warts and all” documentary Tantrums and Tiaras) that he finds videos “fucking loathsome” and after the album The Big Picture refrained from appearing in his own videos unless they were cameo appearances. It was directed by Tim Royes.
Cover of 1915 edition of J. M. Barrie’s novel, first published in 1911, illustrated by F. D. Bedford
Illustration of Peter Pan playing the pipes, by F. D. Bedford from Peter and Wendy (1911)
Following the success of the 1904 play, Barrie’s publishers, Hodder and Stoughton, extracted chapters 13–18 of The Little White Bird and republished them in 1906 under the title Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, with the addition of illustrations by Arthur Rackham. Barrie adapted and expanded the play’s story line as a novel, published in 1911 as Peter and Wendy
Peter Pan ( Herbert Brenon, 1924). Silent film released by Paramount Pictures, the first film adaptation of the play by J. M. Barrie, starring Betty Bronson as Peter
Peter Pan (Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, and Hamilton Luske, 1953), the American animated fantasy-adventure film produced by Walt Disney. A sequel titled Return to Never Land was released in 2002
Hook (Steven Spielberg, 1991), live-action sequel starring Robin Williams as the adult Peter Banning, Dustin Hoffman as Hook and Julia Roberts as Tinker Bell
The Genealogy of Style 