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The Labyrinth
A seminal work by an artist whose drawings in The New Yorker , LIFE , Harper's Bazaar , and many other publications influenced an entire generation of American artists and writers.
Saul Steinberg’s The Labyrinth , first published in 1960 and long out of print, is more than a simple catalog or collection of drawings— these carefully arranged pages record a brilliant, constantly evolving imagination confronting modern life. Here is Steinberg, as he put it at the time, discovering and inventing a great variety of "Illusion, talks, music, women, cats, dogs, birds, the cube, the crocodile, the museum, Moscow and Samarkand (winter, 1956), other Eastern countries, America, motels, baseball, horse racing, bullfights, art, frozen music, words, geometry, heroes, harpies, etc.” This edition, featuring a new introduction by Nicholson Baker, an afterword by Harold Rosenberg, and new notes on the artwork, will allow readers to discover this unique and wondrous book all over again.
Saul Steinberg’s The Labyrinth , first published in 1960 and long out of print, is more than a simple catalog or collection of drawings— these carefully arranged pages record a brilliant, constantly evolving imagination confronting modern life. Here is Steinberg, as he put it at the time, discovering and inventing a great variety of "Illusion, talks, music, women, cats, dogs, birds, the cube, the crocodile, the museum, Moscow and Samarkand (winter, 1956), other Eastern countries, America, motels, baseball, horse racing, bullfights, art, frozen music, words, geometry, heroes, harpies, etc.” This edition, featuring a new introduction by Nicholson Baker, an afterword by Harold Rosenberg, and new notes on the artwork, will allow readers to discover this unique and wondrous book all over again.
First published January 1, 1960
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 23, 2019
I shelved this 1960 book to read 4 years ago and there were no library copies in my (big city) area, and none for (affordable) sale, long out of print, but a couple of months ago, shazam! we have a new edition, a gorgeous over-sized hardcover by New York Review of Books with an introduction by novelist Nicholson Baker and a wonderful afterword essay by Harold Rosenberg.
The Labyrinth is an early example of a graphic novel, in that it actually has a kind of narrative to it. It begins with a straight line and then invents itself a story. The opening line invention scenario is amazing. What follows, as Steinberg said is: “Illusion, talks, music, women, cats, dogs, birds, the cube, the crocodile, the museum, Moscow and Samarkand (winter, 1956), other Eastern countries, America, motels, baseball, horse racing, bullfights, art, frozen music, words, geometry, heroes, harpies, etc.”
At a glance The Labyrinth would appear to be an elaborate sketchbook, and in a way you would not be wrong, but this is the kind of postmodern aspect of the book, in my opinion, that it is in part, as it proceeds, a kind of abstract commentary on the nature of the imagination and art in particular. Part whimsy, part brilliant inquiry. And it's also often funny. I'll shut up and let you order it NOW from your library, and then you'll probably do what I am going to do, buy it.
Here's a reprint of Rosenberg's essay, with a couple images from the book:
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2...
Here's a review from The New York Review of Books so you can see some of the images, too:
https://www.nyrb.com/products/the-lab...
The Labyrinth is an early example of a graphic novel, in that it actually has a kind of narrative to it. It begins with a straight line and then invents itself a story. The opening line invention scenario is amazing. What follows, as Steinberg said is: “Illusion, talks, music, women, cats, dogs, birds, the cube, the crocodile, the museum, Moscow and Samarkand (winter, 1956), other Eastern countries, America, motels, baseball, horse racing, bullfights, art, frozen music, words, geometry, heroes, harpies, etc.”
At a glance The Labyrinth would appear to be an elaborate sketchbook, and in a way you would not be wrong, but this is the kind of postmodern aspect of the book, in my opinion, that it is in part, as it proceeds, a kind of abstract commentary on the nature of the imagination and art in particular. Part whimsy, part brilliant inquiry. And it's also often funny. I'll shut up and let you order it NOW from your library, and then you'll probably do what I am going to do, buy it.
Here's a reprint of Rosenberg's essay, with a couple images from the book:
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2...
Here's a review from The New York Review of Books so you can see some of the images, too:
https://www.nyrb.com/products/the-lab...
January 26, 2019
I arrived home two nights ago to find this wonderful book waiting for me – it had to be read on the spot – before dinner, before TV, before everything. Every third page or so, I had to show to my husband (he will get to read the other pages when I have finished going through it several more times.
The book itself is beautiful – a large, solid hardback full of high-quality pages packed with exquisite black line drawings. This is a book for sharing, for dipping in and out of, over and over again. A book to place within reach, for any moments you need cheering up. It is impossible to read this book without a grin on your face.
The drawings are often surreal: a landscape turns into a train track, turns into a table top, turns into a cloths line. A skeleton, with scythe and handbag, takes a peacock for a walk, followed by a swan. A knight uses his lance as a fishing pole. A roughly drawn box dreams of mathematical precision, another sucks in an irregular squiggle, and extrudes a neat angular spiral.
The men have strong jaw-lines, like 1940s matinee idols. The older, matronly women may have torsos of fish or pigeons, the younger women have ridiculously high heels.
In two of the early sections sounds from speech and musical instruments are drawn synaesthetically. My two favourite drawings are of a young girl talking to an adult male, and of a harp being played. In the first, the little girl is babbling, maybe about her day – the animals and birds she saw, the boy she met. Her sentences are never complete – in her hurry to get everything out, one thought melds seamlessly into the next, as the line drawing spirals up into the air. The adult male barks out a loud angular jagged sentence that cuts across the little girl’s joyous recitation. The harp sings ethereal, insubstantial, yet beautiful music – its lines are not joined up, but swirl and float, building the suggestions of a butterfly and delicate plants.
There are mathematical images, symmetrical and mirror images, bodies made from mazes – all of which really appeal to me. Then there are the cubist images, a nod to Modrian in a family grouping. Cats, dogs, fish – and everywhere peacocks. Steinberg next moves on to his travels – USA with its cars on busy roads, motels and baseball; the Soviet Union with its warmly wrapped and multi-ethnic inhabitants. Then, right at the end – the labyrinths – tracing paths from A to B.
This is a book to savour, a book to buy as a present for yourself and/or for someone you care about. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
The book itself is beautiful – a large, solid hardback full of high-quality pages packed with exquisite black line drawings. This is a book for sharing, for dipping in and out of, over and over again. A book to place within reach, for any moments you need cheering up. It is impossible to read this book without a grin on your face.
The drawings are often surreal: a landscape turns into a train track, turns into a table top, turns into a cloths line. A skeleton, with scythe and handbag, takes a peacock for a walk, followed by a swan. A knight uses his lance as a fishing pole. A roughly drawn box dreams of mathematical precision, another sucks in an irregular squiggle, and extrudes a neat angular spiral.
The men have strong jaw-lines, like 1940s matinee idols. The older, matronly women may have torsos of fish or pigeons, the younger women have ridiculously high heels.
In two of the early sections sounds from speech and musical instruments are drawn synaesthetically. My two favourite drawings are of a young girl talking to an adult male, and of a harp being played. In the first, the little girl is babbling, maybe about her day – the animals and birds she saw, the boy she met. Her sentences are never complete – in her hurry to get everything out, one thought melds seamlessly into the next, as the line drawing spirals up into the air. The adult male barks out a loud angular jagged sentence that cuts across the little girl’s joyous recitation. The harp sings ethereal, insubstantial, yet beautiful music – its lines are not joined up, but swirl and float, building the suggestions of a butterfly and delicate plants.
There are mathematical images, symmetrical and mirror images, bodies made from mazes – all of which really appeal to me. Then there are the cubist images, a nod to Modrian in a family grouping. Cats, dogs, fish – and everywhere peacocks. Steinberg next moves on to his travels – USA with its cars on busy roads, motels and baseball; the Soviet Union with its warmly wrapped and multi-ethnic inhabitants. Then, right at the end – the labyrinths – tracing paths from A to B.
This is a book to savour, a book to buy as a present for yourself and/or for someone you care about. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
July 17, 2017
A great early graphic novel.
Harold Rosenberg's "The Labyrinth of Saul Steinberg" is a well written review of the work.
Harold Rosenberg's "The Labyrinth of Saul Steinberg" is a well written review of the work.
November 28, 2018
When I was in second grade I had to stay after school one afternoon and wait for my parents to pick me up. The teacher watching me gave me a large scroll of paper and a metal-nib pen and ink bottle. I had been drawing since as long as I can remember and considered myself okay at it, but I had never dipped a nib pen in ink before. It was not a pleasant experience. The tip tore through the page, ink splattering and all the little control I learned over my short life was gone in a stroke. Okay, I’ll humble-brag a bit here and say that my drawings ended up in the yearbook, one of three selected from our class and the only artwork (though I had a poem in there, too: "No, not a gun/Love is the one”). All this is to say that pen and ink have been a hurdle I’ve yet to clear in my 55 years. I’ve been drawing a daily portrait from the obituary pages of the newspaper for about a year and a half, mostly in ink but also watercolors and acrylics, and I can say with certainty that every drawing is a failure. But I mean that in the best sense. Reading Saul Steinberg’s THE LABYRINTH is like when Dorothy lands in Oz and everything becomes Technicolor, though there are a few color plates in the book. The possibilities of the line are seemingly endless, splattered ink and redrawn patches are not mistakes but part of the composition, because the drawing isn’t a picture, it’s a language. The mind of Steinberg is captured like a wild beast and caged in the marks and swirls of his pen, though never contained. His work is a cartoon in the best way, because it marries art and story in such a manner that one could never exist without the other (which is my humble definition for cartoon art). If every drawing of mine is a failure because the page never holds the thoughts that motivated my pen, I found inspiration in Steinberg’s freedom. There’s a universe in his line, a black hole that pulls everything in his India ink. I have so much to learn and so much to draw.
December 10, 2018
WOW! Do you know the potential power of doodles; the power of bare lines? Do you know that a doodle can communicate as deeply as any of the great masterpieces of art?
You ain't never seen a doodle 'til you've seen a Steinberg doodle. Each drawing is powerfully evocative. This book is a treasure!
You ain't never seen a doodle 'til you've seen a Steinberg doodle. Each drawing is powerfully evocative. This book is a treasure!
July 10, 2021
The master of the line. Although these pieces look almost simple, they at times have double meanings, or are drawn in such a way so as to reveal more on second viewings.
There are themes in his work, the vast majority concerned with modern life, posturing, architecture and social relationships.
Looking at his work always excites me, and motivates to pull out the sketchbook myself.
Highly recommend of course.
There are themes in his work, the vast majority concerned with modern life, posturing, architecture and social relationships.
Looking at his work always excites me, and motivates to pull out the sketchbook myself.
Highly recommend of course.
March 6, 2021
One of my long-time favorite graphic artists, this book is a compendium of Steinberg’s life-long drawings. A hardbound, oversize book allotted with generous space given to his pen and pencil renderings. A delight to peruse time and again.
January 10, 2019
What a collection - incredible. Such a creative mind.
July 31, 2019
Remarkable and fascinating illustrations telling a story without any words.
November 4, 2023
Magnifico, semplicemente magnifico.
March 1, 2019
Everyone who draws has been influenced, consciously or unconsciously, by Saul Steinberg's drawings. The most wonderful aspect of every single one is their sense of play. An inspiration for anyone, "artist" or not, to just put pen or pencil to paper and see what happens once the first line or curve appears.
Surprises are waiting to be freed from the page.
Surprises are waiting to be freed from the page.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews