Felices Pascuas – Antonio Escriba
April 4, 2010
This was a gift from my mentor, George Wagner; it is chocolate art, themed around Easter, and written by the Catalan Antonio Escriba, who was known as ‘El Mago del Chocolate’, the Chocolate Magician, during his lifetime (his family continues the tradition in Spain to this day). This book was printed in 1967 in Spain, and has a surreal tone to it; fitting considering the Chocolate Magician shared an era with such unusual geniuses as Dali and Picasso.
Most of the illustrations in this book would have been created for buffet centerpieces, although I am not so sure they would have been appetite-inducing: there are some incredibly bizarre ideas here.
There is something macabre about chocolate war scenes, with dead chocolate bodies lying around; or the bank robbery theme, with a chocolate robber bleeding on the ground…other fight scenes include a barroom brawl, a swordfight, a korean war montage, and a ghetto riot.
Racist stereotypes abound, with blackface negros, long-moustachioed conspiratorial chinamen, indians with feathers and warpaint. Equally weird (and vaguely disturbing) is a barnyard scene, with chickens happily wrapping their own eggs.
Obviously this is not a book I can use for design, or anything else. Written in Spanish, German, English, and German, the text is brief or non-specific – check out this, written beneath a chocolate Mexican: ‘How does one see a Mexican? A large hat, practically no eyes, an aquiline nose, long lascivious moustaches and a gaudy cloak. Well, there it is! WE should visualize all our characters in this way before creating them.’ Ahhhh…so that’s it!
This is a bizarre and wonderful book, but not at all useful, practical, or even relevant. I love having it on my bookshelf, but can’t recommend it except as a novelty.