Joe created this piece of art in the seventies, inspired by Clark Ashton Smith's short story The White Sybil. It was meant for an art folio that was sort of a Hannes Bok memorial put together by Emil Petaja, but it wasn't completed in time. The paper measures 8 1/2" by 11" with the picture area 7" by 9." The original was black India ink on heavy Strathmore board. Jim Van Hise subsequently bought the art.

From the story:

"Recovering, he saw before him the White Sybil, who stood amid the flowers of blood-red and cerulean like a goddess of the snow attired in veils of moon-flame. Her pale eyes, pouring an icy rapture into his veins, regarded him enigmatically. With a gesture of her hand that was like the glimmering of light on inaccessible places, she beckoned him to follow, as she turned and went upward along the slope above the meadow.

"Tortha had forgotten his fatigue; had forgotten all but the celestial beauty of the Sybil. He did not question the enchantment that claimed him, the wild Uranian ecstasy that rose in his heart. He knew only that she had reappeared to him, had beckoned him; and he followed.

"Soon the hills grew steeper against the overtowering crags; and barren ribs of rock emerged gloomily through the mantling flowerage. Without effort, light as a drifting vapor, the Sybil climbed on before Tortha. He could not approach her; and though the interval of distance between them increased at times, he did not altogether lose sight of her luminous figure.

"Now he was among bleak ravines and savage scarps, where the Sybil was like a swimming star in the chasmal, crag-flung shadows. The fierce mountain eagles screamed above him, eyeing his progress as they flew about their eyries. The chill trickle of rills born of the eternal glaciers fell upon him from overbeetling ledges; and sudden chasms yawned before his feet with a hollow roaring of vertiginous waters far below.

"Tortha was conscious only of an emotion such as impels the moth to pursue a wandering flame. He did not picture to himself the aim and end of his pursuit, nor the fruition of the weird love that drew him on. Oblivious of mortal fatigue, of peril and disaster that might lie before him, he felt the delirium of a mad ascent to superhuman heights."

SKELETON SLAVES

This drawing was created for an art folio in the 1970's published by Emil Petaja. It illustrates a Clark Ashton Smith short story, Return of the Sorcerer. The original was black Prismacolor pencil on coquille board measuring 8 1/4" by 10 1/2. The drawing was signed.

Want to see more art inspired by Clark Ashton Smith? Visit The Eldritch Dark where you'll see that and so much more!