Chandler Davies

Chandler Davies is a fictional character created by Brian Lumley, a British weird artist who first appears in Lumley's Titus Crow story "An Item of Supporting Evidence" (1970). He is subsequently mentioned in a handful of Lumley stories, making one more brief appearance in "The Fairground Horror" (1976). 
== 'An Item of Supporting Evidence' ==
Davies, though introduced in "An Item of Supporting Evidence" as a "weird-artist," originally appears as a skeptic of the idea that there is a reality behind the eldritch horrors in Lovecraftian fiction. He is invited by Titus Crow to Blowne House after writing a letter "commenting upon the negative effect which [Crow's] short story 'Yegg-ha’s Realm' had had on him." 
As a "gourmet of such tales," Davies objects that the story--a "Lovecraftian piece" published in the magazine Grotesque that was "set during the time of Rome’s rule over England and involving the worship of an 'outside God'”--had depicted “so thoroughly unbelievable a God” as "existing in such a well-known period of England’s history that even an average student of our country’s antiquities could hardly miss the obvious impossibility." "I must admit that blunders like yours irk me considerably," Davies complains.
More generally, Davies insists that "Mythological-Fantasy was ‘out;’ that the Cthulhu Mythos’ fabled lands and creatures and Cimmeria’s scintillating citadels and dark demons should have been allowed to die a sad but certain death along with their respective originators." The "constant culling from those tales...was weakening the impact of the original works," Davies feels.
Davies changes his tune after being presented with archeological proof that Yegg-ha actually existed. The artist even promises to illustrate Crow's next book.
== In Other Stories ==
"An Item of Supporting Evidence" is placed in Crow's chronology before "Billy's Oak," which is set in 1955. The next time Davies appears in Lumley's fiction, things have taken a turn for the far worse.
In "Rising with Surtsey," published in 1971, there is a list of disturbing happenings that occur in May 1962. Among them: "Chandler Davies, who later died raving mad at Woodholme, painted ‘in a trance of sheer inspiration’ an evil black and grey G’harne Landscape, which his outraged and frightened mistress set on fire upon its completion."
In "The Thing From the Blasted Heath," another story published in 1971 (in the same collection, The Caller of The Black), a regretful collector says he once had a "collection of ten nightmare paintings by Pickman, Chandler Davies and Clark Ashton Smith," but these "now belong to an avid American collector."
Davies' art is also referenced in Lumley's 1974 novel The Burrowers Beneath (1974), set in 1968, in which Henri-Laurent de Marigny muses that
there were also a number of painters whose works, I knew, had from time to time featured the star motif: noticeably Chandler Davies in many of his designs for Grotesque before that magazine folded; particularly his full-page black and white “Stars and Faces,” so strangely disturbing and horrific that it was now in itself a valuable collector’s item.
Likewise, in "What Dark God?" (1975), a table used as a portable altar by the Summanus cult has on it "designs suggestive of the more exotic work of Chandler Davies."
In "The Fairground Horror" (1976), Davies appears "onstage" for the last time. In April 1962, in response to his inquiries about the "Great Old Ones," and "genuine occult phenomena," sideshow impresario Anderson Tharpe is told by the weird artist Chandler Davies that "the whole thing were best forgotten, that no good could ever come of dabbling in such matters—be it serious study or merely idle curiosity." He does, however, "grudgingly" give Tharpe the address of “occult investigator” Titus Crow. 
The next month, Tharpe reads in national newspapers that "Chandler Davies had been 'put away' in Woodholme Sanatorium" after painting "a monstrous 'G’harne Landscape', which his outraged and terrified mistress had at once set fire to." Davies had reacted with "an insane rage from which he had not recovered." A few days later, Tharpe reads of Davies' death.
In "Concerning Titus Crow," Lumley's introduction to The Compleat Crow (1987), Crow is said to be an expert "in obscure or avant-garde works of art—with particular reference to such as Aubrey Beardsley, Chandler Davies, Hieronymous Bosch, Richard Upton Pickman, etc."
Category:Characters Originating From Expanded Mythos Works
Category:Humans
Category:Deceased (In Mythos)