When Phantasie Takes Flight: the Art & Imagination of Arthur RackhamMain MenuExplore a Guided Tour of the ExhibitExplore the Collection IndependentlyExplore the Collection Through VisualizationsLibraryPress@UF3b1cdf573ac293e8c89509f45d68f8ce07c5832aLibraryPress@UF. Curated by Suzan A. Alteri and John Ingram. Digitized by Rebecca McNulty. Media is in the public domain or used under a claim of fair use except where otherwise noted.
1media/reward.jpg2021-08-03T15:05:35+00:00Rebecca McNulty65517d188dc9aba7b76d226a2dc4aefe35fae20fBrowse Other Artists by NameRebecca McNulty11visual_path2021-12-21T19:12:52+00:00Rebecca McNulty65517d188dc9aba7b76d226a2dc4aefe35fae20f
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1media/The maiden said, Be still, dear little fawn, and I will never forsake you.jpg2021-08-03T14:22:04+00:00Rebecca McNulty65517d188dc9aba7b76d226a2dc4aefe35fae20fInfluences20plain642021-12-22T17:25:03+00:00Rebecca McNulty65517d188dc9aba7b76d226a2dc4aefe35fae20f
12021-08-03T14:22:22+00:00Rebecca McNulty65517d188dc9aba7b76d226a2dc4aefe35fae20fBlack and White10plain2021-12-20T21:19:37+00:00Rebecca McNulty65517d188dc9aba7b76d226a2dc4aefe35fae20f
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1media/The maiden said, Be still, dear little fawn, and I will never forsake you.jpg2021-08-03T14:22:04+00:00Influences20plain642021-12-22T17:25:03+00:00Iconic and instantly recognizable, British illustrator John Tenniel’s tubular Alice laid the foundation for generations of artists to alter images of human beings to convey their impression of an author’s imaginary world. Some artists, such as Charles Robinson, took Tenniel’s image to the extreme of a snake-like head. Others, such as Rackham, deviated from Tenniel and created a new Alice whom people could love. A master of black and white illustration, George Cruikshank skipped along the fence between reality and imagination and influenced similar juxtapositions of the real, surreal, and completely fantastic in many of his successor artists, including Willy Pogány, Aubrey Beardsley, and Arthur Rackham. Walter Crane’s use of color and light in his Aesop’s Fables acknowledges the priority of reality in his artwork over imagination. At the same time, it is the jubilant mixture of exactitude of form with ebullient splashes of color that would find most favor among his successors. Even Beatrix Potter foreshadowed the movement to anthropomorphization of flora and fauna as she depicted Peter Rabbit leaning against a wall, feet crossed, and hand under chin, exactly as his human counterparts would have stood and ruminated.
Images of women in children’s literature have encompassed every aspect of human and spiritual life, whether good or evil, beautiful or ugly, innocent or depraved.
As authors employed their words to convey such characteristics, artists and illustrators translated words into idiosyncratic, individualized, yet curiously imitative portraits to convey their interpretation of an author’s intent. In this grouping, and in reference to the works by Arthur Rackham, illustrators brought an author’s imagination from words to pictures that captivated both younger and older readers. Often, an illustrator might pay homage to a predecessor by painting a sympathetic or reflective depiction of that artist’s imagined portrait of a woman whose actual image exists originally in words. Compare the depictions of women as imagined by Beardsley, Pogány and Rackham for examples of such real or imagined influence.
12021-08-03T14:22:22+00:00Black and White10plain2021-12-20T21:19:37+00:00 Black and white is hardly ever just black and just white. As in an author’s tale in words, selection and choice of just the right word can incite a myriad of impressions in a reader well beyond what the author may have originally intended. For George Cruikshank, Aubrey Beardsley, Howard Pyle and Willy Pogány, black and white became the color palette to stir a reader’s imagination down paths other than where the author’s words might lead. At times, the stark contrast between absolute black and unmitigated white awakened or startled the reader to the author’s intent, more than mere words could do. At other times, an illustrator’s use of sliding scales of grey allowed a reader to experience more reality than an author might normally intend in a fairy tale, legend, or horror story. Even artists such as Rackham and Harry Clarke would eschew color when the author’s words seemed more impactful if drawn or imagined in black and white. Compare the images here with those in Rackham’s Poefor his intentional use of black and white rather than color to convey the author’s intent.
