When Phantasie Takes Flight: the Art & Imagination of Arthur Rackham

Influences

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Iconic 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.

This page has paths:

  1. "Illustrating the Child Within: Arthur Rackham" Rebecca McNulty

Contents of this path:

  1. Black and White
  2. Color and Light
  3. Women
  4. Phantasie
  5. Modern

This page has tags:

  1. The Art of Arthur Rackham Rebecca McNulty
  2. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Rebecca McNulty
  3. The Art of Aubrey Beardsley Rebecca McNulty
  4. The Art of Walter Crane Rebecca McNulty
  5. The Art of George Cruikshank Rebecca McNulty
  6. The Art of Willy Pogány Rebecca McNulty
  7. Alice, Rackham Rebecca McNulty
  8. The Art of Charles Robinson Rebecca McNulty
  9. Alice, Tenniel Rebecca McNulty
  10. Rapunzel Rebecca McNulty
  11. Cinderella and the Glass Slipper Rebecca McNulty
  12. Cruikshank, Jack brings the Giant Prisoner to King Alfred Rebecca McNulty

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