A Facebook friend of mine posted this, and I felt it was worth sharing here. It’s about an Auschwitz victim, a young child at the time, who is using social media like Facebook to try to locate the twin he was separated from at the concentration camp. Pass it on, please. Let’s make this happen for him! And while we’re at it, here’s a story of a similar search where it worked like a charm (you’ll need a Facebook account to see it).
Here’s another excellent use of photo collage. I particularly love how the pyramid was handled. But then, I’m a sucker for anything that uses outer space graphic elements.
Dirty Art Club – Heavy Starch (cover)
Song of the Week
Your song this week is a bit dark, so be forewarned: if you don’t like dark music, avoid this one. It’s from the Norwegian psychedelic hard rock band Ulver. Ulver means ‘Wolves’ in Norwegian. This is a cover of a Pretty Things song, and it is fantastic. I have a category of music I call the Darke Nostalgick, which I use to describe those songs that give me that creepy feeling one sometimes gets when reminded of something from childhood that can’t quite be nailed down. I know, I know, the Medieval spelling is pretentious, but it just felt right. Incidentally, I also have a category for songs that trigger nostalgia in a purely pleasant way: Memoria Mystica. Anyway, this song, Bracelets of Fingers, definitely falls into the first category. The album from which it was taken, Childhood’s End, features another exceptional cover design, one that incorporates the famous photo by Nick Ut of kids running from a napalm attack in Vietnam.
I love elephants, and I love H. P. Lovecraft, so this was a must-post. It’s a mural painted by artist Alexis Diaz. Seriously, follow the link and check it out. Diaz’s stuff is incredible.
Alexis Diaz – Hanbury Street mural, London
Quote of the Week
Finally, something new, a quote of the week . . .
The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves. – Carl Jung
If you haven’t realized it by now, a major theme of this blog is prejudice and bigotry in all of its various forms. This week the online journal Salon published an article about the connection between racism and anti-big government sentiment on the political right. It was presented in the context of the revelation that rancher Cliven Bundy turned out to be a massive racist, which neither I nor the article’s author Paul Rosenberg found surprising. The article shows that the connection is much more entrenched than many people realize, and it’s definitely a fascinating read.
This week’s album cover is from the Crystal Fighters’ album Cave Rave and was designed by artist and architect Paul Laffoley. Laffoley is a bizarre guy whose artwork is generally considered to be outsider art. Usually his work is colorful throughout, but in this case the majority of the design is black & white and bears more than a passing resemblance to the iconic covers of McSweeney’s, which I believe was an influence here.
Paul Laffoley – The Crystal Fighters – Cave Rave (cover)
Meme of the Week
I’ve been encountering a lot of anti-science people lately, so this is for them.
And on that note . . .
Art of the Week
This next piece was designed by creative polymath Stéphane Massa-Bidal. If you’re not familiar with his work, you really should take a gander at his lovely website Retrofuturs.
Stéphane Massa-Bidal – Go Back Creationists!
Song of the Week
I’ve been listening to a lot of David Bowie lately, and this week’s song comes from his latest album, The Next Day. It’s called Dirty Boys. Just a heads up: the video clip accompanying the song is homemade.
So, I’m starting something new here; it’s called ‘. . . Of the Week’ and will be updated regularly every weekend (either Friday or Saturday). It will feature several items from a series of categories–album cover art, book cover art, a news article, etc.–that I found interesting, enjoyable or enlightening that week in one way or another. Although I will not put in items from every subcategory each time, I will include several of them in each post. Please note that these items will not necessarily be new to the Internet that week. I may include things of historical significance, art and graphic design from any time period, and so on. Really the only thing that will link them will be my current interest in them. Now, without further ado, here is your very first ‘. . . Of the Week’ post.
Album Cover of the Week
I came across this one on Spotify a couple days ago and found it to be a fine example of design. Often the best designs are the simplest, and that’s the case here. I love how the designer used the negative space to give the immediate impression of a sunrise on the water, though when you examine it for more than a second or two you’ll notice that the outlined circle actually lies over the top of the water.
I don’t know who designed this cover. The cover of the Yellow Bridges single was clearly designed by the same person and is complimentary to the LP cover, but I don’t think it’s quite as interesting as this one.
El Ten Eleven – Transitions (cover)
Book Cover of the Week
This is an old cover for the science fiction novel Nightmare Blue by Gardner Dozois and George Alec Effinger. The artwork was done by Justin Todd. In the period between about the 1940s through the early 1970s speculative fiction was largely ignored by critics, and as such it’s graphic elements were much less of a prisoner to the stifling conformity of contemporary design that literary fiction fell into in that same period. As such, artists and designers for spec fiction were free to draw from a wide pool of styles both past and present, sometimes even combining elements from assorted styles. Todd’s design, for example, seems to include aspects of Art Nouveau, Art Deco and Modernism, and it works quite well in my estimation. Justin Todd has worked as an art instructor at the University of Brighton and has illustrated several children’s books and book covers, among other things.
Justin Todd – Nightmare Blue (cover)
Meme of the Week
Yep, I’m a sucker for a good Facebook meme too, especially anything which has to do with the pleasures of reading or the encouragement of reading in youngsters. This one comes from Your Beautiful Life.
Article of the Week
And speaking of kids and books, our article this week comes from the ironically named Bad Parent, MD website, and it’s from a father who dares to read (gulp) good stories to his 5-year-old daughter. I encountered it while doing a little research on one of my favorite Ray Bradbury stories, The Veldt, which is one of the stories this young father has read to his daughter. Some people may think this tale of the dark side of children’s imagination inappropriate for children themselves, especially considering what happens at the end of it. (I won’t spoil it for you–read the story!) Personally, I think this dad is swell for reading challenging material to his child. Fairy tales are fine to a point, but real life is no fairy tale and I don’t think parents are doing their children any favors by keeping their knowledge of the world confined to defanged ‘happily ever after’ stories. Frankly, I worry about their ability to develop coping skills. Ironically, many parents see no problem with beating their children even as they censor what those children can see, hear and read. So, actual violence against children: okay. Fictional violence? Oh Em Gee, keep it away from them or it will corrupt their weak little minds! Yeah, I don’t get it either. Anywho . . .
And since we’re already on the subject of Bradbury’s The Veldt . . .
Video Clip of the Week
The artwork at the top of that article I just posted the link to comes from the stunningly beautiful animated music video for deadmau5’s song based on The Veldt. I’m not kidding; it brought tears to my eyes. Of course, I know the story behind the song and video, which helped give it some emotional depth, but if you haven’t read it, you’ll likely want to after watching this. Oh, and the song’s pretty good too.
I have good dispositions; my life has been hitherto harmless and in some degree beneficial; but a fatal prejudice clouds their eyes, and where they ought to see a feeling and kind friend, they behold only a detestable monster. – Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.– Friedrich Nietzsche
I read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein about five years ago. The novel had been calling to me for years, but I had avoided it for one reason or another. Ultimately, I think it was because I knew in some deeply recessed, intangible part of my being that I simply wasn’t ready for it. Not because of its nigh impenetrable pre-Victorian English or the complex philosophical and moral issues it presents, although that was part of it, I suppose. No, I think the main reason I waited so long is that I sensed I would identify too much with the monster and would be emotionally devastated by his end, which I assumed, having seen the 1931 film long ago, was death by fire. (“Fire bad!”) Actually, in the novel the monster doesn’t die–not physically anyway–but instead is self-exiled to the Arctic. Given that the monster appears to be nearly immortal, and knowing what I know about social isolation, the monster’s lot struck me as a fate far worse than death. Needless to say, my fears about reading the novel were well-founded . . . and then some. Not that I regret reading it, mind you. Quite the contrary. It’s just that I have since become haunted by Frankenstein’s monster long after the fact, sometimes imagining myself wandering the vast wastelands of ice and snow, alone and unloved, until the end of my days.
I could have handled the monster being murdered. This is what we’ve been conditioned to expect of monsters, isn’t it? Of course, Shelley’s monster is not the kind we’re used to. He’s hateful and murderous by the end, yes, but he’s also deeply psychologically tortured. Despite the many cultural depictions to the contrary, Dr. Frankenstein’s creation was originally not the lumbering, ignorant, feral thing he became; he’s quite intelligent, in fact, even brilliant. He has a taste for literature, particularly John Milton’s Paradise Lost, viewing himself as akin to Adam in the poem. Likewise, the monster is sensitive and (initially anyway) compassionate towards mankind, only turning bitter and abhorrent after numerous failed attempts to win the affections of men, who continually respond to him with fear and revulsion rather than kindness and acceptance.
In the end the monster comes to despise himself even more than others despise him, because his already unbearable misery is compounded by the fact that he has become exactly what people view him as: twisted, violent and horrific. As he says to his creator, “My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy, and when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change without torture such as you cannot even imagine.”
The notion that a sentient being can take on aspects of how it is perceived by outsiders is nothing new today. We even have a pretty solid and well-founded concept to describe this phenomenon: labeling theory. In Mary Shelley’s time this was a fairly revolutionary idea though. The basic view of criminal behavior at the time of her novel’s publication, the so-called Classical School of criminology, was that human behavior is essentially rational and that all crimes are therefore fully the choice of those committing them regardless of the circumstances or the mindset of the criminal.
There are tons of problems with this position. First and most obvious, it ignores the root causes of crime pretty much entirely and focuses only on the behaviors associated with the crimes. As a result, it tends to be reactive rather than proactive in terms of dealing with crime. Second, it fails to account for mental illness, duress, or countless other things that might mitigate rational behavior and contribute to criminality. Third, because it assumes that criminals are always solely and consciously responsible for their actions, it tends to encourage harsh and unfair punishments for crime. There are others I could list but you get the idea.
So, Frankenstein’s monster is a classic example of the misunderstood villain. Although his crimes are not exactly justified, they are perfectly understandable in light of how he is treated, and in perhaps one of the greatest bits of irony in all of literature, it is the very dread and repugnance society directs toward him which eventually turns him into something truly dreadful and repugnant. The creature is merely fulfilling the social role expected of him, though he hates it and himself for doing so.
Beyond the book, most depictions of the monster lack this complexity, usually reducing him to a dimwitted thing that merely reacts to its environment and to humans, often angrily. He is thus a precursor to the Incredible Hulk, whom I believe was influenced by Shelley’s character. Hulk even shares the Frankenstein monster’s gray-green skin.
Positive depictions of the monster are rare and usually done for comic effect. A friend of mine and I recently discussed the film The Monster Squad, for example, wherein Frankie deserts his cohorts–all classic movie monsters–and befriends the children of the Monster Squad, particularly young Phoebe, who demonstrates to the other kids that the monster is nothing to fear. In direct contrast to the murder of the little girl in the original film, here he saves the little girl from death at the hands of his old boss, Dracula. In many ways this small, nearly forgotten gem of a film takes a more enlightened view of monsters than many of its more respected predecessors. There are still evil monsters, of course, but the movie demonstrates that not all monsters are bad; some are good, or potentially so, and only want to be loved. In that sense The Monster Squad returns Frankenstein’s creature to his original status as a seeker of human companionship and understanding, even if it does reduce him to the nearly preverbal child-like being of his film heritage. It’s a nice fusion of book and film Frankenstein.
The Monster Squad further blurs the line between human and monster when Scary German Guy (as the kids call him), formerly feared by them, becomes an ally of the Monster Squad. During an early interaction between them, Scary German Guy (SGG) points out several facts about monsters which provokes one of the kids to say, “Man, you sure know a lot about monsters.” SGG responds to this by raising his sleeve, displaying a series of tattooed numbers on his arm, and saying, “Now that you mention it, I suppose I do.” Nothing further is said about this; nothing more needs to be said. The audience, or rather those parts of it who are old enough to know about the Nazi atrocities, understands that SGG is saying implicitly that humans are capable of becoming monsters too. SGG, whether intentionally or not, is essentially warning the kids not to lose their humanity in the process of hunting and destroying monsters. Therefore, the Monster Squad (a club originally organized around a shared love of the classic monster films) must destroy their monstrous adversaries not because Dracula and the others are monsters in the traditional sense, but because they have evil intentions, and we as an audience know that the kids do understand the distinction due to their befriending of Frankenstein’s monster.
By contrast, the Nazis dehumanized and monstrocized entire classes of people: the Jews, of course, but also other ethnic minorities, gays and other “sexual deviants”, gypsies, the physically and mentally disabled, and yes, even criminals–pretty much anyone they perceived to be outsiders or a threat to their image of themselves as the Master Race. All were subject to the Nazis’ Final Solution. And no doubt, if Frankenstein’s monster had existed in Nazi Germany, whether the tortured, violent creature of Shelley’s book or the gentle giant of The Monster Squad, he would’ve met the same fate.
Side Note: With the release of I, Frankenstein earlier this year the character has been remade, so to speak, yet again, this time as a handsome hero (played by Aaron Eckhart of all people) who fights demons, a concept almost completely antithetical to everything Shelley envisioned. I haven’t seen it, but I’m aware that the film performed badly in theaters and was pretty much universally panned by critics, which I’m ecstatic about. I usually don’t revel in the failure of a film, especially one I haven’t seen, but Frankenstein’s monster is an important character in literature and one of deep symbolic resonance to me personally, and I cannot abide this crass Hollywood trend of reimagining every beloved cultural icon as a heroic two-fisted pretty boy. It demeans and cheapens them, and worse: it undermines their entire raison d’être. Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes films were bad enough, but I’ve never been into the Holmes mythos to the degree I am Frankenstein so that didn’t bother me nearly as much.
This will complete the series on Golden Age illustrator Charles Robinson, at least for awhile. I first encountered Robinson’s work in a Dover compilation of art featured in the famous British journal The Studio, including images that were originally published in The Child-World, and I was simply astounded by it. In fact, they were my favorite images in the book. I had never actually seen The Child-World (which was written by Gabriel Setoun), however, until I stumbled onto it over at the Open Library. I was not disappointed. In some ways it is the epitome of Robinson’s catalog. It is certainly among his most intricate and delicate work. It is also, in my estimation, a high point of the art nouveau style itself.
Charles Robinson – The Child-World (cover)Charles Robinson – The Child-World (frontispiece)Charles Robinson – The Child-World (title page)Charles Robinson – The Child-World (1)Charles Robinson – The Child-World (2)Charles Robinson – The Child-World (3)Charles Robinson – The Child-World (4)Charles Robinson – The Child-World (5)Charles Robinson – The Child-World (6)Charles Robinson – The Child-World (7)Charles Robinson – The Child-World (8)Charles Robinson – The Child-World (9)Charles Robinson – The Child-World (10)Charles Robinson – The Child-World (11)Charles Robinson – The Child-World (12)Charles Robinson – The Child-World (13)Charles Robinson – The Child-World (14)Charles Robinson – The Child-World (15)Charles Robinson – The Child-World (16)Charles Robinson – The Child-World (17)
Here’s another recent drawing I did of a buck deer (titled Buck Deer, appropriately), rendered with pen & ink on 14 x 17 Bristol board. I’m not ecstatic with it. For one thing the patch of grass and weeds at the bottom left-hand corner is too busy and dark; for another–and perhaps this is only because I’ve been immersing myself in so much Art Nouveau lately–I find the image to be too staid and square. Still, I think it is worth posting to show my progression on the textures. I’m particularly proud of the tree bark and the deer’s antlers.
I am in fact planning to do a series of these wildlife drawings, the next one being a fox, but I am going to try to do the next ones with more interesting framing techniques, livelier curves and so on. I’ll post them as I complete them.
And so we come to the third and final installment of the Best of ‘The Snow Queen’ Art, and we definitely are going out with a bang.
Our first featured artist is Adrienne Ségur, a French illustrator most active in the mid-20th century and best known for her work on The Golden Book of Fairy Tales. Speaking of which, Terri Windling has a lovely tribute to that book (and Ségur herself) here. Although she came onto the scene during the tail end of illustration’s Golden Age, Ségur’s art feels fresh and contemporary.
Adrienne Ségur – The Snow Queen (1)Adrienne Ségur – The Snow Queen (2)Adrienne Ségur – The Snow Queen (3)
Anastasia Arkhipova is a Russian illustrator, and that’s all I know about her.
Anastasia Arkhipova – The Snow Queen (1)
Edmund Dulac, like Arthur Rackham, really needs no introduction, but I’ll provide one anyway. A French and English Golden Age artist, he was a prolific book and magazine illustrator and even designed paper currency and postage stamps during World War II.
Edmund Dulac – The Snow Queen (1)Edmund Dulac – The Snow Queen (2)Edmund Dulac – The Snow Queen (3)Edmund Dulac – The Snow Queen (4)Edmund Dulac – The Snow Queen (5)Edmund Dulac – The Snow Queen (6)
Emily Balivet is a contemporary painter and illustrator with a focus on feminine spirituality and divinity.
Emily Balivet – The Snow Queen
Esther Simpson is largely a mystery to me, but she seems to have been an exemplar of the late Art Deco style. I’m not sure where I first encountered this piece, but it really struck me for its unusual choice of depicting the Snow Queen as nude (or nearly nude anyway); moreover, I do not believe it was ever used as a book illustration and appears to have been a stand-alone piece. Whatever the case, it is an elegantly beautiful representation of these characters.
Esther Simpson – The Snow Queen
Tomislav Tomić is a Croatian artist noted for his contributions to the popular Ologies series of children’s books, as well as covers and interior artwork for many other books.
Tomislav Tomić – The Snow Queen (1)Tomislav Tomić – The Snow Queen (2)
Anne Anderson was another Golden Age illustrator, albeit a minor one. Her artwork is reminiscent of Charles Robinson and especially Jessie M. King.
Anne Anderson – The Snow Queen
Polina Yakovleva (a.k.a. Smokepaint) is a contemporary Russian illustrator who works in both traditional and digital media.
Polina Yakovleva – The Snow Queen
New York City native Julia Griffin has a heavy but nicely textured style, but what I really like about her art is her tendency to present the scenes she depicts from odd angles, lending dramatic effect to her illustrations. The following piece is a prime example.
Julia Griffin – The Snow Queen
Jérémie Fleury’s work can be seen most prominently at DeviantArt, where he operates under the name Trefle-Rouge. I think this illustration may be the most spot-on in terms of capturing the loneliness and desolation of Kai’s predicament.
Jérémie Fleury – The Snow Queen
Arthur Szyk is another star of the Golden Age of illustration. A Polish-born Jew, Szyk was a sensitive, socio-politically conscious artist who escaped Nazi Germany by emigrating to England during the start of WWII. He later moved to the United States, where he remained for most of his life.
Arthur Szyk – The Snow Queen (1)Arthur Szyk – The Snow Queen (2)
Yvonne Gilbert has won awards for her design and illustration, including The World’s Most Beautiful Stamp and the Golden Stamp Award for her Nativity-themed stamp designs of the mid 1980s. The following example, a theatrical poster, is a nice throwback to those classic Art Nouveau posters.
Yvonne Gilbert – The Snow Queen (theatrical poster)
And at last we arrive at my absolute favorite illustrations for this story, those of Estonian artist Vladislav Erko (or Yerko, as I’ve sometimes seen it spelled). Despite the cold, grim promise of a story set almost entirely during a Scandinavian winter, Erko fills his drawings with vibrant colors and luxurious textures, making for a joyous and inviting set of images.
Vladislav Erko – The Snow Queen (1)Vladislav Erko – The Snow Queen (2)
This next image was my computer wallpaper for awhile.
Vladislav Erko – The Snow Queen (3)Vladislav Erko – The Snow Queen (4)Vladislav Erko – The Snow Queen (5)Vladislav Erko – The Snow Queen (6)Vladislav Erko – The Snow Queen (7)Vladislav Erko – The Snow Queen (8)Vladislav Erko – The Snow Queen (9)Vladislav Erko – The Snow Queen (10)Vladislav Erko – The Snow Queen (11)
And the final image–to bring it round full circle–is by Charles Robinson.
In our continuation of the best art from the various editions of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, we look at contributions from a Golden Age great, an Art Deco master, and two contemporary artists working in the realist style.
Arthur Rackham hardly needs much of an introduction. If you don’t know his work, then I dare say you aren’t the type to be interested in illustration at all. He is widely regarded as the King of the Golden Age illustrators, and that reputation was well earned.
Arthur Rackham – The Snow Queen (1)Arthur Rackham – The Snow Queen (2)Arthur Rackham – The Snow Queen (3)Arthur Rackham – The Snow Queen (4)Arthur Rackham – The Snow Queen (5)Arthur Rackham – The Snow Queen (6)Arthur Rackham – The Snow Queen (7)Arthur Rackham – The Snow Queen (8)
Errol Le Cain was another British illustrator, though he came a bit later than Rackham, doing the bulk of his work from the late 1960s through the 1980s. Many people are aware of Le Cain through his involvement with the notoriously studio-hacked animated film project The Thief and the Cobbler. He worked mainly in a highly polished and sumptuous Art Deco style.
Errol Le Cain – The Snow Queen (1)Errol Le Cain – The Snow Queen (2)Errol Le Cain – The Snow Queen (3)Errol Le Cain – The Snow Queen (4)Errol Le Cain – The Snow Queen (5)Errol Le Cain – The Snow Queen (6)Errol Le Cain – The Snow Queen (7)Errol Le Cain – The Snow Queen (7) (detail)Errol Le Cain – The Snow Queen (8)
Bagram Ibatoulline is yet another Russian illustrator who has done a version of The Snow Queen, as well as several other beautiful children’s books like The Matchbox Diary, The Tinderbox and Crow Call. He has also illustrated many book covers.
Bagram Ibatoulline – The Snow Queen (1)Bagram Ibatoulline – The Snow Queen (2)Bagram Ibatoulline – The Snow Queen (3)Bagram Ibatoulline – The Snow Queen (4)Bagram Ibatoulline – The Snow Queen (5)
Our final series of images comes from the pen and brush of PJ Lynch, an artist who has been illustrating children’s books since the mid 1980s and has won tons of awards for his work, including the Kate Greenaway Medal.
PJ Lynch – The Snow Queen (1)PJ Lynch – The Snow Queen (2)PJ Lynch – The Snow Queen (3)PJ Lynch – The Snow Queen (4)PJ Lynch – The Snow Queen (5)PJ Lynch – The Snow Queen (6)PJ Lynch – The Snow Queen (7)PJ Lynch – The Snow Queen (8)PJ Lynch – The Snow Queen (9)PJ Lynch – The Snow Queen (10)PJ Lynch – The Snow Queen (11)PJ Lynch – The Snow Queen (12)
I do have more Charles Robinson art to post, but I thought I would take a break from that to feature some work from something a bit more seasonally appropriate.
Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales are among my favorite childhood stories, and of all of them The Snow Queen is at the top of the heap for me. It is among Andersen’s longer stories and thus feels more fleshed out than his shorter, more allegorical works. The Snow Queen, first published in 1845, has clearly influenced a great many works since its publication, some more than others. I mean, in case no one noticed, a major plot point of C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (not to mention the main villain) was pretty much ripped off whole-cloth from it.
There are a lot of cool things about this story. It’s one of the few fairy tales where almost all of the major heroes and the central villain are female. In fact, it is an outright reversal of the damsel in distress motif: the abducted/imprisoned victim, Kai (spelled Kay in some versions but pronounced like ‘pie’), in this case is a boy while his rescuer, Gerda, is a girl. Andersen really paid attention to the nuances of his female characters too; for example, the little robber girl who assists Gerda on her quest is one of the original tomboys of literature, a true little bad-ass who never combs her hair and sleeps with a dagger under her pillow. This is also a sweet romantic tale of first love between children, and even though it is a fairy tale–and an old one–the children rarely ring false, which, if you’ve read my earlier posts, you’ll know is a huge gripe of mine.
At any rate, many artists have tackled this work, and some of the art created for it is simply astounding. Here are several pieces from various editions of the story featuring some of the best illustrators of yesterday and today.
Henry Justice (H.J.) Ford was a British painter and Art Nouveau illustrator best known for his work on Andrew Lang’s color-coded Fairy Bookseries; trade paperback versions of these are available at Dover for a pretty reasonable price. If you don’t want to buy them, however, most of them are available as e-books at my favorite online reading spot, Open Library. I believe these illustrations came from The Pink Fairy Book.
Henry Justice Ford – The Snow Queen (1)Henry Justice Ford – The Snow Queen (2)Henry Justice Ford – The Snow Queen (3)Henry Justice Ford – The Snow Queen (4)Henry Justice Ford – The Snow Queen (5)
This next batch of lovely Art Deco flavored illustrations was created by Russian artist (one of several whose work will be seen in the Snow Queen posts–Russian children apparently adore this story, which makes sense if you think about it) who began her career not as an illustrator but as a painter and sculptor, but her father having died young, she was forced to hire out her talent in ways that provided more immediate gains so that her family could make ends meet. Yep, the history of art is full of stories like that, folks.
Nika Goltz – The Snow Queen (1)Nika Goltz – The Snow Queen (2)Nika Goltz – The Snow Queen (3)Nika Goltz – The Snow Queen (4)Nika Goltz – The Snow Queen (5)Nika Goltz – The Snow Queen (6)Nika Goltz – The Snow Queen (7)Nika Goltz – The Snow Queen (8)Nika Goltz – The Snow Queen (9)Nika Goltz – The Snow Queen (10)Nika Goltz – The Snow Queen (11)
Contemporary British artist Christian Birmingham has illustrated prize-winning children’s books such as The Wreck of the Zanzibar and The Butterfly Lion, but seems to prefer the ones with winter settings, making The Snow Queen an ideal match-up for him. Note: some of these images are cropped from double-page spreads, so you will see some distortions due to the folding caused by the book’s spine.
Christian Birmingham – The Snow Queen (1)Christian Birmingham – The Snow Queen (2)Christian Birmingham – The Snow Queen (3)Christian Birmingham – The Snow Queen (4)Christian Birmingham – The Snow Queen (5)Christian Birmingham – The Snow Queen (6)Christian Birmingham – The Snow Queen (7)
Our final artist for the first part of our Snow Queen series is another one of those Russian illustrators I mentioned earlier. Boris Diodorov is beloved in Russia not only for his work on the traditional fairy tales and the works of Leo Tolstoy, but also for introducing a Ruskie-fied rendition of Winnie the Pooh during the Cold War, assuring millions of Russian children would grow up adoring the ticklish, honey-loving Anglo icon too. Things like that probably did way more to thaw the ice between America and the Soviet Union than the likes of Reagan and Bush Sr. anyway. But this isn’t about politics, so let’s save that for another post and just enjoy the wonderful pictures, eh? Diodorov’s work here is a little darker than that of the other artists, but it is a pretty dark story about a kidnapped boy, so it isn’t inappropriate. And I think there’s an ambiance of Rackham and Dulac (both of whom have illustrated this story as well, incidentally) here. What do you think?
Boris Diodorov – The Snow Queen (1)Boris Diodorov – The Snow Queen (2)Boris Diodorov – The Snow Queen (3)Boris Diodorov – The Snow Queen (4)Boris Diodorov – The Snow Queen (5)Boris Diodorov – The Snow Queen (6)Boris Diodorov – The Snow Queen (7)Boris Diodorov – The Snow Queen (8)Boris Diodorov – The Snow Queen (9)Boris Diodorov – The Snow Queen (10)Boris Diodorov – The Snow Queen (11)Boris Diodorov – The Snow Queen (12)
Of all of the Robinson-illustrated works discovered over at Open Library, this may be my favorite. It is an illustrated version of one of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poems, which you can read in its entirety here if you’d rather not page through the book. The poem was originally published in 1820 with the Prometheus Bound collection; this edition came out as a single volume almost a century later (1911 to be precise). In all honesty Robinson’s illustrations have almost nothing to do–at least directly–with the poem; he simply took a well-known poetic work and used it as a launching pad to exercise his skill and imagination, making symbolic use of the poem to draw some of his favorite subjects: lovely nymphs, curve-laden natural scenes, and above all adorable little putti and fairies. This is a book I would love to own. It was made for collecting.
It should be said that the Open Library’s scan of the book is horribly dingy and contains some crooked pages; I have thus taken it upon myself to correct these in Photoshop as best I could. Despite that, the beauty of these pieces still captured me as soon I stumbled on this art nouveau masterpiece. I struggled with what to post here and briefly considered posting the book in its entirety, but I did not feel up to color correcting every page of the book. You can find it here if you want to read it all (and I heartily recommend doing so). I settled on around a third of the images. One more point of warning: several of the tipped-in color plates have either been removed or have fallen out over time, which is more than a tad irritating as those are often the highest quality images in such a book as this. But, alas, it is free for the reading and viewing so one can’t complain too awfully about the losses.
Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (half-title)Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (title)Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (introduction)Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (1)Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (2)Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (3)Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (4)Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (5)Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (6)Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (7)Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (8)Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (9)Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (10)Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (11)Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (12)Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (13)Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (14)Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (15)Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (16)Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (17)Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (18)Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (19)Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (20)Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (21)Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (22)Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (23)Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (24)Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (25)Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (26)Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (27)Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (28)Charles Robinson – The Sensitive Plant (29)
Indigo Xix 