This is the second part of a two-part post on the Charles Robinson-illustrated children’s picture book The Story of the Weathercock. You can check out the first part here if you haven’t done so already. More fantastic art from this extraordinary illustrator is coming soon, so don’t miss it!
I just finished this drawing today. It was created for a friend and was done with pen and ink on a 14 x 17 piece of Bristol board. The image features two major characters from Clive Barker’s Nightbreed/Cabal universe. The shadowy black figure holding up the circle is the Nightbreed’s god Baphomet. I imagine him as more feminized than he appeared in the film, almost androgynous, so I tried to draw him that way. But the main figure of this image is the tentacle-headed Peloquin, kind of the mascot of the Nightbreed. The image isn’t perfect; but, as I have been out of practice on my drawing, not having picked up a pencil or pen since early last year, I think it turned out pretty decent. What do you think?
Hola! Hope everyone had a great New Year’s!
So, over at Open Library they have an online copy of a wonderful children’s book written by Evelyn Sharp and illustrated by the incredible Charles Robinson (whose brother William Heath Robinson was also an amazing illustrator) called The Story of the Weathercock, which I thought I’d feature some of the art from. There are over one hundred sixty illustrations for the book and originally I had planned to select the top twenty and post those, but I simply couldn’t whittle it down to that. Then I figured I’d post around forty drawings. And here we are now. I’ve decided to go with fifty drawings and break them into two posts of twenty-five each.
Robinson was a prolific illustrator of the Golden Age who generally worked in a sumptuous art nouveau style, such that even his simplest pieces are often elegant and suggestive of artworks that are more elaborate. I’m sure I’ll dig up more of his work over there, in which case you’ll get the crème de la crème of whatever I find. Enjoy!
Is it just me or does the film version of Falkor the Luckdragon from The Neverending Story look like it was ripped off from this dragon? And I love that film, mind you, but . . . yeah.
Greetings! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, Festivus, Yule or whatever holiday you celebrate this time of year. Not to be a downer but it’s been a tough one for some people. A good friend of mine, for example, lost his home and most of his belongings to a fire a couple of weeks back, including all of the Christmas presents he’d already bought. Luckily he made it out of the house unscathed. To make matters worse though, his 13-year-old granddaughter was staying with him at the time, though she was out of the house (next door) at the time it happened. She called me–upset and in tears–to tell me her grandpa’s house was in flames. I live less than a mile away from him so I rushed right over to comfort her and see if I could be of any assistance. By the time I arrived the house was already engulfed and the fire trucks were arriving; about all I could do by then was stay out of everyone’s way and offer moral support to the family. When all was said and done there was almost nothing left but the charred house frame.
Things like this, even when they don’t affect one directly, serve to remind him or her that the universe can be capricious and that life and livelihood are sometimes fragile things, so take that how you will. Sure, there have been setbacks for me this year too, some pretty big ones in fact, but nothing like losing my home and everything I own and for that I am ever grateful. Also, I am cherishing my friends and family just a bit more than usual these days because you never know when you might lose them forever. People do perish even on or near holidays. Which reminds me, my heart goes out to the family of little Delaney Brown–I can’t even imagine what it must be like to lose a child on Christmas day. Wow. But I am glad that her suffering is over at least.
In less depressing news, I’ve been drawing again. I’m currently working on a piece for a good friend based on Clive Barker’s Nightbreed/Cabal mythos, and I am taking inspiration from Art Nouveau, Jugenstil, Secessionism, or whichever of its dozens of names you choose to call it by, as I have been perusing the issues of Gustav Klimt’s Ver Sacrum magazine at Heidelberg University’s online library. They have most of the run of Jugendstil magazine as well if you’re interested. Even though the piece I’m doing isn’t strictly Art Nouveau, it has a definite Art Nouveau flavor and I am quite excited about the way it is turning out. I’m currently in the pencil stage, which is the most time consuming of the drawing process for these kinds of pieces; the inking stage generally goes a bit quicker because the lines are already laid down and it’s mostly a matter of tracing over them at that point. When the piece is finished I will scan it and post it here for everyone to see.
Speaking of Nightbreed, I am quite thrilled about the news that the legendary Cabal Cut of Barker’s film is finally being released to the public. I was moderately obsessed with the Cabal novel as a teenager; its story of the persecution of those who are different really resonated with me. Actually, Nightbreed was the first prerecorded VHS film I ever bought for myself, way back in the early nineties. Hard to believe it’s been over twenty years since I purchased that film, or since Kurt Cobain died by self-inflicted gunshot wound, or since the first Addams Family film hit theaters, or . . .
Sheesh, I’m getting old.
There is often some confusion about the distinction between illustration and fine art. This is likely because originally the media used for illustration was quite limited, consisting predominantly of that which could be easily reproduced faithfully and cheaply. However, with the invention of new printing processes, almost any form of art using any media could be reproduced well and affordably, which really opened up the field. Now it is not unusual to see painters serving as illustrators for children’s books, for example. Or, for that matter, to see drawings or woodblock prints hanging in museums.
Thus, the true distinction between illustration and fine art is not in what media are used to produce it but rather how the medium is used. Illustration, from the Latin word illustro, meaning ‘to enlighten,’ serves, then, to reinforce the text of a manuscript or work in the interest of helping the reader visualize what is being described, whereas fine art is created to be independent, self-contained work.
Of all the forms of illustration, I frequently find black-and-white pen work to be the most interesting. I think this is because black-and-white is by definition a high contrast format, and the juxtaposition of these two starkly opposite colors reveals an almost primal level of semiotics that is readily apparent even to those untrained in either art or symbolism. That is to say, it is generally much easier to pick out errors in a black-and-white rendering as opposed to a color one because the nature of the medium plays to a very basic level of aesthetic appreciation in us. This is especially true when the artist is attempting to depict something realistically. Thus, mastering black-and-white drawing is trickier than many people think, and the results are often hit or miss in keeping with the binary aspect of the medium.
There are a number of ways pen-and-ink artists can tackle this problem. One is to perfect drawing patterns to convey the proper shading, textures and so on. The more of these an illustrator can master, the more varied the drawing, so that these take the place of colors to the eye. Another is for the artist to play to the abstract nature of black-and-white and use these two colors in an almost philosophical way. And so on.
Below are some of the most extraordinary examples of this format from the book Drawing with Pen and Ink edited by Arthur L. Guptill.
The first example is from Aubrey Beardsley, an artist whose work I confess I did not much care for when I first encountered it as an adolescent. Although his general style has grown on me over the years, I am still not particularly partial to his rendering of figures. Still, he was a genius in terms of his style and compositions and was hugely influential on both his art nouveau contemporaries and many artists who followed him. Beardsley was really a master at conveying a lot with very little, choosing his marks carefully and emphasizing the beauty and elegance of lines and forms over realistic depictions.
Ernest Peixotto was a Gilded Age American artist and travel writer of Sephardic Jewish descent, and that’s about all I know of him. Note how the breaking up of lines and shapes in this illustration gives the viewer a sense of light filling up this outdoor scene.
Franklin Booth’s painstakingly rendered drawings may look like they were produced with the woodblock print, but in fact this was his illustration style, learned as a child by copying the woodblock prints he saw in books and magazines with his pen. This piece is called The New House. In the background you can see that the house is still being constructed.
J.C. Halden doesn’t seem to have been a very prolific artist as I could find absolutely no information on him on the internet. Nevertheless, he was clearly a talented illustrator, as this next piece demonstrates. The somewhat sketchy style of Old House at Laval, France really helps to express the age and dilapidation of this building.
Ed McGraw is another artist I had never heard of until I was introduced to this book. And again, note how the looseness of the lines projects a sense of decay and age to the room. Even the figures somehow feel ancient beyond their years.
James Montgomery Flagg is primarily known for his iconic army recruitment poster featuring a stern-looking Uncle Sam pointing at the viewer and proclaiming “I want you!” But for my part, I rather prefer his black-and-white pen work in illustrations like this one. In this case the loose, fast lines suggest something different than those in the drawings above; it seems to capture the warm, somewhat hectic nature of a happy home life.
Richard Flanigan seems to take the opposite approach to artists like Flagg in this drawing. Flanigan’s lines are tight here, but his shapes are organic enough to compensate, and the whole piece feels intimate and inviting despite the skulls and devilish carved faces.
John R. Neill is best known as the illustrator of numerous volumes in Frank L. Baum’s Oz series. Although W.W. Denslow did the artwork for the first and most famous Oz book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Neill illustrated every Oz book that followed up until his death, including the entire Baum run (thirteen of the fourteen Oz books penned by Baum), the twenty books written by Ruth Plumly Thompson for the series, and the three authored by Neill himself. Neill’s Oz illustrations were not as cartoonish as Denslow’s but were no less charming in style in my estimation, and were typically superior in composition and detail. In fact, his long run on this series earned him the title of the Royal Illustrator of Oz. Sadly, to my knowledge no one has yet collected a book of Neill’s best Oz art, or any book of his art at all. This is an injustice to Neill and to fans of his work and of the Oz series.
This next drawing by Walter Jardine may be my favorite in the entire book. Jardine’s mastery of texture and composition is simply astounding. I particularly love that nautilus shell cup; I can’t stop staring at it whenever I see this piece, and it really makes me want to reach right into the drawing and pick it up!
And last but not least, the incomparable Willy Pogany. Pogany was a Hungarian-born Golden Age illustrator who received his initial artistic training in Budapest, although he didn’t stay there long, moving to Paris and then to London, where he remained for awhile, his work steadily growing in popularity. Clearly at home in large metropolises, it is little wonder that he eventually found himself in New York City, where he spent much of the remainder of his life. Pogany’s style varies from the sparse–almost Spartan, you might say–approach for fairy tale and classical mythology collections to more heavily detailed pieces like the one that follows. I am quite fond of his work for a book of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, one of my favorite poems.
Note: you can see higher quality versions of these drawings, as well as others from the same book that aren’t featured here (not to mention a great deal more excellent artwork from the masters of Golden Age illustration), at this site.
This is the second post on Spanish artist Carlos Sáenz de Tejada; you can find the first one here. If you haven’t already done so, I’d advise reading it, as it provides some background information on the artist.
Take a look at this masterful composition with its controlled chaos. Note how your eye initially moves with the flow of the people in their ‘Z’ formation down the steps, and then–because the figures at the bottom are facing the opposite direction–back up the steps again. The scene keeps the viewer transfixed, and the point near the bottom where the railing breaks and people begin to spill off the stairs becomes the focal point of the image. Tejada knows exactly how to create tension . . . and hold it.
Another excellent composition. Please ignore the Nazi and fascist flags and pay attention merely to the design. Take note of how the image itself mimics a ‘V’, the first letter in the magazine’s title, and how the red and black flag of the Falange (upper right, just below the second ‘E’ in ‘VERTICE’) mimics the red diacritic mark above the first ‘E’. The repeating pattern of the flags completes this stylized art deco design.
It’s a sad fact that cultural genius isn’t always aligned with moral superiority. Possibly no one exemplifies that fact more than German artist Fidus, whose work will certainly be represented here in the near future. Fidus, as a key member of Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach’s early 20th century German nature cult, started out strong, but he eventually found himself under the influence of a new cult: Nazism. Another brilliant artist with questionable allegiances was painter and illustrator Carlos Sáenz de Tejada, who strongly supported the Franco regime in Spain during the Spanish Civil War, although as a Carlist sympathist, a group with its own gripes against the state. Tejada, whose family came from a long line of nobility, at least had a strong reason to support the ultra-nationalist Franco.
Anyway, Tejada was born to Spanish parents (his father a diplomat) in Tangier, Morocco in 1897. His family eventually found themselves in Madrid, where their precocious boy began his art training early under Daniel Cortes, and then José María López Mezquita, and finally–after joining the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando–under one of my very favorite painters, Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida. Soon Tejada was producing tons of illustrations for many famous publications, including La Libertad, Neuvo Mundo, Robe, Jardin des Modes, Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar.
Eventually Tejada’s work fell largely into two main disciplines: fashion illustration and pro-nationalist propaganda art. As one might expect, stylistically these two categories of work were almost completely at odds, with his soldiers and workers rendered as strength incarnate–heavily detailed in musculature and angular forms–while his drawings of modish women are generally delicate and lacking in detail. And yet, as we shall see, both are quintessentially Tejada.
The artist was by no means limited to those two artistic themes, however, as we’ll also see; his work runs the gamut from highly formal (but never staid) realist portraits and figurative paintings to his art deco-flavored magazine illustrations to his late career art nouveau-tinged fairy tale illustrations for Juan Ramón Jiménez’s Platero y yo.
The second part of our artistic homage to the human skeleton brings us to a variety of pieces ranging in date from the Victorian era up to the contemporary period. This first piece is a stunning 19th century Russian rocking chair. I don’t know the artist, so I am just going to put it up sans identifying info. This falls into what is commonly called fantasy furniture, which we will take a look at properly sometime in the future. God, I would soooooo love to have this . . .
Nikolai Kalmakov was an outsider artist of Russian heritage who spent much of his life in Paris, France. Once an aristocrat, he later became a recluse, living alone and producing his work quietly in his cramped little room; it remained completely undiscovered until his death in 1955. You can peruse a nice selection of his incredible Symbolist-inflected work at this site. I really encourage you to take a look.
Noriyoshi Ohrai is a Japanese illustrator best known for his Star Wars posters and book covers, as well as a variety of other science fiction work. This piece dates from circa late 1970s and seems to be a commentary on the Vietnam War, but don’t quote me on that.
Sam Weber is an illustrator and graphic designer based in NYC. That’s about all I know of him.
Painter Chris Peters has opted to work in the long tradition of the Vanitas painting, which, if you don’t know, is an artwork in which a skull or other representation of death is incorporated to remind the viewer of his or her own mortality, although Peters takes it in a much different direction than usual by using full skeletons in common poses as the central figures.
Mathias Lopes Castro (a.k.a. Mathiole) is another recent discovery. His work is a wonderful fusion of old and new styles and reminds me a bit of the incredible James Jean.
Michael Whelan is one of the most recognized names in the illustration biz today, and for good reason. This piece was used as one of the covers for the DAW anthology series The Year’s Best Horror Stories.
I have no identifying information on this final piece, but it was too beautiful not to include. If someone knows the pertinent info and/or has a larger and higher quality version of this they wouldn’t mind shooting my way, I’d very much appreciate it.
Keeping with our Halloween theme this month, let’s look at some skeleton art. We’ll focus on early illustration for the first of these posts and then diversify on the next go-round. Some of these are anatomical illustrations, others symbolic representations of death, and still others used simply for their decorative appeal. But they’re all creepy in their own way.
There’s nothing like an arrangement of infants’ skeletons to really give one the heebie-jeebies.
This next image you’ve probably seen in some form or other but didn’t know who the artist was or what it was called. Well, if you’ve ever wondered, here is the relevant info. Rethel actually did a few of these images of Death, including the drawing directly following the one below, but this is the most famous of them. This piece was so powerful it is said to have caused his friends nightmares, no kidding.
The following drawing was part of a series of anatomical illustrations created as an artist’s reference by anatomist Francesco Bertinatti and illustrator Mecco Leone. By the mid 1800s, with the explosion of art in the Victorian world and an increasingly realistic understanding of anatomy, these sorts of references became quite popular. This one, as is evident from the size of the skull in relation to the rest of the skeleton, is of a young child.
With the Industrial Revolution at full tilt in the early 20th century, there were dangers aplenty in factories and warehouses, and with many workers at the time being barely literate, posters like these were often much more effective at getting the point across than simple text-only signs. This poster carries the same words in Czech and German: “Be careful of hanging loads!”
Similar posters were also used to warn drivers and pedestrians to be careful around those new high-speed machines that were becoming more and more ubiquitous. I really like the overall design of this poster. It is somewhat cartoonish, but that doesn’t diminish its elegance or its power at all, I think, and the lovely Art Deco touches elevate this to something more than just a public service message.
“Beware of traffic on all roads whether coming or going” reads the text of this Dutch poster, arranged into a little rhyme for extra memorability.
Incidentally, the majority of these came from the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s morbidly beautiful Dream Anatomy exhibit. Each of the images is accompanied by a brief description of its history, and the series is placed in historical context. It’s well worth checking out if you are intrigued by such things.
Here are a handful of artists that are perfect for admiring while you wait for the creeping approach of All Hallow’s Eve. I’ve actually chosen pieces that are relatively mild for some of these guys, so if you have the stomach for the more gruesome stuff, I’ll lead you in the right direction and the rest is up to you . . .
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John Abrahamson happens to be one of the first artists I discovered when I got my internet connection lo these many years ago. His work often incorporates the sort of religious iconography that flourished in the Middle Ages, only turned to darker ends. While at first these appear to be little more than overtly Satanic paintings, in reality they are sensitive meditations on individual suffering, guilt and frustration that use occult semiotics to that end.
Kris Kuksi is a sculptor who takes the concept of model kit-bashing in whole new, completely spectacular directions. His finely detailed pieces call to mind (and frequently reference) Gothic cathedral ornamentation, rococo design and Indian Hindu temple decorations, matching these with military weaponry for an interesting take on modern international warfare. The muted or monotone colors lend the false impression of age and weight to the pieces.
Maciej Swieszewski was a recent discovery. His disturbing, intricate brand of surrealism seems to draw a good deal of inspiration from the likes of the phenomenal Ian Miller, among others. I particularly like the first painting here, with its many shades of green and yellow. For me it calls to mind Fleetwood Mac’s “The Green Manalishi“, a song about the mental breakdown caused by frequent use of LSD.
And last but not least, what would this post be without a couple of pieces from the dark art granddaddy of them all, H. R. Giger? What can be said about Giger that hasn’t already been said?
Indigo Xix 
