Classic Illustrators

Abstract

Classic Illustrators Joyce Thomas (bio) A Treasury of the Great Children's Book Illustrators, by Susan E. Meyer. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.1983. Ever since those first tantalizing chapbooks were peddled for pennies on the streets of London, the letter "a" has been coupled with the rotund image of an apple and the story of Jack the Giant-Killer linked to its pictorial counterparts of cloud-capped beanstalk, thieving lad, and pursuing Brobdingnagian crashing to earth. Just as children claimed for themselves works such as Robinson Crusoe that were originally written for an adult audience, so did they take over the province of illustrated literature. Somewhere along the line, children's literature became synonymous with illustrated stories, and adult literature retreated to solid print. We may well lament that loss, but one has merely to pick up a book such as The Wind in the Willows, illustrated either by Ernest Shepard or by Arthur Rackham, to experience again the magic and power of words wedded to images. The complementary union of print and picture has become a main criterion by which children's literature is evaluated. Even a weak story if skillfully illustrated seems to metamorphose into a different, stronger work, as shown by Beatrix Potter's less imaginative tales presented alongside those superb watercolor miniatures. And when a good story is well illustrated, the result is a doubly satisfactory experience for the child (or adult). At no other time in history have artists been vouchsafed such technological freedom as they have today in illustrating children's books; given this century's advances in printing and the reproduction of pictures, there seems to be virtually nothing an illustrator cannot technically do. If the latter twentieth century represents the Golden Age of children's book illustration, it does so precisely because the nineteenth century raised the illustration of children's literature to the level of true art. Today's illustrators are the descendants and heirs of individuals such as Walter Crane, Randolph Caldecott, Beatrix Potter, and Kate [End Page 195] Greenaway, who sketched and printed and painted during that other Golden Age of children's literature. In A Treasury of the Great Children's Book Illustrators, Susan E. Meyer reacquaints us with thirteen of those artistic predecessors. The chronological spectrum runs from Edward Lear, born in 1812, to Kay Nielsen, born in 1886. In between come the familiar illustrators John Tenniel, Edmund Dulac, Howard Pyle, Walter Crane, Kate Greenaway, Randolph Caldecott, Beatrix Potter, Ernest Shepard, Arthur Rackham, W. W. Denslow, and N. C. Wyeth. As Meyer notes, this baker's dozen represents the classic illustrators who had the most influence on the later illustration of children's books. While most of these artists are associated in some way with the Victorian era, many continued to work until World War I, and several of them witnessed the resurgence of children's literature and its illustration that followed World War II. Decidedly individual in their respective styles, media, and artistic interpretations, they nonetheless share an appreciation of words, a concern with printing techniques, and "the triumph of the imagination, the blend of reality and magic that transforms the written word into something seen and experienced" (8). That transformative gift is clearly—sumptuously—evidenced here in the wealth of illustrations that have been expertly reproduced. The book is a treasure chest of full- and half-page spreads, colored and black-and-white pictures. The selection seems representative of each artist's body of work within the sphere of children's literature. For example, there are twelve full-page color reproductions of Kay Nielsen's stylized, evocative paintings—five from In Powder and Crinoline, five from East of the Sun and West of the Moon, two from the unpublished A Thousand and One Nights —as well as three reduced black-and-white pictures. Arthur Rackham's versatile, fantastic art is reproduced in ten full-page color and eight black-and-white pictures. All his major works are represented: Aesop's Fables, Mother Goose, Grimm's Fairy Tales, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, Cinderella, The Arthur Rackham Fairy Book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Wind in the Willows. Overall, each illustrator's work...