Collections
Reminiscent of the Golden Age of Illustration, these artists employ crisp, prominent line work to depict whimsical moments from stories real or imagined. Their work is typically flat, in a style reminiscent of Nouveau or lithography. Washes of color serve to block out focal points and create atmosphere. Texture is often achieved with mottled watercolor and paper textures, and/or patterns of exacting detail such as feathers, scales, individual strands of hair, or leaves on trees. Forms are frequently full-body portraits of characters in action, depicted in a manner that makes the figures seem piled up vertically on the page. Focused in the first 20 years of the 20th century, artists such as Edmund Dulac ([link]) , and Arthur Rackham ([link]) were foremost in this particular style of book illustration, and created some of the most famous images we know of classics such as "Peter Pan", "Alice in Wonderland", "Arabian Nights", and collections from Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm. This style was created by a need for reproduction. Line was used to hide areas where layers of color in the printing process had not perfectly lined up. "...artists were discovering the possibilities of color, particularly under the influence of the Pre-Raphaelite painters and emulations of hand-printing techniques by the design-oriented Arts and Crafts Movement. Edmund Dulac, Arthur Rackham, Walter Crane and Kay Nielsen were notable representatives of this style, which often carried an ethos of neo-mediævalism and took mythological and fairy-tale subjects." (Wikipedia, under Illustration, supset: Golden age of illustration) The artists I am collecting for this gallery are some of my most prominent sources of inspiration as I teach myself to work in a similar style. I hope you enjoy it!
