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The 'Golden Age of Illustration'.

A time when many illustrators,painters and authors lent their art and talents to the illustration of Childrens books and Classic stories.Whether,A Midummer Nights Dream,Aesop Fables or Alice in Wonderland,the likes of Edmund Dulac,John Bauer,Cicely Mary Barker,Kay Nielsen and Arthur Rackham all made their names in the world of book illustration between 1900 and 1940.

Books and magazines provided lucrative markets for illustration and that attracted and rewarded the most talented, skilled artists,and in turn blurred the distinction between fine artist and commercial artists.

Prior to 1880, most graphic arts was reproduced from wood and metal engravings. While engraving was a highly-skilled art form , it was also engraver's interpretation of the artist's original work.Gustave Dore illustrations to The Bible and Dante's Inferno are superb examples of this.

By 1900 mass color printing had advanced to the point where artwork could be reproduced in print at a reasonable cost and as a consequence,there was an exponential growth in books and magazines creating and catering for a whole new mass media market.

Illustrations for children's books usually enhanced or explained the text, but in the latter quarter of the 19th cent. three artistic giants, Walter Crane, Kate Greenaway, and Randolph Caldecott, gave a new dimension to illustration. They produced the picture storybook in which interdependent text and illustration are given equal emphasis. Crane's nursery-song prints in Baby's Bouquet (1908) combine soft colors with bold composition. Greenaway's Under the Window (1878) is enhanced by delicate garden colors. In the 1870s and 80s Caldecott's nursery books displayed harmonious linear composition and warm color.

The watercolors in Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit books reveal her careful observation of small wild animals. The grandeur and dignity of Howard Pyle's portraits intensify the heroic adventures of Robin Hood (1883) and Men of Iron (1890). Two of Pyle's students were Jessie Wilcox, who illustrated Robert Louis Stevenson's Child's Garden of Verses (1905) and N. C. Wyeth, whose dramatization of individuals and landscape enriched Treasure Island (1917), Robinson Crusoe (1920), and many other works. The master illustrator Arthur Rackham produced a host of magnificent books beginning in 1900 with The Fairy Tales of Grimm. His work is noted for brilliant use of color and dramatic, detailed composition. Ernest Shepard's drawings for A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) and for an edition of Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows (1931) are warm and humorous.

Golden age fantasy illustration included a wide variety of themes; myths and legends, romantic tales, monsters and fairies, science fiction, adventure and children's stories.

Artists were free to use their imaginations and come up with illustration solutions to odd questions: What does a dragon look like? How do I draw a ghost?

Illustrators in the early 1900s could refer back to fine art paintings such as the works of Pieter Bruegel, Francisco Goya and William Blake, or the contemporary work of surrealist painters.

But often they were on their own, creating new interpretations of fantasy stories from Grimm's Fairy Tales to Jules Verne.

Fantasy art of the Golden Age of Illustration laid the groundwork for later comic books and science-fiction pulp magazine art of the 1930s and 1940s. After a decline during the early 1920s, the golden age of the picture book began with the publication of Wanda Gág's Millions of Cats (1928). In 1938 the American Library Association instituted the Caldecott Medal for the most distinctive American picture book for children. The first recipient was Dorothy Lathrop for Animals of the Bible (1937). A number of major illustrators whose works are still popular emerged in the 1930s. Kurt Wiese illustrated Kipling's Mowgli Stories (1936). Helen Sewell employed a realistic style for The First Bible (1934).

Maud and Miska Petersham's The Christ Child (1931) and Jean de Brunhoff's broadly drawn, delightful Story of Babar, the Little Elephant (1931) were among the outstanding books of the 30s. Robert Lawson's Ben and Me (1939) was the first of many witty books that he wrote and illustrated, including Rabbit Hill (1944) and The Fabulous Flight (1949). Dr. Seuss's popular, cleverly drawn books for young children began with And to Think that I Saw It on Mulberry Street (1937). Boris Artzybasheff illustrated Aesop and The Seven Simeons (both 1937) with bold woodcuts.

In the next decade Robert McCloskey produced superb illustrations for Make Way for Ducklings (1941). Garth Williams's realistic, expressive drawings brought to life E. B. White's Stuart Little (1945) and Charlotte's Web (1952). The painter Maxfield Parrish created a series of glowing and colorful illustrations for a children's version of The Arabian Nights (1947). Wesley Dennis created powerful watercolors for many horse books by Marguerite Henry. The first book in the charming Madeleine series, written and illustrated in a broad, painterly style by Ludwig Bemelmans, appeared in 1939; his Parsley (1953), the story of a stag, incorporates a colorful catalog of wildflowers. Marcia Brown's Puss in Boots (1952) is light and whimsical.

Some of these artists such as Kay Nielsen and Gustaf Tenggren in later years joined with Walt Disney to produce art and illustrations for the new field of animation.Others such as Maxfield Parrish,Boris Artybasheff,Harry Clarke ,Aubrey Beardsley and Bosschere were wll known for their contributions to the art of advertising.

Painters such as John Anster Fitzgerald,'The Fairy Man' created stunningly visual art that precluded the Golden Age of Illustration and his works have withstood the test of time through his use of vivid colours and highly original interpretation of 'Fantasy Art'

Illustrators such as ,Dugald Stewart Walker,Aubrey Beardsley,Jean De Bosschere,Harry Clarke and Arthur Rackham all became well known through their mastery of line drawings and their drwaings for many of the classic stories of yesteryear.

Nearly all of the well known book illustrators from that golden era,were prolific illustrators of Hans Christian Anderson,The Grimm Brothers,Aesop,Wagnerian Operas and Shakespearean tales.

Men and Woman both dominated the field of childrens book illustrations and authors like Cicely Mary Barker,Jessie Wilcox Smith,Kate Greenaway and Virginia Sterrett were also just as prolific and well known as their male counterparts,all placing their unique vision and style on a genre that has entranced generations of children and adults alike.

Fairyworx has in excess of 10,000 illustrations on this site many of which are now in the public domain;though not nessacarily free from copyright.All of the illustrators images on this site have been sourced from the 'Public Domain' and via this site placed back in the public domain as collections for visitors to this site to view and download.Fairyworx is a 'Visual' site and is orientated towards displaying the imagery of these artists.

Fairyworx by Mike