British Illustrators 21: Aubrey Beardsley and Salome

Off Prompt: British Illustrators 21: Aubrey Beardsley and Salome

OK, Salome was very much not a children’s book. So how does Aubrey Beardsley qualify? Well, I can stretch the point because although Aubrey Beardsley was very much not a children’s illustrator, he did at one point illustrate an edition of the 1001 Arabian Nights. And furthermore. . . he was a genius in my book. Effectively his career lasted about 6 years, before his tragic early death from tuberculosis at the age of 26. For the later part of that career he was often vilified. However his work is now more popular than ever, and his influence on artists, and graphic designers since the 60s has been frankly immense.

Looking at this famous image you can see some of the hallmarks of the Art Nouveau style of which Beardsley was an innovator – the elongated liquid forms, for example. But look at the way he uses monochrome – this was not years ahead of his time, but decades. I first came to know of Beardsley and his work when I was 17, and studying my English A levels. (A levels are/were the qualifications you needed to pass in England and Wales in order to gain a place to study at University). One of my fellow students was not, frankly, great at English, but he was a superb artist, and he told me about basing his final project on Beardsley. When I researched this name which I knew nothing about, I too fell instantly under his spell.

British Illustrators 20: Mervyn Peake and Treasure Island

Mervyn Peake is another of our great writer-illustrators. Today he’s best remembered for his three dark, gothic Gormenghast fantasy novels. I thoroughly enjoyed both “Titus Groan” and “Gormenghast”, the first two novels of the series, although I really couldn’t get on with “Titus Alone”, the final novel of the series. However, focusing on Mervyn Peake as an illustrator,  I’ve chosen to copy one of his brilliant illustrations for Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island.

Mervyn Peake was actually born in China, of British parents, although he left China never to return when he was 11 years old. He trained as an artist in the Royal Academy Schools, but by his early 20s he was already writing poetry as well as painting. In a varied career, Peake actually designed the logo for Pan Books, a popular paperback imprint. The story goes that he was offered the choice of either a flat fee or a royalty of a farthing (1/4 of an old penny) per book, and on the advice of Graham Greene turned down the royalty and thus lost a small fortune. Peake was a lifelong lover of the work of Robert Louis Stevenson, and his illustrations for Treasure Island are, in my opinion, among the finest ever made of a book which has always been a favourite of mine as well. It took ages to make this copy. Peake’s style in this illustration eschews long continuous lines – apart from in the shading of the background.