Rating Rackham

Heh heh heh...  I so love finding cheesey titles for these posts. It amuses me. I know - I'm an idiot, but as long as it makes me happy, hey, what's the problem?

AAAAAAAnyhoo - I have a post for later about inspiration journals (kind of) but while I'm waiting to get the light right to take photos I thought I'd make mention of another early influence on whats I likes in the artyverse. And that would be the moody and uniquely wonderful illustrative work of Arthur Rackham.

I don't know what I love more - the style or the subject matter... I love his expressive use of muted, blended tones, picking out significant detail with a perfect eye for presentation. I've ALWAYS been fascinated with myths and legends and so I suppose I was naturally drawn to these images as part of the storytime reading experiences when I was a kid, but the love just stayed with me and I adore them as much today as I did then.

 

His work appears as stunning illustrations to editions of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, Alice in Wonderland, Grimm's Fairy Tales, Gulliver's Travels and more and they've been the source of inspiration for thousands of artists, both amateur and professional right to this day. 

 Rackham's an interesting guy - and you can learn more about him and enjoy his art by checking out this site:

http://arthur-rackham-society.org/links.html

I've linked to the site's own link page as it's probaby the most useful one. Go rummage and enjoy and I'll be back later with more rambly stuff and pics. And stuff.  xxx