Attempted Bloggery: Sir John Tenniel

Showing posts with label Sir John Tenniel. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 9, 2022

Arthur Rackham: Alice and the Pack of Cards

In 1907, British illustrator Arthur Rackham created the art for a new edition of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The original watercolor for the iconic scene in which "the whole pack [of cards] rose up into the air, and came flying down upon her," Alice, is currently held by Peter Harrington of London. Play your cards right and it can be yours for 125,000 GBP.

Arthur Rackham
AbeBooks listing accessed November 8, 2022

https://www.abebooks.com/signed/whole-pack-rose-air-came-flying/31307610158/bd?cm_ven=nl&cm_cat=trg&cm_pla=want_CM&cm_ite=viewbook_high

Compare the familiar wood engraving of Sir John Tenniel's 1865 illustration:

https://victorianweb.org/art/illustration/tenniel/alice/12.3.html

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Saturday, January 21, 2012

Open Your Hands Wide, Embrace Happiness!

I wouldn't call myself a fan of anime, but I do like Takashi Murakami's smiling flowers which seem vaguely reminiscent of Japanese cartoons. They do puzzle me a little bit, though. That title, "Open Your Hands Wide, Embrace Happiness!" sounds like a 1970's self-help book. These flowers have their origins in drawings Murakami made for prep school students learning how to draw flowers. I find myself searching warily for signs of irony, but I don't see any, just endlessly-repeated smiling flowers! Are they exultant, or are they mocking?

Sotheby's is selling this artwork in London on February 15. Their auction listing includes two figures with flowers, one traditional (by Ogata Korin) and one contemporary (by Jeff Koons), that have some bearing on the flowers that are such an essential part of Murakami's work. I personally think this work is better compared with the singing flowers in Walt Disney's "Alice in Wonderland" (1951).

Takashi Murakami
Open Your Hands Wide, Embrace Happiness!

http://www.sothebys.com/en/catalogues/ecatalogue.html/2012/contemporary-art-evening-auction-l12020#/r=/en/ecat.fhtml.L12020.html+r.m=/en/ecat.lot.L12020.html/6/

February 15, 2012: Sold for $825,250 including buyer's premium.

Figure 1, Ogata Korin, Irises, c. 1700, Nezu Museum, Japan

Figure 2, Jeff Koons, Large Vase of Flowers, 1991

http://www.sothebys.com/en/catalogues/ecatalogue.html/2012/contemporary-art-evening-auction-l12020#/r=/en/ecat.fhtml.L12020.html+r.m=/en/ecat.lot.L12020.html/6/

The Garden of Live Flowers from Walt Disney's "Alice in Wonderland" (1951)

http://www.alice-in-wonderland.net/alice2d.html

Sir John Tenniel, "Alice in the Garden of Live Flowers," from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1871.

Note: Sir John Tenniel was last mentioned in my blog post on A Mad Tea Party, for some reason one of my most popular posts ever. I show how five different illustrators have handled Lewis Carroll's "A Mad Tea Party." Catch it here.

Has it really been four weeks since my last Disney post? What was I thinking? If you missed it, you can read it here.

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Sunday, July 31, 2011

A Mad Tea Party

Sir John Tenniel's original illustrations for Lewis Carroll's Alice books remain familiar even today. Over the years many other fine illustrators and artists have been inspired to take on this masterpiece of children's literature. Below are a few examples of different illustrative approaches to A Mad Tea Party.

Here we have a color plate of Sir John Tenniel's famous original illustration for the Lewis Carroll classic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). This well-established image is clearly the one to beat. But even if an illustrator could surpass this, is it possible for any image to replace this one in the public's imagination?

Arthur Rackham, A Mad Tea Party, 1907

Arthur Rackham's book illustrations generally occupy a full page and are therefore usually more vertical compositions, or what we in the digital age call the portrait orientation. This is more beautiful than Tenniel's woodcut rendering and more ornate, but it may be a little too sedate for a truly Mad Tea Party. Alice's unease is palpable. Tenniel's Alice was downright cross.

J. MacFarlane, The Mad Tea-Party

22. Dodgson (Charles Lutwidge)], "Lewis Carroll." Macmillan's Coloured Wall Illustrations, Alice in Wonderland, wall-hanging, 6 large colour illustrations by J.MacFarlane, linen backed, original wooden wall hanger, slightly dusty, 730 x 500mm., [c.1920].

est. £200 – £300

Sold for £2000

Sale 35824, 7th July 2011

The above illustration by J. MacFarlane is little more than an appealing reworking of the Tenniel original, circa 1920. MacFarlane changes the composition from horizontal to vertical, presumably to accommodate the orientation of the wall-hanging.

Ralph Steadman, A Mad Tea Party, 1967

Ralph Steadman's skill as a draftsman is uncanny. Here his rendition from 1967 is the rudest Mad Tea Party I have found, hardly your typical children's book fare. Note the very original and appropriate use of upside-down typesetting. Steadman often brings a stunning savagery to his illustrations--this one, believe it or not, is relatively tame--and yet his compositions frequently are just brilliant. I don't think there's anything he can't draw. Like Alice, though, I think I might like to slink under the table here.

Salvador Dali, A Mad Tea Party, lithograph, 1969

Dali places his characters in the background, where Alice is the figure jumping rope. Consequently, this seems to be more of an artistic composition based on the story rather than a true illustration of Alice's adventure. Like Steadman, Dali has a tree growing through the middle of the table, here rendered as a pocket watch with a key. We've all seen Dali's bent timepieces before, but was there ever a more appropriate use than here at the Mad Tea Party with the perennially late White Rabbit in attendance?