Laurence Housman, the illustrator

Among many of those whose illustrations grace these "pages", a good number of them at one point or another have taken up the the pen for words, as well as picture. Howard Pyle practiced both with great expertise. On the other side of the pond, one inker who has caught my attention more than once is Lawrence Housman. (1865-1959)

Housman is better remembered today for his writing, it occupied the latter two thirds of his working life. He began writing with poetry in the 1890s, and then literary tales, and plays. As for his art, his inking style was incredibly intricate, and by the time he was in his mid-thirties, his eyesight had begun to fail, and with that he turned more to writing.

For about a decade, 1890-1900, he did some very beautiful line work. His style had an organic kind of flow- it reminds me of the kinds of pattern and warp you might find in wood grain, or the foam on the water. It is this natural kind of texturing that really make his work distinct. The pieces and the tales he worked with were often fantastic, with a bit of the supernatural. In the latter half of that decade, Housman did some books that, like Pyle, he wrote and illustrated. I am not aware of any illustration work that Housman did in color, but if you know of some, please let us know.

If there is work of Housman's that you are familiar with, it is likely the work from Christina Rosetti's Goblin Market. Originally published in 1893, it has been reprinted frequently and has been in print until just recently. Housman's edition is full of illustrations and decorations, and has become the definitive illustrated version of the poem. The first two images are from his Goblin Market. If there is a piece of writing of Housman's out there that you are familiar with, it may very well be his version of the Arabian Nights, a version which is frequently used for any modern reprint. Originally, it was the edition that introduced us to the Arabian Nights illustrations of Edmund Dulac.

Other images here are from Jonas Lie's Weird Tales of Northern Seas- 1892, Scandinavian folk tales

Jane Barlow's The End of Elfintown, 1894

and
The Field of Clover, 1898, one of the four collections of literary fairy tales that he wrote.

Before the books and their illustrators, there were these folks-

In the late Victorian age, when printing technology had yet to catch up with the wild imaginations of an incredible group of creatives, there was a lot of great narrative painting going on. Pre-Raphaelites and Symbolists, some being influenced by impressionists, some sticking with great painting traditions. Realist painters colliding with mythical subjects. Throw in some Art Nouveau influence, and we have some very interesting imagery.

Some of them, like Walter Crane (1845-1915) and Frederick Sandys (1829-1904), would manage to defy convention, and flourish in both the gallery world and in the commercial goings-on in early illustrated books. Most professors will tell you this isn't a possibility today. Regardless of opinion, they pulled it off pretty well then.

Over a year ago I began the selection process for the images that would result in this book, and though it went through a great deal of transformation since then, it is a terrific group of images that seldom get a moment to shine in most art collections.

It's not all (strictly) Victorian, but what's not is rooted in what started there. It's not all fantasy, there is some Mythology and some romantic history as well. All of it is very influential material that would shape the imagery produced in the Golden Age of illustration.

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Edmund Blair Leighton, The Accolade, 1901

Evelyn De Morgan, Earthbound, 1897

John William Waterhouse, Ulysses and the Sirens, 1891—maybe my favorite depiction of this story, the ship and the treatment of the Harpies are fantastic.

George Frederic Watts, The Angel of Death, c. 1870s. Watts is a dreamer's painter, and in my book should get a lot more attention.
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Also- Coming up next month is a convention in Altoona, PA, by the name of Illuxcon. This show is for fantasy illustrators and fans of that material. It's a professional level show, and I imagine a few of the folks who look over this site might be there. If you're going, let me know, I'll see you there!

New Pogány Book out from Dover

As promised...
When I started posting these entries back in February, my first comments were on a book that I have the highest regards for, as a book design, and as a collection of illustration—Willy Pogany's edition of Rime of the Ancient Mariner. It was nearby because I was in the midst of a large project to pull together some of Pogány's best illustration work. This week the book was just made available on Dover Publishing's website, and within a few days, it will be available elsewhere.

If you are not familiar with Pogány, (1882-1955) you are not alone. (Jim Vadeboncoeur's Pogany bio at Bud Plant is a good start) His most revered works are nearly a century old, and I am not aware of any serious attempt to reprint them, largely do to the complex methods originally used to achieve a wide variety of full color and partial color images. The cost of printing with these methods today would be astronomical. As I said months ago, if you can find a copy (in that rare-and-out-of print-bookstore) , ask to take a look at it. You will not go away without a new appreciation for Pogány.

What makes Pogány remarkable, is that whatever creative path he went down in his life-long career, he made it work. When British publishing was looking for the best new talents in book illustration, enter Willy Pogány. When art-deco was the look the public craved, he had no trouble simplifying and streamlining. When Hollywood became the next big means of visual storytelling, Pogány was there. Some will argue that his work feels more dated than that of his contemporaries, I think his work is more period. It reflects the taste of the era it was done in. It was Pogány's ability to change with the times that kept his career healthy his whole life.

Pogány did book work throughout his whole career, producing an amazing list of titles, and a unique portfolio of images. With this new title from Dover, I hope to bring him a bit of the respect I think he is due, and bring his vision to a generation of illustration fans that would have previously found it very difficult to obtain.

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The title page of Tannhauser, 1911. Scanned and printed in 4-color process today, it was printed in 6 colors on a dark gray stock back in the day.

They instantly changed into snow-white birds, The Fairies and the Christmas Child, 1912. Makes me want to read the story....

Siegfried captures Ludegast, Myths and Legends of the Middle Ages, 1909. DIAGONALS.

Cadmus followed the Brindled Cow, from A Wonder Book and Tanglewood Tales, 1909. Great illustration of an ordinary thing...

On the hill-top stands one old Oak-tree.... The Tale of Lohengrin, 1913. What a tree!

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Next week- another new release, over a year in the making....

The Beginnings of Modern Fantasy: H. J. Ford

This entry comes as a bit of a preview. Come next February, I have a title slated to release on Ford—Maidens, Monsters, and Heroes, The Fantasy Art of H. J. Ford.
I've given his work a look or two in relation to a given subject, (There is a nice color plate on mermaids, from a few weeks ago) but I haven't really focused in on him yet, so now is the time. What I cannot understand about Henry Justice Ford's (1860-1941) work, is how much it is overlooked. There is a ton of it out there, much of it still in print today. While Ford did some beautiful watercolor work, I find his best moments are rendered in ink. He had an understanding of contrast and placement that seems to nearly vanish from his color work. Ford's career didn't really spark until 1890, when he first collaborated with Andrew Lang on The Blue Fairy Book. This was the first in a set of fairy tale collections that he worked on with
Lang; originally with other artists as well, but once they got it down, Ford and Lang became a powerful tandem with successes that few artist/writer teams enjoy. There were 12 Fairy books, and all sorts of other anthology collections as well. Hundreds and hundreds of illustrations.

One thing I have really taken note of as I've leafed through many of the Ford editions, is that he really had a handle on the idea of a dragon—especially for the time. I cannot recall seeing other images of dragons as early as 1905, that still have the characteristics we place on them today. If Ford were working today, he would definitely be in the fantasy market—Ford's dragons hold up remarkably well, design-wise. I can't help but think that factors like wing design, head shape, and claws all still carry some of the look that Ford was using a century ago, and I imagine that most writers of Fantasy in the last hundred years, were influenced in some way by the Fairy books put out by Lang and Ford. I thought I'd share a bit of what I mean by that with these images, from the score of years that Ford was most active, from 1900-1920.

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St. George. Who takes on drawing a dragon from the back? I have to imagine he spent some time looking at some sort of lizard in a zoo, and that was the angle he got.

Beowulf. Holy cow. What a crazy wonderful piece.

A Danish Raid in Britain. In 1916 Ford took on a series of "historical" works for a school book. He must have had some luxury of time, or maybe he took the subject more seriously—these pieces are far more developed than his earlier color works, and full of details that usually only survive in his ink work.

The Giants shadow. One of my very favorite Ford inks. There is a whole story going on here, if you just take the time to look. The Giant(s) shadow, with his hand on the far left. Low in the composition is the fair damsel, standing in the rocks...and is that a prince hiding under the horse? Nice storytelling. I love the way the shape of the piece makes your eyes travel to read it.

___Next week, I'll have some images from my new title on Willy Pogány, hitting the stores any day now!