There be Dragons

A Changing of the Guard

Although my life is steeped in books, I try to not rely on "book review" type of columns for this blog. Once in a while I encounter a volume special and unique, and it can't be helped. This tale—however—marks a transition of sorts, and that change is almost as worthwhile a discussion (although another one all together) as the art that brought it to my attention.

But first, this new batch of art. A few years back a portfolio of naturalist-type plates was brought to my attention at Dover Publications. They were big plates, nearly 30 of them, and in a wide range of color. (Chromalithographs, not process color)  From 1896-1909. Some incredible fish, crustaceans, and birds. The real surprise was that there were dragons. Worked in, right with all this terrific real world stuff, were a nice range of different types of dragons with an Art Nouveau flair. Killer stuff, really.

Finding info about the artist, Anton Seder (1850-1916), isn't easy. He was from Munich, and did a number of botanical and zoological plate sets, some in conjunction with other artists. in 1890 he became the Director at The College of Decorative Arts in Strasbourg (France or Germany, depending on the period) for twenty-six years(?). One has to wonder what inspired the addition of the fantasy element in this set, but it's very refreshing for the period. (a nice bunch of decorative samples)

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OK. But that's not the transition I'm talking about.
The difference here, is that the set was released by Dover last month, but only in digital form. You can get it in all it's hi-res glory, for just a few bucks, but it's not in print.


If you are not aware, Dover is selling it's image libraries online now, by page or by collection. As you might expect, all of its clip art that has been available on disc, is now available there. But now, new material, never before available, including Anton Seder's Dragons (& company) is available as well. And new collections will be added constantly. So if you enjoy digging through images of all kinds (If you didn't, you wouldn't be here) keep an eye on www.doverpictura.com.

The site is still in development, but improvements are happening constantly. If you have a suggestion for the site, contact them there.


Plates from this and other Seder sets, from an art dealer—



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Wahoo! VIEW broke the 100 follower figure! I have books of choice to send out to the following five lucky followers.
I'll try to get in touch with you for mailing info, or you can track me down as well. Thanks everyone.

Stephanie Pui-Mun Law

Ava Plum

Heather Hudson

Jason Juta

Stephany Benbow

Heinrich Kley, Grand Master of Ink

It seems regardless of my direction these past few weeks, I keep getting pointed to the work of German illustrator and artist Heinrich Kley (1863-1945). Comparably, few know of his work, but it is often held in high regard among those that do. Kley is about to get some attention that is long overdue, and it is worth making sure that more people are aware of his work and the new books on the way.

I found (almost literally… I bought them from a street vender) two volumes that Dover had published of Kley’s work while I was an undergraduate student in the mid-eighties. The copies I bought were twenty years old then. I was stunned how much the imagery reminded me of the ink work Jeff Jones produced monthly for Heavy Metal Magazine, in a regular strip Jones called "I’m Age". The work was incredibly loose, fluid and refreshingly sketch-like, but had beautiful clarity where it was most deserved.

Kley first appeared in German periodicals out of Munich around 1907. Previous to that he'd been in fine arts and a book illustrator. His work from the next decade often comments on social and political issues, and not unlike his contemporary Charles Dana Gibson, he often sought out subject matter depicting the struggles between the sexes.

The two Dover volumes I mention above gave Kley a small but loyal following here in America, but he was otherwise nearly forgotten about. The first one, The Drawings of Heinrich Kley, is still in print.

Sometime last year I got hold of issue eight of Jim Vadeboncoeur’s Images magazine, (I highly recommend it) which featured numerous color works by Kley, and also pointed out that he regularly contributed color work to German magazines of the day, including one called Jugend. The color plates I have here are all from Jugend, 1911, while the line works are from those Dover collections mentioned above.

A friend with an eye on VIEW—Tom Kidd—pointed out to me recently two new volumes of Kley’s work are about to be—or have recently been—released by Lost Art Books. These two volumes feature hundreds of Kley’s images that have not been reprinted for near a century, in some cases, more. Scoop them up while you can. Bud Plant announced them yesterday on his page as well.

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While I’m currently consumed by two large projects, VIEW is not getting the attention it deserves from me, but it is very much in my mind and I will maintain it as frequently as time allows.


VIEW needs ONE more new follower until I send five folks their choice of any of the Dover books found on my Author’s Page at Amazon. If you are interested in receiving one of your choice, just let me know in a comment. I’ll be in touch with five randomly selected winners as soon as we hit 100.

Have a happy and safe New Year!!   Jeff

These tortoises were definitely the inspiration
for the cover of the Grateful Dead's "Terrapin Station"

There are still treasures to find

While I'm still tied up in a crazy amount of work, I've had to find a way to mention some of the things that have happened this past few weeks—and—share an amazing Golden Age find with you.

In the last week I spent four days at Illuxcon, in Altoona, PA. If you are unfamiliar with the name, it is a convention focused on art—particularly—that of the genre coming to be known as Imaginative Realism. (A term made relevant by the esteemed artist and author James Gurney) It is traditional work that is featured here; while digital imagery maintains a presence in lectures and discussion, original paintings are the stars of this show.

I mention the show here because almost no other audience than the people working in this field has a greater appreciation of the art I discuss on VIEW. There is a lot of cross-referencing and respect for Golden Age material. The mission of Illuxcon, it's benefit and support to those working in the field, is unsurpassed. If you are a fan of this material on VIEW, you would undoubtedly appreciate and enjoy what they are doing at Illuxcon as well. You can check them out at http://www.illuxcon.com/

Next years show is being moved to the Allentown Art Museum during the month of September. Sign up To their facebook page here.

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A while back, I introduced you to the French artist Maurice Boutet de Monvel, and his book The Story of Joan of Arc. Now I have news of another French illustrator and a magnificent book published in 1910…    A good friend recently emailed me that she had stumbled on a book at a library fundraiser that she thought I would really like. I kept my expectations low, as I'm often directed towards books I’m already aware of, but this turned out to be the kind of thing I’m hungry for. Thanks, Mary.

Maurice Lalau (1881-1961) appears to be well-regarded in France, but it is not a name I have come across much before. (Dover does print an edition of East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon that contains a few of his illustrations, but they do not compare in quality to these)

The book that seems to be one of the highlights of his career is this Heinemann (who was also publishing Rackham at the time) volume titled The Romance of Tristan and Iseult. It contains 20 color plates, and some beautifully drawn illustrative cap letters.  Text by Joseph Bédier. The color work has some brilliant range for the period, the draftsmanship—especially the architecture—is remarkable, and the emotion behind these illustrations might bring more comparisons to J. W. Waterhouse than other book illustrators of the period. While The Romance of Tristan and Iseult appears to be quite scarce, I’m not the first to blog about it, and if you thirst for more of these images, the whole group has been posted here. (where you can also find some comments about the color in my Dover books…I think I may need to address that one week…)

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Still looking for three more followers until the book giveaway. Sign on if you haven’t, and comment or message me that you are interested in free art books…

Painter/illustrator Rowland Wheelwright

A little over 10 years ago, Dover published a 6-card postcard book that I compiled on Mermaids in Art.

It was my second effort in pulling together Victorian or Golden Age art into a book (ok, a really small one here) of any sort. There was one piece I really wanted to use in that collection, but despite a good deal of effort, we could not discover exactly when the piece in question had been done, what it was done for, and therefore could not discover if it was truly a public domain work or not. So we let it go.  Every once in a while I see the image again, and it continues to be a favorite. Enough so that I dug up some more info on it's artist, but still I am no closer to discovering the date or exact origin of the piece.

The piece I speak of is The Enchanted Shore, by Rowland Wheelwright (1870-1955) (Shown here as the first piece) The piece is heavy on Romantic influence, and has three of my favorite elements to work with—a mounted knight, mermaids, and crashing surf— and it's sunset/sunrise, so the light is fantastic.  Wheelwright's painting style is somewhat influenced by the Impressionists, while his choice of subject is largely pre-Raphaelite.

Born in Australia, Wheelwright's family raised sheep. After a particularly tough drought in 1891, his family decided to return to Europe, settling in England. Wheelwright later studied at Hubert von Herkomer's (also a favorite, now it makes more sense) School at Bushey, and lived and worked in that area for most of his life. He remained a prolific artist, and showed work frequently at many of the academies and with societies he had affiliation with.

After some fresh research, I like Wheelwright even more. And it appears he was the victim of some awful reproduction over the years— see pieces two and three, with comparisons. The Don Quixote piece was familiar to me only as a bad black and white reproduction. When I began to look, I found the oil it was from, and the color and time-of-day it captures is fantastic. Another book plate, this one showing Joan of Arc, appears bright and simple. The second version of it (below, 3) shows a much richer range of value, with the bright spot really directing the viewer as it should be, giving a spiritual quality to the piece almost entirely absent from the brighter reproduction. [Correction, these are not actually the same piece of art. The brighter one was likely either a sketch, or a copy done (maybe by someone else!) for the purpose of putting it in the book.]

Also here- A more typical book illustration from Ivanhoe, 1926, and a beautiful image of two young woman in a field of flowers. Can't locate a date on that one, but based on the costume and the hair, it could be 1925-193(8?). Again, great sense of light.

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Four more followers until I give away four more books. If you can't message me, leave a comment that you're interested.

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My absence from more regular posting is not by design, but by necessity.  In addition to teaching a night class this semester, I have two large new book projects in the works, (and a third almost finished) which are keeping me very, very busy.  Back when I can be. Jeff