Saturday 24 March 2012

Edward Detmold, illustrator - part 2



This is part 2 of a 2-part post on the life and works of British illustrator Edward Julius Detmold (1883 – 1957). For biographical notes on Detmold and for more works see part 1.


From 'The Fables of Aesop' 1909

From 'The Fables of Aesop' 1909

From 'The Fables of Aesop' 1909

From 'The Fables of Aesop' 1909

From 'The Fables of Aesop' 1909

From 'The Jungle Book' 1913

From 'The Jungle Book' 1913

From 'The Jungle Book' 1913

From 'The Life of the Bee' 1901

From 'The Life of the Bee' 1901

From 'The Life of the Bee' 1901

Jasmines from 'News of spring and other nature studies' 1917

Off to the Fishing Grounds 
etching

Squirrel

The Fruits of the Earth

The Happy Family 
etching

The Hare and the Tortoise

The Pomegranate, The Apple Tree and The Bramble from “The Fables of Aesop”

The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad

Venus atrapamoscas  from 'News of spring and other nature studies' 1917


Thursday 22 March 2012

Edward Detmold, illustrator - part 1



This is part 1 of a 2-part post on the life and works of British illustrator Edward Julius Detmold (1883 – 1957). Edward and his twin brother Charles Maurice Detmold (1883 – 1908) were born in London in 1883. They were tutored by an uncle who fostered their artistic talents and their love of natural history. Their animal subjects were always among the most sensitive of their drawings. Prodigious early talents, they exhibited watercolours at the Royal Academy when they were 13 and had a portfolio of etchings issued in 1898.

The brothers worked jointly on their etchings and illustrations. Their first book illustrations were produced jointly for the 1899 Pictures From Birdland. Their next project, at the age of 20, was a portfolio of sixteen watercolours inspired by Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book. They were well on their way to joint and individual success when Maurice suddenly committed suicide in 1908 – he was twenty-four years of age. No satisfactory explanation for the act has even been given. The coroner's inquest returned a verdict of suicide 'whilst unsound of mind' and there was apparently a note as well. Edward was stunned by the sudden death of his twin, but managed to continue on with his art.

His next book illustrations practically defined him to his publishers and their patrons. These were the 1909 The Fables of Aesop for which he did twenty-three colour plates and numerous pen and ink chapter headings. Then came Maurice Maeterlink's The Life of the Bee and Birds and Beasts and The Book of Baby Beasts in 1911. In 1912, it was the Book of Baby Birds and Hours of Gladness. Other books had titles like The Book of Baby Pets and The Book of Baby Dogs (1915), Our Little Neighbours and Fabre's Book of Insects (1921) - all reflecting the natural history that had so fascinated him as a youngster.

Even when he branched out, as he theoretically did in 1924 with his The Arabian Nights, he was just as likely to choose animals to illustrate as he was to depict humans. It was to be his last illustrated work. In 1921 he had written a tract to attempt to explain himself, his work and his life. To quote from Keith Nicholson's introductory essay in The Fantastic Creatures of Edward Julius Detmold:

"A decade of intense activity was drawing to a close. Detmold could look back upon some fine achievements, but he was disillusioned with many of the uninspiring commissions for children's books he had undertaken. A pointless and destructive world war emphasized his worst forebodings of man's direction in the new century. The happiness of his childhood and the loss of his twin brother, now recollected in an uneasy tranquillity, combined to produce an existential crisis in the artist. In the wake of feeling that life for him had become meaningless and intolerable, he produced a literary work which testifies to his readings in Schopenhauerian pessimism and the Buddhist philosophy of the Upanishadr and the Bhagavad-Gita. Life, his only un-illustrated work, a book of aphorisms, was published by J. M. Dent in 1921. A key book to an understanding of Detmold's mind, Life is an inauspicious-looking small volume printed on one side of the leaf only. In his preface the author writes: `The following words have come to the writer, over a period of many years, as the fruits of self-overcoming.' From the curious, mystical text we learn that there are two ways of attainment: `The direct positive way - through progressive liberation - passing from the lesser realisation of the body, to the greater realisation of the mind, and therefrom to the realisation of the infinite through the soul; and the direct negative way -through disillusionment - which comes of infatuation with things in themselves, and the inevitable passing thereof.' In the event, Life was Detmold's farewell to the public world of books, and his testament."

Resigned from the world, Detmold went to live in Montgomeryshire where, after a long retirement and almost totally forgotten, he died in July, 1957. Strangely, there exists no official record of his death, though it is believed that he too committed suicide.


Amapolas from 'News of spring and other nature studies' 1917

At the Edge of the Lotus Pool 
etching and drypoint

Birds in a Nest

Catasetum y Cypripedium from 'News of spring and other nature studies' 1917

Cockerel 
etching

Coryanthes Maculata from 'News of spring and other nature studies' 1917

Espinas from 'News of spring and other nature studies' 1917

From 'Birds and Beasts' 1911

From 'Birds of Town and Village' 1920

From 'Birds of Town and Village' 1920

From 'Birds of Town and Village' 1920

From 'Fabre's Book of Insects' 1921

From 'Fabre's Book of Insects' 1921

From 'Fabre's Book of Insects' 1921

From 'Fabre's Book of Insects' 1921

From 'Fabre's Book of Insects' 1921

From 'Hours of Gladness'

From 'The Book of Baby Birds' 1912

From 'The Book of Baby Birds' 1912

From 'The Book of Baby Birds' 1912

Tuesday 20 March 2012

Georges Seurat - part 4



Portrait of Seurat by Maxilmilien Luce

This is part 4 of a 4-part post on the works of the French artist Georges Seurat (1859 – 1891). Seurat, along with fellow artist Paul Signac originated the influential theory and practice of neo-impressionism, and is noted for his creation of the pointillist technique. For biographical notes on Seurat see part 1.


1888 Port-en-Bessin 
oil on canvas 66.9 x 84.4 cm

1888 Port-en-Bessin, Entrance to the Harbour 
oil on canvas 54.9 x 65.1 cm

1888 Port-en-Bessin

1888 Sunday at Port-en-Bessin 
oil on canvas 66 x 82.5 cm

1888 The Seine and the Grande Jatte 
oil on canvas 65 x 82 cm

1888-90 Young Woman Powdering Herself 
oil on canvas 95.5 x 79.5 cm 
© The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London

1889 The Eiffel Tower 
oil on canvas 24 x 15.2 cm

1889 View of Le Crotoy 
oil on canvas 70 x 86.4 cm

1889-90 Le Chahut 
oil on canvas 167.9 x 141 cm

c1889 Study for "Le Chahut" 
oil on panel 21.8 x 15.8 cm 
© The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London

1890 Beach at Gravelines 
oil on panel 16 x 24.5 cm 
© The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London

1890 Gravelines, an Evening Study 
oil on panel 15.6 x 25.6 cm

1890 The Channel at Gravelines, Evening 
oil on canvas 65.4 x 81.9 cm

1890 The Channel at Gravelines, Grand Fort-Philippe 
oil on canvas 65.1 x 81 cm

1890 The Channel at Gravelines, in the direction of the Sea 
oil on canvas 73 x 93.3 cm

1890 The Channel of Gravelines, Petit Fort Philippe 
oil on canvas 73.3 x 92.8 cm

1890-91 Study for "The Circus" 
oil on canvas

1891 The Circus 
oil on canvas 185 x 152 cm

n.d. Angler 
oil on panel 24 x 15.2 cm 
© The Samuel Courtauld Trust, Courtauld Institute of Art Gallery, London

n.d. Horses in Water 
oil on panel 15.2 x 24.8 cm 
© The Samuel Courtauld Trust, Courtauld Institute of Art Gallery, London

Port-en-Bessin

The Lighthouse at Honfleur 
conté crayon and gouache on laid paper 24.1 x 30.8 cm

Woman in a Park 
oil on panel 25.1 x 15.5 cm