Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 469 Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Art Studies: Science, Experience, Education (ICASSEE 2020) British Book Illustration of the 1900–1910s: Sources of Inspiration Dmitry Lebedev1,* 1State Institute for Art Studies (SIAS), Department of Modern and Contemporary Western Art, Moscow, Russia *Corresponding author. Email: [email protected] ABSTRACT A huge number of illustrators appeared in the beginning of XX century in Great Britain, first of all in London, who worked on the design of wonderful gift-books. The most outstanding of them were Arthur Rackham (1867–1939), Edmund Dulac (1882–1953), brothers Charles Robinson (1870–1937) and William Heath Robinson (1872–1944), as well as brothers Charles Maurice Detmold (1883–1908) and Edward Julius Detmold (1883–1957). In addition to these artists, more than twenty more graphics were engaged in illustrating various novels, short stories, plays and fairy tales in England in this historical period, but their achievements are either less visible or are the result of imitating the abovementioned illustrators, which makes them secondary to the leaders of this direction. The peculiarity of book illustration of this period is the high level of technical training of graphic artists who studied on the best examples of Victorian art, numerous references in their work to the styles of past epochs, as well as focusing mainly on classical, or fairy tale literature. All of them are unique in their own way, and therefore there is a special interest in identifying common sources of influence on these masters, to determine the universal stylistic features of their work on the basis of the key subjects of fiction illustrated by them, as well as their classification within the era in all these categories. Keywords: book illustration, book design, graphic, gift-books, limited editions, British art, Edwardian era, art nouveau, Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac, William Heath Robinson publishers and magazines interested in I. INTRODUCTION permanent cooperation with illustrators; Book graphics in Europe and the United States at High level of training in graphic arts in English the end of the 19th – early 20th century is often called art schools of the late 19th – early 20th century; "the golden age of illustration", which means the time when the mastery of illustration reached the highest Edwardian Illustrator’s passion for the art of point of its development and quality. English various countries and historical periods; illustrators, especially active between the 1870-s and the 1890-s – Walter Crane, Kate Greenaway, and The opportunity to earn lots of money in the Randolph Caldecott (the most prominent masters of field of book graphics (this point is a children's book illustration of their time) are considered consequence of all the previous ones). to be the pioneers of this process. Becoming idols and Book graphics of the Edwardian period were the inspirers, these artists opened the way for many young result of all the above factors, but it is impossible to illustrators who were busy at the turn of the 19th – 20th discuss its originality without carefully looking at the centuries. previous and closely related graphics of the 1890s also The work of Edwardian illustrators, which is the known as "fin de siècle", when not colour, but black- important part of "the golden age of illustration", and-white illustration reached the heights of its became such a significant phenomenon due to a number existence. of factors: W. Crane, K. Greenaway and R. Caldecott got famous for their work on colour children's books and Rapid development of the printing industry, became the primary sources for the art of Beatrix which led to the possibility of making Potter. Even more famous throughout the world, the photomechanical reproductions from the original symbol of English graphics in the 1890-s – Aubrey illustrations and, in this regard, to the growth of Beardsley – was the idol of black-and-white illustration, Copyright © 2020 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press SARL. This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license -http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. 222 Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 469 aesthetically directed not at children, but at adults, and books] were tokens of Edwardian ‘refinement’…" [2]. moreover – the intellectuals of his time. Along with These editions (most often containing famous classic or Beardsley in the 1890s, Charles Ricketts (painter and children's literature) were not just books intended for graphic artist, founder of the publishing house "Vale reading, but unique leather-bound portfolios of Press") and Laurence Housman (writer and Illustrator, a illustrators popular in these years who worked on their friend of Beardsley) came to the fore. All three of them design, decoration and those illustrations inside. These relied in part on the exquisitely designed editions of editions (most often containing famous classic or William Morris’s "Kelmscott Press", stylized upon the children’s literature) were not just books intended for medieval manuscripts; Japanese engraving, which were reading, but unique leather-bound portfolios of particularly popular in those years; and the work of the illustrators popular in these years who worked on their Pre-Raphaelites – mainly through the paintings and design as a whole thing. Outstanding in their quality, graphic compositions of Morris’s friend, Edward and sometimes inventiveness of their author, black-and- Burne-Jones. white drawings of various shapes, vignettes, screensavers, endings and letters were scattered So without Morris, Burne-Jones, Beardsley, throughout the text, as in the 1890s, but the real Ricketts, and Houseman (and more than a dozen other spectacle for which such publications were bought were lesser-known but also prominent black-and-white dozens of watercolours printed using a graphic artists, like Robert Anning Bell, Hugh photomechanical reproduction process on thick paper. Thomson, Henry Justice Ford, etc.), the world would Such illustrations were protected by tracing paper and not have seen the Edwardian illustrators, many of attached to plain sheets of dark green, gray or other whom became followers of these masters in one way or shading colour, and inserted manually as an appendix to another. And if it were not for the new advances in the book after the text (rarely spread throughout the photomechanical printing, which made it possible to book). So such gift-books, in essence, were divided into present illustrations not only in colour (which in itself two parts - the text with black-and-white drawings and was an innovation), but also with gradation of tones the album part, consisting of most often a number of (which actually equated the skill of illustration to twenty to fifty colour illustrations, demonstrating the painting), we would today consider Edwardian graphics plot of the book with a fine sense of graphic line, and as only as fading echoes of the fin de siècle art traditions. well showing the outstanding skill of the artist as a Art historian Simon Houfe cleverly compared the colourist. The style of most of these illustrations was perception of this technical revolution with the dictated by the time – according to the exact remark of challenges in the field of cinematography in the late the researcher John Russell Taylor, graphic artists of 1920-s "from the silents to the talkies" [1] – not all the the Edwardian era "…all bear the marks of art nouveau graphics accepted the new reality and took the path of in the details of their forms and compositions, though colour illustration, as not all the actors left silent movies none can be said to adhere to it wholeheartedly" [3]. in 1930-s. However, the high competition that arose between illustrators of the Edwardian era due to the Thus, the key source of income, and at the same emergence of a new type of so-called deluxe gift-books, time the main artistic asset of the Edwardian period gave the masters an incentive to create masterpieces illustrators were the cycles of their drawings made for within their profession. luxury gift editions. In the mid-1900s, the leading London publishers in this field were Heinemann and Hodder and Stoughton – they competed with each other II. EDWARDIAN GIFT-BOOKS and started to collaborate with the most promising Gift-books of the Edwardian era were usually issued illustrators of their time (A. Rackham and E. Dulac, in two formats: respectively) to illustrate books published by them a limited edition was issued with the Illustrator's every year around Christmas. At the same time, these autograph and usually consisted of 250–500 masters began to sell actively their original illustrations numbered copies; through intermediaries, the key of which was the Leicester gallery, which collaborated with many a less expensive trade publication that looked watercolourists of the Edwardian era and their less exquisitely designed, was usually smaller publishers, who sometimes owned the rights to the and did not include an autograph, but the text original drawings. and number of illustrations were identical. Both formats were intended to play the role of high- III. ARTHUR RACKHAM AND EDMUND DULAC quality exquisite souvenirs, often presented at The most desirable Illustrator of the Edwardian era Christmas to intelligent and rich London families. was Arthur Rackham (1867–1939). This master began Subsequently, they became an integral part of their era, his career in the 1880s, occasionally working for one of its symbols: "Together with a Lutyens house, a various magazines as a caricaturist. In the 1890s, book Jekyll garden or Daimler car, they [illustrated gift- graphics came to the first place in his creative activity, 223 Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 469 and by 1900, he was already a recognized Illustrator of primarily by the arc-shaped compositional structure of his time, securing this title thanks to drawings for the work).