The BBC has a short slideshow of artwork from an upcoming exhibition at the British Library which showcases artworks from some 400 years of illustrated children’s poems. There’s some lovely art from different centuries in there and I’d imagine that for a great many of us illustrated fairy tale, nursery rhymes and poetry books, along with the old favourite the kid’s picture book, are probably our first tentative steps into the wonderful worlds of both reading and art. The exhibition, part curated by Children’s Laureate Michael Rosen, begins on April 1st.
(one of the illustrations from the BBC slideshow, sadly the Beeb didn’t actually credit the artist or the book and poem it comes from – anyone know this one?)
On a related topic, I’m sure a number of you will know about this and have taken advantage of it already, but for those who don’t know the British Library’s site also contains a real virtual treasure house, a feature they called Turning the Pages. Essentially its a digitised version of some of the library’s vast storehouse of rare, beautiful books, editions most, save a very few select scholars, will not get to touch in person, but here displayed so we can leaf through their pages from anywhere in the world. The virtual collection is still growing and boasts some wonderful books already, including Alice’s Adventures Underground written and illustrated by Lewis Carroll, sketches by Leonardo and William Blake’s illustrated notebook. Treasures more valuable than baubles of gold or gems.
(a page from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures Underground, from the British Library’s virtual books site, go and have a look)
March 25th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
That would be Richard ‘Dickey’ Doyle (the uncle of Arthur Conan Doyle by the way) the first artist to popularize dimunative fairy types. Before his hugely popular fairy albums they had always been depicted as human sized.
That particular illustration is from ‘In Fairyland, Pictures from the Elf World’ published in 1870.
Richard’s brother (thus A Cs father), Charles Altmont Doyle was also a ‘fairy painter’ but he spent most of his life in an insane asylum.
Small wonder that Arthur wanted so hard to believe in fairies that he certified as real the (obviously faked) photographs of wee fae types taken by the two Victorian girls know as the Cottingley Faires.
Best,
Charles
March 26th, 2009 at 10:07 am
Thanks, Charles, I knew someone would be able to identify it – very interesting about the Conan Doyle connection too especially, as you say, given his later belief in faeries and spiritulaism.