The BBC site has a slideshow of some of the art from the much-loved children’s author, illustrator and cartoonist Quentin Blake (who has created many books over his career but is probably best known to most for his fruitful collaboration on the Roald Dahl books). The art is part of a 70- foot long work on display at Addenbrooke Hospital to celebrate the 800th anniversary of Cambridge University. The work, in Blake’s unmistakable style, references many of the venerable education institution’s famous alumni, including (appropriately in his own anniversary year) Charles Darwin (above), John Milton, Isaac Newton, Lord Byron, Franklin and Crick and Watson (the discoverers of DNA), and the fascinating Doctor John Dee (below), all narrated by Blake himself, explaining the choice of some of the characters depicted, how they placed them and methods he employed to show something about them through his illustrations (for example, Paradise Lost author Milton is in shadow to represent his blindness; he deliberately included Franklin alongside Crick and Watson as too many science histories pass over her role in favour of the two men; jet pioneer Frank Whittle is shown as an RAF officer but also as a wee boy playing with a toy plane). Its a lovely combination of art and history and science and ideas, go and enjoy it.
“Someone once said to me ‘you were very shrewd to adopt this style, but of course I didn’t adopt this style, it adopted me,” Quentin Blake.
Wed, Sep 30, 2009
Art and animation, Books