The Garden of Unearthly Delights

Extract from Phillipe Pinel's 'A Treatise on Insanity' (1801)

2009-06-08T16:01:00.000-07:00

Here, Pinel compares the perceived physiognomies of an idiot and a maniac. These extracts are courtesy of Sander L. Gilman's Seeing the Insane. References to the 'proportions of Apollo' allude to the perceived ideal facial proportions as determined by classical sculpture.

On first view of this idiot (lowest image), what appears most striking is the extremely disproportionate extent of the face, compared with the diminutive size of the cranium. No traits of animation are visible in his physiognomy. Every line indicates the most absolute stupidity. Between the height of the head and that of the whole stature, there is a very great disproportion. The cranium is greatly depressed both at the crown and at the temples. His looks are heavy and his mouth wide open. The whole extent of his knowledge is confined to three or four confused ideas, and that of his speech to as many inarticulate sounds. His capacity is so defective, that he can scarcely guide the food to his mouth; and his insensibility so great, that he is incapable of attending to the common calls of nature. His step is feeble, heavy and tottering. His disinclination to motion is excessive. He is totally insensible to the natural propensity for reproduction - a passion so strong even in the Cretin, and which gives him a deep consciousness of his existence. This equivocal being, who seems to have been placed by nature on the very confines of humanity, is the son of a farmer, and was brought to the hospital de Bicetre about two years ago. He appears to have been impressed from his infancy with the above characters of fatuity...

... The ancient artists, who were equally remarkable for the delicacy of their touch and their acuteness of observation, could not fail to discover those proportions of the head which are the essential constituents of beauty. They have, consequently, divided those of Apollo into four parts by horizontal planes at equal distances. One of those parts begins at the roots of the hair on the forehead, and extends to the crown. The form of the head of the maniac (uppermost image) varies no more than well-proportioned heads in general from this standard, since the whole height of his head is twenty-three centimetres. Subtracting one from the other, we obtain a remainder of six centimetres, which, compared with the whole height, gives a proportion very nearly approaching that of one to four, as in the head of Apollo. The height of the head of the idiot, on the contrary, is eighteen centimetres, and his face fifteen. On subtraction we have a distance of three centimetres, which is only one sixth of the height, and which shews how much the vault of the cranium is flattened, and, consequently, its capacity diminished. This diminution is still more strikingly apparent if we examine the human skull in another point of view. In well formed heads, a horizontal section of the cranium made in the direction of the squamous margin of the temporal bones, gives an irregular ellipsis of such a form, that the double ordinate passing at the anterior portion of those bones, is much shorter than that passing through the posterior part. The head of the maniac approaches in those respects to the proper proportions, for the posterior double ordinate is longer by two centimetres than the anterior. On the contrary, those two lines are about equal in the head of the idiot, as I have ascertained by a caliber compass; so that the section of this cranium would give a figure very nearly approaching that of a regular ellipsis.

25 Grotesque Faces from Leonardo

2009-04-17T04:18:00.000-07:00

Harry Clarke and Goethe's 'Faust'

2009-03-26T17:19:00.000-07:00

Above is an unfinished, and unpublished, illustration depicting Faust and Margaret from the 'Garden' scene in Faust. The watercolour is by Harry Clarke (1889-1931), an illustrator who was, first and foremost, a stained-glass artist. The Ireland-born Clarke owes much to Byzantium in style, and something to Beardsley in tone. Clarke began work on the project in late 1924. Initially Harraps, the publisher, did not like the drawings (Clarke recalled that they thought the work was 'full of steaming horrors'), and many of the illustrations were finished under pressure.

A sexually ambiguous Mephistopholes lures the old wizard Faust into an infrnal, chaotic world where forms change freely and the creatures are grotesquely mutilated, their bloated, misshapen bodies and breasts set against their bony limbs and cadaverous faces. Clarke was the first illustrator of the poem to make its sexual elements overt, and he succeeds in creating a truly creepy world bubbling with erotic decadence, while retaining an element of humour.

There were eventually 8 full-colour, full-page illustrations; eight full-page ink wash illustrations; six full-page illustrations in pure black line; and sixty-four black and white vignettes referringto 'incidents in the poem not covered by the full-page drawings.' Clarke's Faust was published in 1926, limited to 2,000 copies. Despite Harraps' earlier dislike of the drawings, the reviews on the book's release were generally positive.

'There is from first to last in these pictures no sunlight, but rather light filtered, coming as through a glass darkly. And it is this quality of filtered light, helping to make him so interesting a commentator on Goeth's tale, that is one of the distinctive charms of Mr. Clarke's work. It is not for nothing that he is by choice a designer of storied windows richly dight, and in the case of these Faust pictures, the dimmed light is truly religious, binding together as in a single medium this wealth of fantastic invention and remaining in the mind until the detail is lost in the whole' - Dorothy Richardson for The Studio, October 1926

'Nothing in these drawings represents anything in the visible world: all come from that dread mid-world of purgatory or the soul where forms change on the instant by evil or beautiful imagination... Clarke's fertility of of invention is endless. It is shown in a multitude of designs less elaborate than the page plates, but no less intense. How awful... is the Despair with head like a bird of prey, which holds the fainting girl in the Cathedral, while the choir chants the Dies Irae... Clarke is not the artist of men and women, but seer of forms which their passions and imaginations assume' - Irish Statesman

A negative review of the drawings actually sums up what I love about Clarke's take on the poem:

'... a dream world of half-created fantasies; the powerless fancies of senile visions; misshapen bodies with wormlike heads; staring eyes of octopuses and reptiles gaze like ponderous saurians of the lost world, while half-finished homuncili change like 'plasma' in forms unbound by reason' - Artwork

For more of Clarke's Faust illustrations see nocloo.com and Grandma's Graphics. Much of the information in this post was taken from Nicola Gordon Bowe's excellent book The Life and Work of Harry Clarke (1989).

Disney Demonology

2009-01-06T13:27:00.000-08:00

A while ago Michael Sporn posted the awe-inspiring drawings by Vladimir 'Bill' Tytla for the giant Devil atop Bald Mountain in Disney's 'Fantasia', varyingly referred to as 'Satan himself', 'Tchernobog' and 'Chernobog', but, most frequently known as Chernabog. This may be my favourite sequence in any Disney film.

The monster was based on a number of sources, but perhaps most famously, the look of the whole Night on Bald Mountain/Ave Maria sequence was defined by the great illustrator Kay Nielsen.

Nielsen's work in illustration suited him well to scenes of supernatural elegance; an illustration from 'Felicia' shares some characteristics with the swirling spirits Chernabog calls forth from their graves...

while another illustration for 'John and the Ghosts' demonstrates an interest in distorted shadow.

Credited with coming up with the idea for the sequence in the first place is the great Albert Hurter, whose nervous scribblings and fantastical doodles have been paid tribute to in John Canemaker's 'Before the Animation Begins', and the 1942 book 'He Drew as He Pleased'.

Hurter himself was inspired by Heinrich Kley, who depicted devils and giants in grotesque, surreal and sometimes comical sequences. Kley's devils, delighting in causing chaos, are part Gargantua, part Gulliver. For a time Disney attempted to introduce thios comical aspect to the Bald Mountain sequence, but decided against it.

Robin Allan ('Walt Disney and Europe') has remarked on the influence of Gustave Dore on much of the early work at Disney. Dore not only inspired Disney artists like Hurter, Joe Grant and Ferdinand Hovarth. His influence can also be found in Kley's work, with a bit of Honore Daumier thrown in. Most famous of Dore's devils is probably his Satan in 'Dante's Inferno'. Like Disney's Chernabog, Dore's Satan is titanic in size, but rooted from the waist up in a single place, and completely impotent. It almost seems that Dore really wants to design his own Devil, but grudgingly sketches in the characteristics Dante describes. Though his Satan has three heads, two are more or less hidden in shadow, and the two extra pairs of wings, described by Dante to move like the blades of a windmill, are vague enough to be taken almost as a motion blur. The devil Dore seems eager to depict is not Dante's but the more traditional version, with the satyr-like features traditionally attributed to him up to that point. Dore's Satan is nevertheless quite chilling, combining the awesome size of the likes of Giotto's Satan in his Last Judgement fresco with the quiet, brooding menace of the demon of Fuseli's The Nightmare.

Also in Dore's Dante illustrations can be found swirling seas of spirits similar to those seen in Night on Bald Mountain, and a similarly jagged, rocky landscape.

There may also be something of the Lucifer of Dore's Paradise Lost, who spends a lot of time angsting about on moody mountaintops. The above engraving is a highlight in a set of illustrations that tends to be rather samey.

The comical aspect of Kley's devils may also be in reference to Dore, who seems to have enjoyed the comedic situations between giants and humans in Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel. The situations are at times grotesque, at times frightening, most of the time comical.

I don't know if Kley or the Disney artist would have seen the spectacular 1875 engravings - in my opinion Dore's best illustrations - as they were only published once, in a very expensive edition that now sells for thousands - though they have thankfully become more readily available recently through a cheap Dover paperback featuring all of the full-page illustrations and many of the vignettes - but the earlier illustrations of Dore's were in wide circulation and published many times.

The most well-known inspiration for the Night on Bald Mountain sequence is the scene in Murnau's Faust in which Mephisto, portrayed by Emil Jannings, appears as a giant, bat-like shadow over Faust's village, releasing poisonous smoke that spreads the plague. So iconic is this sequence that it even found its way into an episode of The Powerpuff Girls.

Not only is the idea and staging similar, but the architecture of village beneath Bald Mountain bears more than a passing resemblance to the crooked houses of Faust's hometown. The influence here is most prominently Der Golem, which the Disney artists may also have seen.

Dan Malan has also cited, as an influence on Murnau's Nosferatu and Faust (you guessed it) Gustave Dore. In the case of Faust he's probably thinking of a few full-page illustrations in Contes Drolatiques, which share a similar passion for Gothic Medievalism, in part inspired in turn by Dore's schoolboy years in Strasbourg.

Ugly Duchess Update

2008-12-09T15:17:00.000-08:00

A friend rather better than I am at following the news just alerted me to this article, which presents a new theory on Massys' Grotesque Old Woman. The article suggests that Massys' modelled his Duchess on a real person: an old woman with a severe form of Paget's disease.

The drawing attributed to Francesco Melzi (above) could be a copy of a Leonardo drawing, which is now thought not to be an original. The theory is now that Leonardo, or possibly Melzi, copied Massys, not the other way round. This does seem possible, since the drawing is not as detailed.

Though this may initially seem to solve the mystery, it actually adds to the mystery by raising a couple of questions. First of all, who is Leonardo's drawing (above) of? It appears to have been done quickly, so could have been an observational sketch. Unfortunately the top of it is chopped off, so we can't tell if Leonardo's old woman had the distinct headdress or if she was the same as Massys'.

The painting is displayed next to the old man painting (shown in an etching above) for the first time in a while, in the exhibition 'Renaissance Faces' at the National Gallery.

The Ugly Duchess; from Leonardo to Tenniel

2008-12-04T14:46:00.000-08:00

I find Leonardo's grotesque drawings very interesting, as, even though they are weird and distorted, they somehow look as though they could exist. Most of them were not drawn from observation but from imagination, and Leonardo used the same sort of precise principles in their design - such as dividing the head into lines of latitude for the brow, the nose and the lip - that he was applying to his (far more numerous) drawings of beautiful and youthful faces.

This drawing, attributed to Francesco Melzi, is a faithful copy of a lost original by Leonardo (c. 1490). It shows a rather ugly old woman in a somewhat unflattering costume. Her weird, distinct headdress emphasises her oddly-shaped head and sticky out ears, and her revealing costume displays bits of her we would probably rather not see.

A surviving, but unfortunately trimmed, drawing by Leonardo himself, from the same year, seems to have been a preparatory sketch for his ugly old woman. Many of his facial studies, both beautiful and grotesque, were done in profile, Leonardo believing such an angle to be the best way to show the features of the face.

Leonardo's old woman is not grotesque simply because she is old; it is the woman's vanity and ostentatiousness, reflected in her costume and bearing, that make her ugly. An extract from Erasmus' Praise of Folly (1511) is included in Leonardo da Vinci: The Divine and the Grotesque to suggest a similar message to that illustrated in the drawing:

It is even more amusing to see these old women, so ancient they might as well be dead... They pay a good price for the services of some handsome young Adonis. They never cease smearing their faces with make-up. They can't tear themselves away from the mirror... They show off their withered and flabby breasts... Everyone laughs at these things as utterly foolish (and indeed they are), but the old bags themselves are perfectly self-satisfied.

Quinten Massys of Antwerp may have seen several of Leonardo's grotesque faces, as he used similar designs in a few of his paintings. One of the gypsy faces in the sketch at the top of this post appears in his Grotesque Betrothal and, famously, he painted his own Grotesque Old Woman (c. 1520), which can be seen in the National Gallery in London:

This is certainly one of my favourite paintings in the National Gallery, because it's one of the few paintings that actually puts a smile on people's faces - the laughter is a welcome change from the respectful, decorous hush generally found in museums and galleries. There's also something inherently charming about the old woman's naive ignorance of her own ugliness. The dreamy eyes and coy mouth rally add to the humour.

While Erasmus accuses vain old ladies of having their eyes on 'some handsome young Adonis', Massys depicted his grotesque old woman as seeking the affections of a man of a similar age, who rejects her offer of a rosebud. The idea may also have been inspired by Leonardo, who drew a Satire on Aged Lovers (c. 1490, above); however, Leonardo's old man is much more keen on his admirer than Massys' is.

Massys' narrative was later depicted in an etching (above) by Wenceslaus Hollar around 1645, under the title The King and Queen of Tunis, with the old man (not exactly in a position to be fussy, it must be said) rejecting his admirer's advances. The painting of the old woman still works on its own, however; the rosebud she is holding, along with her wistful gaze into (apparently) nothing could be seen to allude to a youth long since lost.

Sir John Tenniel is more likely to have used Massys' old woman as a source for his Ugly Duchess in Alice in Wonderland, because the Leonardo version's headdress does not feature the embroidered pattern seen in the Tenniel illustrations, and the Hollar version does not give the headdress such a distinct shape. The Punch cartoonist could have seen it in the collection of Alfred Seymour; alternatively he may have used an engraving (above) of the painting by Gilles-Antoine Demarteau.

But there may have been other sources as well. Tenniel had depicted medieval women with similarly shaped headdresses in several of his Punch cartoons (above), and these women have completely different faces. Furthermore, Tenniel's Duchess' face doesn't really resemble that of Massys'.

After Gordon Brown, who wasn't around in Lewis Carrol's day, the closest facial resemblance to the Tenniel Duchess can be found in an engraving (above) by F. W. Fairholt for Thomas Wright's History of Caricature and Grotesque in Literature and Art(1865). The illustration is of a misericord, which often featured grotesque faces. The thuggish face shown quite closely resembles Tenniel's Duchess. It is likely Tenniel had come across the book in his earlier days.

This perhaps accounts for the Duchess having a big bulky chin, in contrast to the 'sharp little chin' described by Lewis Carrol. Nevertheless the Tenniel Duchess' chin does at least end in a point, the better to dig into Alice during a conversation. The Tenniel Duchess and her distinctive headdress have been an influence on many of the Alice illustrators, including Gwyneddm Hudson:

Some appropriate images for the occasion...

2008-10-31T11:16:00.000-07:00

Some of my favourite 'gothic horror' images - by some of my favourite artists - to get you in the right mood for the occasion. In a sense this is a taster of things to come; I will soon try to do a few posts about Anderson, Delacroix and Clarke's Faust, Ernst's Une Semaine de Bonte, and (as always) Dore.

WAYNE ANDERSON

S. G. HULME BEAMAN

HARRY CLARKE

EUGENE DELACROIX

GUSTAVE DORE

MAX ERNST

FRANCISCO GOYA

KAY NIELSEN

SYDNEY PAGET

OTHERS

Bateman: The Possibilities of a Vacuum Cleaner

2008-10-02T03:30:00.000-07:00

One illustrator/cartoonist I'm always surprised to see getting no attention from animation fans is H. M. Bateman. His drawings are always full of movement and character, and often depict comical and complex sequences that would be well suited to the medium.

One of his very best pieces is the bizarre 'The Possibilities of a Vacuum Cleaner' of 1921, probably the weirdest cartoon he ever drew.

I will post much more about Bateman's life and work in the near future.

David Hall and Alice in Wonderland

2008-08-23T15:38:00.000-07:00

News of the upcoming 'Alice in Wonderland' adaptation from Tim Burton has brought me back to Disney's 1951 animated version. Though not the best Disney film, it is undoubtedly one of the most interesting and probably my favorite of Disney's 50s output - it does not work together cohesively as a whole, but showcases a great deal of imagination as far as style and staging are concerned.

Disney's history with alice began with Walt's own interest in the material, which he claimed was his favorite piece of English literature. Thoughts of a direct adaptation were in his mind as early as 1931, when he purchased the rights to Sir John Tenniel's illustrations.

I fully believe Tenniel must be given as much credit as Lewis Carroll himself for the endurance of Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and the images the material conjures up. Just as mention of Sherlock Holmes automatically brings to mind the image established largely by illustrator Sidney Paget, so is Tenniel so irremovably linked to the denizens of Carroll's imagination. Though the collaboration was not an easy one - Carroll disapproving of a number of Tenniel's creative decisions - it is extremely difficult to read the text without thinking of these events taking place in the world specifically depicted by the Punch cartoonist.

In 1938, Al Perkins, a story-man at the Disney studio, was appointed to research the material, resulting in a 161-page analysis of the book, suggesting possible approaches to adapting the book. This coincided with the hiring of inspirational sketch artist David Hall, an Irishman who had experience in live-action set design, having worked on, among other films, Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings. Hall adapted many of Perkins' ideas into storyboards and inspirational sketches, using a combination of pencil, watercolour and ink.

The little that is known of Hall's life is covered in John Canemaker's Before the Animation Begins. Canemaker has compared Hall's inspirational sketches for Alice and Peter Pan to the illustrations of Beatrix Potter (Peter Rabbit) and of Arthur Rackham (who had himself illustrated Alice); however, Hall's work is both less finished and more energetic, with a sense of movement very suitable for Wonderland and its residents.

Hall was ordered to remain faithful to Tenniel. However, while Tenniel's illustrations remain very static - partly a result of the method of reproduction via etching in those days - Hall endows everything with movement more suitable for transition to the big screen. More cinematic too is Hall's approach to scale. Alice's journey down the rabbit-hole is an epic fall through a vast space populated by clouds, gems, ice, bubbles and bats; and the Queen of Hearts' castle is an immense, foreboding fortress silhouetted against an uneasy sky.

Hall's depictions of events at the Queen's Castle and Croquet-Ground are among his most interesting sketches. Used in this post are a mere selection images that can be downloaded from Thad Komorowski's blog; the larger images are from the aforementioned Before the Animation Begins, an edition of Alice in Wonderland abundantly illustrated with Hall's sketches, and the catalogue from the exhibition Il Etait une Fois: Walt Disney.

As in the book and 1951 film, Alice first encounters three gardeners painting white roses red.

Meanwhile, hoses, watering cans, lawnmowers and shears are busily at work without the aid of gardeners, in a manner somewhat reminiscent of the sketches of fellow inspirational sketch artist Albert Hurter.

Dissatisfied with the volume with which the White Rabbit heralds her arrival, the Queen knocks him out of the way and does it herself.

Al Perkins' treatment made several attempts to link the episodic events of the story together. As a result, much of the cast encountered earlier in the film attend the Queen's croquet game. Besides Alice, the Queen, the King (asleep), the Knave, the White Rabbit and the soldiers, this scene also features the Duchess (who does not appear in the final film) and her baby-turned pig, with her frog and fish footmen acting as caddies. The Caterpillar, Hatter, March Hare and Dormouse are also taking part, as are the Dodo and his companions from the Caucus Race earlier in the story. We can also see a fool (presumably a reference to the Joker card) and a figure in a red hood. More on him later.

Following the game the party proceeds to the castle, presented here in a long sketch to indicate a pan. I've split the sketch in two here. This is a spectacular scene, full of life and character; however, the castle at left suggests that we are entering a darker part of the story, and the presence of gallows up above, with a corpse hanging from them certainly can't bode well. Indeed, the imagery becomes more and more nightmarish as we progress.

The red hooded figure we saw earlier is apparently the assistant and train-bearer for the executioner, a dark, sinister figure cloaked entirely in black - a far cry from the diminutive, comical figure from the original book and illustrations.

The trial of the Knave of Hearts takes place in a courtroom of tall boxes and long, winding staircases. The Knave himself is in far more chains than necessary to emphasise the cruelty of his oppressors, and the Cheshire Cat is present - first as a headless steward handing out programs, then as a barrister.

From what I can see in the storyboards, the story involved the Knave being done in by some sort of exploding cannon (another Hurter-esque creation). The Queen sentences Alice to be executed, and we enter the film's climax.

The door of the dungeon opens out to a sheer drop. The Queen does not seem to want Alice to go so easily and leads her instead up a spiral staircase to the top of the castle's highest tower.

This is perhaps the darkest of all of Hall's inspirational sketches for the film. The Queen and the black-clad executioner lead Alice to the guillotine, which is being prepared by the red henchman. Sinister hooded drummers line the tower's battlements, while more minions, forced on by an overseer, operate the necessary equipment to move the blade of the guillotine, which reaches towards the viewer. Despair is emphasised - the stairs Alice is climbing are transforming into cards and collapsing behind her, leaving her no option but to continue to her death. Nor is there any mode of escape around the guillotine itself, which is surrounded by a sheer drop. Not to be too graphic, but that which is decapitated would simply fall, seemingly to infinity. The other towers scattered about the edges of the frame give the viewer an idea of the vastness of it all.

The ending continues to resemble nightmares in which the dreamer has no choice but to die. Straps tie themselves around Alice as the Queen looks on in anticipation. Taking it a step further the Queen becomes, in a way, the death herald, climbing onto the blade in order that she be able to ride it down as it does its job. She's done this before.

Just as the blade screeches towards Alice, of course...

She escapes the nightmare, the blade lingering a little as everything else transforms into a simple pack of cards swirling about her. The cards eventually become the leaves of the garden she sits in in the 'real world'.

The climax of the 1938 plot for the film would perhaps have made this the most terrifying of Disney features, with its imagery of hanging corpses and guillotines, and a frighteningly bloodthirsty Queen of Hearts. Ultimately the film ended up much lighter, with a greater deal of slapstick and arguably an approach better suited to animation. The Queen was made rather more comical - and, I must say, a thoroughly entertaining character, even though her animator, Frank Thomas, was not satisfied with his work - and we do not follow her victims as they are dragged to the execution block.

Though the film is ultimately kept in the realm of fantasy much more, many viewers find the film scary, not through the danger of death as in the storyboards and sketches shown here, but in the unnerving quality certain aspects of the film, such as the Cheshire Cat, create. It should also be noted that the original book probably wasn't as dark or scary as the likes of American McGee may suggest - just weird and wonderful, and most of the time satyrical. The Queen of Carroll's Wonderland is just as eager to behead, but the majority of those she sentences are pardoned behind her back, and the Gryphon even claims that no-one is executed. Will Burton take the darker or lighter route with the Queen?

For a treasure trove of Hall storyboards, visit Thad Komorowski.

Gallery Website

2008-08-04T04:49:00.000-07:00

For the time being, my website is up and running, courtesy of The Artist's Web. Click on the link at top right to have a look.

Richard Doyle's Illustrations for 'The King of the Golden River, or the Black Brothers'

2008-08-02T01:29:00.000-07:00

Doyle's illustrations for Ruskin's fairy tale create a fantastical environment teeming with life. I particularly like his depiction of the personified wind, featured in the frontispiece below, and Gluck, the dwarf, who first appears in the fourth illustration.

Here are all of Ruskin's illustrations for this curious little book, though only the frontispiece and title page are full-page illustrations. Those interested in the story itself can read it on Wikipedia.

I'm Alive

2008-07-22T08:09:00.000-07:00

Just a quick pot to confirm that I shall continue to update this blog. I am also working on a website, which I will post a link to soon.

Expect posts on Richard Doyle and Harry Clarke in the near future.

Gustave Dore's 'Droll Stories' illustrations

2008-04-12T08:21:00.000-07:00

'Without doubt the best work ever done by Gustave Dore was that for the Contes Drolatiques,' declares a New York Times article of January 24, 1883, looking back on all of Gustave Dore's work. 'We will place next the wood-cuts for Rabelais followed by the great series of drawings for Dante's Inferno.'

That one of Dore's earliest sets of illustrations - his only great publication before this was Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel in 1854 - is considered his best work by the New York Times critic (I am unable to find the name of the writer of the article) suggests that certain qualities may have been lost in his later work. Indeed, as Dore became more and more determined to be appreciated as an artist rather than an illustrator his work seems to have lost some of its charm, though there is no doubt that his draughtsmanship and imagination, qualities for which he is most admired, remained right up to the very end.

His illustrations for Balzac's Droll Stories are the most gothic of all of Dore's work. The full-page illustrations that are not dominated by the grotesque main characters feature moody skylines framed with ridiculously tall spires and dark, foreboding fortresses, while gallows, most of them put to use, are dotted over the land down below. The twisted medieval city is Dore's expressionist vision of Strasbourg, a place with which he was very familiar; he passed the cathedral every day on the way to school. I'm strongly reminded of the villages in Der Golem and Faust.

There is a tremendous amount of physical comedy juxtaposed with the extravagant horror. One of my favorite illustrations shows hundreds of bodies hanging from gallows, with ravens setting to work on them so eagerly that they lift some of the bodies, some uprooting the gallows as they do so. Another shows a young lover, in mid woo, being sliced in two by a rival for the object of his affections. Dore's boisterous vulgarity - which he represses in much of his later work - has never been more at home!

The character designs are wildly imaginative. Filling one or two full-page illustrations and quite a few vignettes are swarms of rotund monks (refugees from Dore's Rabelais illustrations) who specialize in falling over in comical fashion. There are also a number of characters who stay in their armor - helmets and all - all the time, feasting, reading and, indeed, sleeping with maidens with the stuff on. The only characters that disappoint are the beautiful women - as is always the case, they are little more than stock archetypes. Admittedly, though, they are more interesting than the damsels in distress featured in his later Perrault fairy tale illustrations, and they are surrounded by such an interesting cast of characters that it doesn't really matter - the diminutive servant carrying his mistress' ridiculously long train is a nice touch.

The highlight of all the illustrations, though, are the full-page illustrations dedicated entirely to the grotesque faces of the main characters. It is here that Dore proves himself, more even than in his cartoons for the Journal Pour Rire, as a master of the grotesque. In no other publication does Dore pay such close attention to facial features.

What interests me about the faces in the illustrations is the sheer variety. They do not appear to be constructed in as regimented a manner as most artists plan out a facial drawing (eg. Leonardo, who divides the face, however deformed, into planes). Possibly this is a side-effect of any lack of formal art training on Dore's part, but, in this instance, it has a positive effect, allowing the faces to seem at times impossibly twisted and deformed. Some of them even appear to be disintegrating before our very eyes.

Here are all twelve full-page grotesque faces from Dore's Balzac illustrations.

The Cartoonists

2008-04-12T05:33:00.000-07:00

I recently went to the opening night of The Cartoonists, an annual show at Chris Beetles in London. Alas, there is no Gerald Scarfe and no Steve Bell, but there is Ronald Searle, Peter Brookes, Giles, Tony Husband and many others, as well as old greats H. M. Bateman and W. Heath Robinson.

I've been a fan of Peter Brookes ever since I was eight and saw his cartoon of Margaret Thatcher as the Rabid Old Bat (Federalis Anathema), part of the Nature Notes series. I wrote twice to him, sending him some of my own drawings, and he replied, encouraging me to continue drawing, and even sending me a sketch of Dan Blair (from another wonderful series of cartoons, based on Dan Dare, with Tony Blair as Dan Dare and William Hague as the Mekon, with his enormous bald head). Nature Notes is still going on, appearing every week in The Times and exhibited every two years at the Chris Beetles Gallery.

Movement and Composition in the Dore Dante Illustrations

2008-03-31T16:20:00.000-07:00

Movement is one of the things I find the most difficult to suggest in a drawing, for the (possibly rather obvious) reason that the work is a static image. I've recently been looking at composition in Dore's illustrations, in particular for Dante's Inferno, in an attempt to figure out how the 19th century illustrator suggested movement in images that, because of their medium and manner of depiction, were heavily detailed.

A dissatisfaction with the engravings made from his drawings for early projects such as Gargantua and Pantagruel and Contes Drolatiques led Dore to train his own team of engravers. Of course, his own draughtsmanship improved over time as well. But I feel that many of his later illustrations lose some of their motion, as well as their energetic quality, precisely because they are more polished and finished than his earlier works. Despite this, several methods appear to be used in the illustrations intended to depict movement. In this post several illustrations from Dante's Inferno will be the subject of analysis.

The illustration seems almost to be split into two halves: the furies in the top half, and Dante and Virgil in the lower half. The two seem almost not to be completely connected, perhaps because the shape of the rock 'tower' in the background does not extend above the two poets. Only Virgil's raised hand, pointing to the furies, connects the two; the foot of the lowest fury disappears behind Virgil's hand. Perhaps in order not to draw attention to this overlap, the leg of the fury is somewhat faded, suggesting that the three flying figures to recede into the background.

But how far? At first glance the furies seem to be more or less the same size as Dante and Virgil (ie human-sized), but the manner in which they fade into the background, and the extent to which Virgil's pointing arm is foreshortened, suggest that they are further back than initially was apparent - I don't think this was deliberate; as I mentioned before, this particular illustration almost seems to be two compositions stuck together rather awkwardly. To give Dore the benefit of the doubt, we could argue that this was intended to suggest the erratic movement of the flight of the furies, bobbing up and down.

There is, however, a certain amount of movement here. First, the furies' bodies are tilted in one direction. Interestingly they move from right to left; it is generally thought that a composition that moves from left to right suggests faster movement, and perhaps progress (except in countries where writing moves from right to left; the two are related). Again, the decision that the Furies move in this direction may have been a conscious one, suggesting a certain amount of resistance to their clumsy, inelegant movements.

Second, and perhaps the more successful element of the image at conveying movement, is the mist in the background. Wisps of smoke are parallel to the furies, as though to speed along to their movement. Dore is here more successful at suggesting the movement within the group of figures rather than their journey; the detail of the wings causes them to appear static rather than flapping, but the angle and twist of the three figures suggests their writhing movement very well. It is because of this quality that this engraving remains among my favorite of Dore's Dante illustrations.

Note that this engraver (who has signed the illustration 'E. Sotain') has used less detail in an illustration depicting the punishment of the sorcerer, whose head is twisted around by malicious demons. Possibly for this reason, it seems to have been easier to convey movement in this composition, but there is a less finished look to the composition in comparison to many of the other illustrations in this set. Is movement therefore in expense to detail depicting texture, light and shadow? I don't know for sure, but there is undoubtedly more movement here than in the illustration of the furies.

Everything in the composition, save for the rock, forming the ground and the formation on the left, is in motion. As before, there is movement in the smoke in the background, adding chaos to the scene. The twisting, undulating shape of the smoke surrounding the sorcerer suggests that it is moving in a manner suggesting writhing snakes.

In the figures movement is suggested by shapes, lines and angles. The demons' forks' handles help to suggest the force applied, bowing as they lift the sorcerer, whose raised arm allows the curve of the topmost fork to be followed through into the line of his body. The twisting bodies of the demons also suggest the physical tension in the scene.

The illustration of sinners being chased by dogs through a gnarled forest is another good one for movement. Aside from the obvious factor of the running figures, I think movement is also suggested by the shape and angle of the trees; if they stood up straight, they would not complement the movement and speed of the running figures quite so well.

The movement in this illustration is suggested not only be the twist of the figures but by their position within the composition. The light falling on the figures causes a diagonal 'strip' to be highlighted across the composition. This is framed by curves formed in the foreground (the rocks in a darker shade) and in the background (the cliff over which the snakes spill). If this image were composed only of abstract light and dark shapes I think there would still be movement because of the shape and curve of these forms.

In this illustration, there is still contrast between light and shadow, but it does not produce overall shapes within the composition as distinctly as the previous illustration. However, this is successful at suggesting an atmosphere of complete chaos - movement is all over the place. Areas of concentrated shadow serve to pick out a few focal points, but they do not complement the movement.

Where Dore proves himself to be the most skilled is at drawing the human form; he is able to twist it into all sorts of forms to suggest force, strength and movement. It still amazes me (and very jealous) to learn that he never had any art training, and never drew from life. The theatrical manner in which many of the illustrations are lit often produces curving shapes of light and dark that complement the movement within a composition, whether sweeping, twisting or writhing.

Some Shameless Self-Publicity...

2008-03-27T16:44:00.000-07:00

I forgot to mention From Book to Book, John McDowall and Chris Taylor's exhibition in Leeds City Art Gallery that began on March 6th and continues until April 20th. The books exhibited were made in response to books themselves. My book, 15 Uses for a Book (for dummies) is one of the books on display. I'll post something about 15 Uses a little later.

Hitch

2008-03-23T03:58:00.000-07:00

Sir Alfred Hitchcock's appearance is almost as memorable as his films. I made several attempts to caricature Hitch in a manner reminiscent of New York caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, who always had the extraordinary ability to distill an individual into the simplest of essences, in only a few smooth, calligraphic lines. These drawings were made in late 2006/early 2007.

The first was based on a specific photograph, and it shows. There is too much simple 'drawing' and no 'caricature'. Nor is the likeness terribly strong.

The second - based on another photograph - was a bit of an improvement, but superficial parts such as the line of the hair are still the unnecessary focus (the decision to use straight lines was here a bad one, not fitting with the overall shape of the face), with too little effort to capture more than simply Hitchcock's appearance. Again, the eyes are too prominent - another failed attempt at heavy eyelids.

It was only with the third Hitch - which is still, I freely admit, far from perfect - that I felt I caught the 'essence' of Hitch rather than simply his appearance. Notably, this is the only one that was not based on a photograph. Not relying on a single image forced me to focus on the subject himself rather than a single representation of him. I finally managed to get the right character in the face, and, as with Hirschfeld, it turned out that the fewer lines, the better. The slightly pompous lower lip, the disdainful but lazy glance, and the haughty nostril all work best when shown in as simple a way as possible.

More Grotesque Faces

2008-03-21T03:12:00.000-07:00

These were primarily inspired by the drawings of Leonardo Da Vinci, and based on a few observational drawings done of unwitting pedestrians in the city centre.

6,469,952 spots

2008-03-12T15:15:00.000-07:00

Disney have recently released the 'Special Edition' DVD of Disney's One Hundred and One Dalmatians in the UK. To me this is one of the most interesting of all of the Disney Animated Classics; though I all but ignored it as a child, and its reputation has been somewhat tarnished by countless remakes and spin-offs, I now consider it to be the best animated film the Disney studio produced after their Golden Age (from 1936's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to 1942's Bambi). No other Disney film succeeds in sheer force of style as much as One Hundred and One Dalmatians, which makes full use of its medium; the result is an extremely graphically strong film, with a rough, linear look that seems to complement the animation rather than attempt to convince the viewer that they are watching anything but a cartoon. It takes full advantage of aspects of its medium Disney had previously seen as obstacles to be defeated.

Much of the success of the film can be attributed not to Walt Disney (who was too busy with theme parks and television shows to attend many meetings on the film, only breezing in from time to time to leave annotations on story sketches) but Bill Peet, a 'story man' many at the studio felt was close in personality to Walt himself. Perhaps this is why the two didn't get on and eventually had a rather dramatic falling out. At any rate, Walt recognised Peet's skill at creating stories and, for the first time, gave only one man the job of writing and storyboarding a feature animated film.

One Hundred and One Dalmatians remains among the best written of all of Disney's features. The tendency towards excessive sentimentality and 'chocolate-box charm' (as one reviewer called it) found in many of the Disney films of the 1950s, and of the 1990s, is mostly dropped in favour of a more satyrical mood. As a result, the few moments of pathos are given greater gravity. An aspect of Dodie Smith's book which translates very well in the film is it's amusing reversal of roles. We see this right at the beginning of the film; the audience initially assumes that the narrator is Roger, the human, only to discover that the voice is that of his dog, Pongo, who considers Roger his pet.

References continue to be made to this throughout the film. I wrote in an earlier post of earlier Disney films, such as Pinocchio, depicting nature as inferior to humanity, a state which man descends to through primitive and uncivilized behaviour. In Dalmatians this is reversed, the story being told from the dogs' point of view; Nanny, the human with the closest affinity to the dogs, is one of the most sympathetic characters, while Cruella De Vil, the film's villainess, becomes more and more bestial and savage as her schemes unravel. Like earlier villains such as the Witch in Snow White and even Count Orlock in Nosferatu, Cruella has characteristics that make her a far more wild creature than any of the animals in the film. Her claws, bony frame, manic hair and posture all evoke the image of some sort of vulture or harpy. Her car is also given bestial characteristics, both in design and sound, roaring and growling in the film's climax.

I still consider Cruella, animated exclusively by Marc Davis, to be Disney's best villain. As has previously been mentioned, she possesses bestial qualities in both design and animation; despite this; she possesses a certain elegance. Character actress Mary Wickes performed live-action reference for the character, but Davis used the footage 'sparingly'. The character is a masterpiece of design, almost blurring the line between caricature and abstraction. Davis' skill at animating female characters shines through; he had been honing his skills throughout the 1950s, but it is in animating Cruella that he appears to have the most fun and exhibit the greatest skill. It is thought by many that the work of the animators known as the 'Nine Old Men' went into a decline in their later years; Cruella De Vil, Davis' final animation job, proves that at least one of them didn't experience such a decline.

It's interesting that Walt Disney himself hated the look of the film. I suppose if, as Ken Anderson (largely responsible for the style of the film) said, 'Walt hated lines', it's rather unlikely that he would have liked the film. Nevertheless, he did 'forgive' Anderson for the lines a few weeks before his death. Anyway, whatever Walt thought of it, I find it to be one of the best animated films ever to come out of his studio.

Gustave Dore's Dante Illustrations

2008-03-09T16:28:00.000-07:00

This illustration, by Gustave Dore, depicts Satan imprisoned in the ice, in the centre of Hell, in Dante's Inferno. This illustration was not published, perhaps most obviously because Satan appears to be sitting cross-legged. Dante specifies that Satan's legs are sticking out of the other side of the hole he is 'plugging' at the centre of the earth.

The illustration by Dore that was published is more faithful to Dante's text, with Satan only visible from the waist up. A more chilling atmosphere (no pun intended) is created by the heavy use of shadow, with Satan receding into the darkness, and Dante and Virgil highlighted against it.

Dore's Inferno illustrations are his third most popular illustrations, released in more than 200 different editions. In first and second place are his Bible illustrations (700+ editions) and Don Quixote (300+). It is said that Jack Nicholson, in preparing for his role as the devil in The Witches of Eastwick, pored over Dore's Inferno illustrations in order to get into character. There was also a copy in the Disney library during the studio's golden age, and the influence can be seen in the mise en scene of certain sequences in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio and Fantasia.

An updated version of the Divine Comedy was released with text by Sandro Birk and Marcus Sanders and illustrations by Sandro Birk. The illustrations are direct responses to the Dore illustrations; the rocky, infernal world of hell is re-imagined as an urban landscape reminiscent of modern-day Los Angeles.

Birk's illustrations of Heaven in Paradiso are even more interesting, controversially alluding to Hinduism and Islam in the holiest of Heaven's denizens. My only complaint is that Birk's illustrations are drawings rather than etchings, not allowing for an emulation of Dore's style, which I feel would have reinforced the point a bit more. Nevertheless, I would definitely reccomend Birk and Sanders' Divine Comedy to any fan of Dante or Dore.

Weird Creatures

2008-03-06T03:28:00.000-08:00

Pen and Ink. A2.

Lemon-sucker

2008-03-04T16:30:00.000-08:00

You may recognise this creature from The Consequences in Goya's Disasters of War. Here he is in a decidedly less profound context. Pen and ink. A2.

Beasts and monsters: Kley

2008-02-25T13:27:00.000-08:00

I recently went to the exhibition 'Against Nature' at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds. The focus of the exhibition is sculpture as a medium for the depiction of metamorphoses and transformations - many of them merging animals and humans in a manner evoking classical sculpture. Read about the exhibition here.

However, the first artist I thought of when at the exhibition was Heinrich Kley, who is known mostly through his influence on animation. Kley's most famous subjects were legendary creatures such as centaurs, trolls and demons - his sketches were the direct inspiration for many of the sequences we see in Fantasia. Reflecting the advent of the factory age in which they were drawn, Kley's sketches also refer to smoke belching factories and industrial subjects. I've posted a selection of my favorite Kley drawings below; those with captions have them below the image. Apologies for some of the shadows in these scans.

And why shouldn't I play the guitar?

Sure I play the guitar, now all the more!

Away from Rome!

What a devilish stench!

Sabotage

This leads me on rather neatly to Albert Hurter, a Disney 'inspirational sketch artist' who was profoundly influenced by Kley. Hurter was payed to sketch all day; his drawings were used as the inspiration for Disney's animators. His subjects included animals and anthropomorphism; most interesting to me, though, are his drawings of inanimate objects given life and personality.

Fans of Hurter may be interested in John Canemaker's Before the Animation Begins, which provides a detailed account of the lives of inspirational sketch artists to work at the Disney studio, along with a selection of the work they produced while there. Another book on Hurter is He Drew As He Pleased, a book consisting almost entirely of sketches made by Hurter at the Disney studio. It's a wonderful book, but, printed in the 1940s, is now rather expensive; for samples of He Drew As He Pleased visit Brad Goodchild's blog.

To finish off, here are the Chats Fourres, or Law-Cats, from Francis Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel. The Law-Cats are cat-like creatures that symbolise judges and lawyers, and 'live on corruption'. Below are depictions by Gustave Dore (the first four images) and W. Heath Robinson (the fifth and sixth images).

Lists of the 'Greatest American Animated Films'

2008-02-11T09:26:00.000-08:00

Every so often there are attempts to list animated films in order of 'greatness'. A very difficult thing, because, it seems to me, 'greatest' is rather a vague adjective. Most recently, the American Film Institute will be releasing a list of the '10 Top 10', with animation as one of the genres (wrong for a start: animation isn't a genre), defining worthy films as having critical recognition, awards of some sort, popularity over time, historical significance and cultural impact.

Included on the list of animated film nominations (which can be downloaded from the AFI site for free, though you need to register) are most of the Disney animated features (not including their package features of the 1940s), the Pixar films, a selection from Dreamworks, Warner Brothers and a few others. It will be interesting to see what the final top 10 will be. Of course, only American films can be nominated, which eliminates some of my favorite animated films (Allegro Non Troppo and Belleville Rendezvous are two films of which I am particularly fond).

As far as American animated films are concerned, it is virtually impossible to exclude Disney, who are still responsible for some of the best animated features. My favorite animated film, and probably the film I consider the best animated feature of all, is Pinocchio (an inspirational sketch for the film, by Gustaf Tenggren, can be seen above right; click to see a larger version). Fantasia follows closely behind, as perhaps the most sophisticated and creative of all Disney's films. Through its quality, legacy and cultural impact, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (artwork, also by Tenggren, can be seen on the left) ought to be quite high on the list, as should Bambi and Dumbo. After Disney's first five films, my favorite is probably One Hundred and One Dalmatians, a film with a wonderful style, brilliant writing and a cinematic icon in its villainess, Cruella De Vil. It is a film that often seems to me underrated.

A quick search brought up a list of the greatest Disney animated features as voted for by visitors of Disney fan site Ultimate Disney. This list demonstrates a preference for the newer Disney features - which perhaps are the ones that site visitors grew up with - with Beauty and the Beast - nevertheless a very good film and a favorite of mine - topping the list. The most popular of the films made during Walt Disney's lifetime is, perhaps surprisingly, Sleeping Beauty (number 5 on the list), a film which I find to be very impressive but consider ultimately to be an artistic failure. Snow White is reasonably high, but the other four features from what many consider Disney's 'Golden Age' seem surprisingly low on the list. Tarzan, which seems to me the technically best of the newer generation of Disney features, is placed 19th on the list.

Next to Disney, Pixar are probably responsible for America's best animated films. The Toy Story films obviously have had a significant cultural impact, and have a remarkable legacy. For my vote, though, the best are Brad Bird's films, The Incredibles and Ratatouille. The latter seems to be too recent for nomination, as it is not on AFI's list. I agree with Michael Barrier, who once referred to The Incredibles as 'the best of Pixar's six features, and the first computer-animated feature I've seen that gives me hope that the medium may eventually have the same capacity for artistic expression as hand-drawn animation'. Another of Brad Bird's films, The Iron Giant, is another worthy nominee.

I consider Dreamworks (most famous for the Shrek films) to be rather too happy-meal led and pop-culture oriented to be included on the list. The Prince of Egypt, probably the best of Dramworks' animated films, is not even nominated, and, like many of the studio's films, exists very much in the shadow of Disney. It is possible, however, that Shrek will make the list. Though I dislike the design and animation of the film, its enormous popularity and award-winning status may be enough to secure its position - the film is perhaps the most recent of animated hits, and was the second most popular animated film on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Cartoons list.

AFI's 10 Top 10 will be broadcast on American channel CBS sometime in June - presumably the site will have the list of winners up at that time as well. In the mean time, Empire Magazine has a feature on the Disney studio and rank the top 10 of all Disney films - live action and animated. Pinocchio tops the list (hooray!), with Ratatouille second, The Jungle Book third, Snow White fourth, The Lion King fifth, Dumbo sixth, Mary Poppins seventh, Bambi eighth, Toy Story ninth and the first Pirates of the Caribbean film tenth. Another magazine, Total Film, also had a list of the 100 favorite movie characters - the only animated characters were Cruella De Vil (hooray again) at 82, Shrek (ahem) at 17 and Andy Serkis' brilliant Gollum at 5.

A was an Apple Pie

2008-02-03T17:16:00.000-08:00

This bizarre idea sprang from an old nursery rhyme, titled, oddly enough, 'A was an Apple Pie'. The poem goes through every letter of the alphabet, using a word beginning with the right letter to describe what each different character did - B bit it, C cut it, D dealt it and so on. For the final few letters, of course, there's a bit of a compromise.

The earliest illustrations I can find of the poem are by Kate Greenaway, and feature, as the characters, rather cherubic young children in a playground. But what really made me decide to illustrate the rhyme was a series of illustrations by one of my favourite illustrators, Raymond Briggs. His illustrations, like his takes on most nursery rhymes and fairy stories, are wonderfully unconventional - the characters in his version are an odd bunch indeed.

What excited me about doing this was the graphic possibility of actually putting the letters in the characters, so it's not just someone representing B doing the biting, it's B himself. This meant a more graphic style than I was used to. In each of these drawings I tried to integrate the letters into the line and the general form, which meant not thinking about anatomy so much as 'shapes that worked'. In this respect I was greatly influenced by the character designs of Tom Oreb, who I'll post about later. Also an influence on the style used were Al Hirschfeld, Ronald Searle, Kay Nielsen and Aubrey Beardsley.

This is still a work in progress: the hooded figures in some of these drawings were inspired by similar characters populating Goya's Caprichos and the illustrations by Gustave Dore. It was then pointed out to me that, the way I've drawn them, they resemble Muslim veils. Not particularly wanting to be un-PC or offensive, I'm therefore going to change 'B' and 'X,Y,Z and &' (other hooded figures shown here are either obviously hooded as opposed to veiled, or not portrayed in a negative light). A few others will also be changed, simply because they don't 'look' right. Eventually, however, when I'm happy with all the drawings, I'm making them into some sort of book.

Click any image to enlarge, of course.

A was an apple pie

B bit it

C cut it

D dealt it

E eat it

F fought for it

G got it

H had it

I inspected it

J joined it

K kept it

L longed for it

M mourned for it

N nodded at it

O opened it

P peeped in it

Q quartered it

R ran for it

S stole it

T took it

U upset it

V viewed it

W wanted it

X, Y and & each wanted a piece in hand