RECHEM Arthur: Illustrations for fairy tales sleeping beauty. Cinderella. Perrault Sh., Gorn N.

The book artist is a mysterious profession. Masters of this fragile and delicate type of art often remain in the shadow, giving way to the writer. But if there were a star list of illustrators, then the English artist Arthur Rackham would rightfully take the place of the star of the first magnitude.

The publication offered to your attention contains Arthur RECHEM's work for the fairy tales of Charles Perrault “Sleeping Beauty” and “Cinderella” and the work of Nataniel Gotorn “Book of Miracles”. The Book of Miracles is not a collection, but a single work belonging to the rank of world -famous classical works for children, this is a book in a book, a kind of children's decameron. In it, Gotorn shifted myths of ancient Greece in his own way.

illustrating the fairy tales of the Perrault, Rackham created a detailed, unusual form - silhouette - the story of a sleeping beauty and Cinderella. But the artist designed a “book of miracles” in a completely different way. A brilliant draftsman, in these illustrations, he preferred the whimsily wriggling lines of intertwined branches, foaming waves and humanoid trees. Filigreely writing out every detail of the image, using complex ornaments, softening the colors and giving them a subordinate role, he achieved the most realistic image of a nymph, fairies, marine inhabitants and other fabulous creatures.

The drawings of Arthur Rackham are distinguished by magic and melancholy, charm and secret. They immerse us in a fabulous world, bringing aesthetic pleasure.

You have not yet seen such a rackham that we chose for the series “Master of Book Illustration”. We made it from the rare first publications of the 20-30s of the twentieth century, carefully preserving all the features of the original performance.

Arthur Rackham was born in London in 1867. From the age of 18, he worked as a clerk, at the same time visiting the evening school of elegant arts. In 1888, Rekham's works first appeared at an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts. Then he began to cooperate with the newspapers Westminster of the newspaper and Pall Mall Badget, and in 1894 he received the first order for drawings for the book-it was a guide to America. But the truly talent of the drawingman was revealed only in the first decade of the twentieth century. The illustrations of RECHEMA to the collection of fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm in 1900 were a great success among readers. And in 1907, the publisher William Heinemann ordered the artist illustrations for Alice in Wonderland Lewis Carroll. RECHEM created a cycle of 13 color and 16 black and white drawings, in which the first of the artists refused the “Victorian” “Victorian” image of Alice, proposed by Carroll and John Tennil (the first illustrator of the books of Carroll ”, proposing a new, modern interpretation corresponding to the worldview of the Ar-Novo era. RECHEM was generally a fan and did not deny the influence of illustrators such as George Krukshenk and Aubrey Birdsley on his work. With the publication of Alice in Wonderland, RECHEM has come to the world of one of the largest masters of the Golden Age of English book schedules.

The artist illustrated many works, most of them are fairy tales for children. RECHEM said that "poetic images, fantastic and comic drawings and books for children play the greatest stimulating and educational role in the years when the children's imagination is most susceptible." Working on illustrations for famous fairy tales, the artist created his amazing wonderful world - mysterious, similar to sleep, full of detailed details and extremely elegant in the magical spirit of Art Nouveau. This world is inhabited by bizarre creatures like gnomes, elves and fairies, and in the features of some, portrait resemblance to the author himself is guessed.