The Complete Collection of Pictures and Songs

The Complete Collection of Pictures and Songs

The first two of the childrens books here reproduced were published in 1878; the last two in 1885, only a few weeks before Mr. Caldecotts premature death. He had not intended to make any further additions to their number, and the series is consequently complete. Into what new domain his still-creative genius would have wandered,for he was well on the hither side of the period fixed by tradition for the decline of human invention, and in spite of ill-health, was gifted with a rare buoyancy and elasticity of temperament,it is idle to conjecture. But his gradual development from the tentative sketches of his early days into the purely individual manner of his latest work, had been unmistakeable enough to justify the belief that even higher triumphs might have been reserved to his ripened powers. Would he not have gained fresh laurels as a designer in some unfamiliar field?as a modeller of bas-relief touched with his own distinctive quality?as a delicate and dexterous water-colour artist? None can answer these questions now. But at least he has left us a definite legacy of accomplished work, for which we can scarcely be too grateful, since it is unique in kind, and certain to be enduring in charm. Of this legacy, the two volumes of Old Christmas and Bracebridge Hall, and the present collection of picture-books are surely the most memorable. In decorating the gentle and kindly pages of Goldsmiths American disciple, Mr. Caldecott seems for the first time to have discovered a fitting outlet of his cherished memories of the country-side where he was bred, and of the picturesque old town where he was born;for those loving studies of animal life which had delighted him as a boy;for that feeling for the old-world in costume and accessory which was a native impulse in his talent. No books of this century have been so genially, so loyally, so sympathetically illustrated. And yet these Irving volumes, however excellent, were but the stepping stones to the artists more10 signal successes in nursery literature. John Gilpin and The Mad Dog are illustrated books; but they are illustrated books with a difference. Mr. Caldecott found in them his theme, it is true: but it was a theme upon which his pencil played the most engaging variations. Who, for example, ever before conceived of Madam Blaize as a pawnbroker, because Who, again, had penetrated the hidden secret of that corroding jealousy which led the dog to bite the prim and impeccable personage who afterwards so fatally disagreed with him? And where else had the world been shewn the authentic academic presence,the very form and pressure,of The Great Panjandrum Himself, with the little round button at top; or imagined the hurly-burly of those headlong, horn-blowing, cheek-bursting and hopelessly futile Jovial Huntsmen? Nor were these all, or even a tithe of the sportive surprises, the undreamed disclosures, of these captivating pages. Around and about them the artist has woven the most humourous ingenuities, the most freakish and frolicsome fancies; he has set them in the most inviting framework of town and country; he has enlisted in his service the most blithe and winsome figures of women and children, the most irresistible dogs and horses and birds. The open-air life of England, with all its freshness and breeziness, its pastoral seduction and its picturesque environment, is everywhere present in his work. He has the art, too, of being elegant without being effeminate, and of being tender without being mawkish. It was said of a great English novelist that his laugh clears the air; it may be said of these light-hearted pictures that their mirth clears not only the air but the imagination. No taint clings to them of morbid affectation or sickly sentiment: they are the genuine pictorial utterances of a manly, happy nature, delighting in beauty, delighting in innocent pleasure, and dowered as few English artists have been with the gifts of refinement and grace. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 61562
Author: Dobson, Austin
Release Date: Mar 5, 2020
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Illustrator: Caldecott, Randolph, 1846-1886