Cruikshank's Water-Colours

Cruikshank's Water Colours

It is fair to characterise the three suites of original water-colour drawings, as executed by our artist, as unique examples of the great George Cruikshanks special individual proficiency as an exponent of this branch of technical dexterity. Moreover, it may be regarded as a fortunate circumstance that the three works, here reproduced with amazing fidelity in facsimile, represent happily the very chefs doeuvre of his wonderful productions; in their respective categories, preserving the best examples of his remarkable genius as an imaginative creator of vivid pictures, alike stirring and animated, and representing at one glance his vast dramatic powers, his mastery of the humorous side of life, and the intensity he was consistently able to infuse into terrible and tragic scenes. It is noteworthy that the inimitable artist George Cruikshank but rarely produced finished water-colour drawings; the bulk of his prolific and familiarly recognised designs for book illustrations were mostly dainty pencil sketches, occasionally finished in pen and ink. It is a problem difficult to solve satisfactorily whether, beyond the three memorable instances of the works here reproduced in facsimile, there are in existence any other complete suites of original illustrations by George Cruikshankthat is to say, fully executed by his master hand as finished water-colour drawings. Tinted sketches may be found in the prized possessions of Cruikshank collectors, and spirited studies for many of his favourite and most successful subjects have been cleverly touched in with watercolours; for instance, such as certain of his original drawings as designed for the illustrations of Harrison Ainsworths Tower of London, and the clever historical and picturesque series of Windsor Castle designs; these are, however, to be regarded as exceptional cases, for the bulk of these most successful and popular designs were carefully executed in pencil, or occasionally outlined with the pen, and highly finished with washes of warm sepia. It is worthy of recollection that Cruikshank was a most dexterous artist in this monochrome branch, his earlier artistic experiences having been almost exclusively in the walk of aqua-tinted etchings; all his early book illustrations, his caricatures, and satirical platessocial or politicalwere uniformly etched by his hand in the most spirited fashion, after his ready sketches and rough studies, and when the outline etching was bitten in, Cruikshank elaborately worked out his colour suggestions, for light and shade, with a brush over the first-etched outline, in tones of sepia or Indian ink, for the guidance of the professional aquatintersthe school of artists to whose trained skill was entrusted the task of completing these plates to produce the effect of highly finished washed drawings in monochrome. By this, his youthful practice, George Cruikshank had acquired remarkable dexterity, his original pen-and-ink designs, and the outline etchings, after his earlier book illustrations, being worked up in monochrome to the dainty finish of delicate miniatures, in which art both his father Isaac and his brother Isaac Robert were first-class proficients, as he himself has recorded with pride in describing the special gifts and qualifications which distinguished the Cruikshank family. The present series includes the inimitable suite of designs, pictorially unfolding the progress and subsequent dramatic experiences of a parish boy, as graphically related by the great literary genius of CHARLES DICKENS in the realistic romance, universally appreciated asTHE ADVENTURES OF OLIVER TWIST, with the truly interesting series of characteristic pictures, so vividly delineating Life in London in the Hogarthian time, at the date of the abortive Jacobite rising in 1745. A realistic panoramic suite, introducing marvellously faithful pictures of antique localities of the old City of Westminster, with life-like studies, reproducing the contemporary aspects of the past, both topographically and socially, of the time-renowned pleasure resorts of the era, when these amusements were at the height of their vogue, and the entertainments which then attracted the crowd. The Mall, St. Jamess Park, with the world of fashion which formed its attraction; The Folly, a floating place of entertainment, opposite Somerset House; Marylebone Gardens and Vauxhall Gardens at their palmiest date; the gayest souvenirs of Ranelagh Gardens, with crowds of fashionable frequenters, and rounds of enjoyable amusements. Spirited materials, crowded with literary suggestions, which the artist, from his vast experiences of the past, rejoiced to thus graphically and realistically furnish to the author to further the creation of the sympathetic and brilliant romance, subsequently written, embodying the diversified phases of life in antique London, as suggested by George Cruikshanks suite of graphic and life-like pictures of a brilliant past, which lent their special attractions and interest to the most successful and popular novel by HARRISON AINSWORTH, THE MISERS DAUGHTER, illustrated with Twenty of George Cruikshanks happiest pictures. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 49683
Author: Ainsworth, William Harrison
Release Date: Aug 11, 2015
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Contributor (Author): Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870, Maxwell, W. H. (William Hamilton), 1792-1850

Illustrator: Cruikshank, George, 1792-1878