British Book Illustration of the 1900–1910s: Sources of Inspiration

Abstract

A huge number of illustrators appeared in the beginning of XX century in Great Britain, first of all in London, who worked on the design of wonderful gift-books. The most outstanding of them were Arthur Rackham (1867–1939), Edmund Dulac (1882–1953), brothers Charles Robinson (1870–1937) and William Heath Robinson (1872–1944), as well as brothers Charles Maurice Detmold (1883–1908) and Edward Julius Detmold (1883–1957). In addition to these artists, more than twenty more graphics were engaged in illustrating various novels, short stories, plays and fairy tales in England in this historical period, but their achievements are either less visible or are the result of imitating the abovementioned illustrators, which makes them secondary to the leaders of this direction. The peculiarity of book illustration of this period is the high level of technical training of graphic artists who studied on the best examples of Victorian art, numerous references in their work to the styles of past epochs, as well as focusing mainly on classical, or fairy tale literature. All of them are unique in their own way, and therefore there is a special interest in identifying common sources of influence on these masters, to determine the universal stylistic features of their work on the basis of the key subjects of fiction illustrated by them, as well as their classification within the era in all these categories.