Arthur Rackham and the Golden Age of Illustration

"The Golden Age of Illustration," is the period from the 1880s until right after World War I. New technology allowed illustrators to use vibrant colors, and produce clearer, better pictures. Newspapers, magazines and book publishers all sought the best of the trade to give the consumer what they wanted: witty cartoons, comical parodies and satires, and entertaining pictures to go along with their reading. And gave it to them they did indeed. The people ate it up, all while making celebrities of some illustrator greats such as Howard Pyle and N.C. Wyeth.

Around this time in Europe the print media was dominant as well and creative illustrators also found themselves in the spotlight. In France Edmund Dulac was delighting children with his illustrations such as Hans Christian Anderson stories, and the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. John Tenniel was popular for his cartoons and caricatures for the London magazine Punch, as well as illustrating many books including Alice’s Adventure’s In Wonderland. England also gave us Arthur Rackham.

Rackham was mostly known for doing children's stories but he also did some work such as a Midsummer Night's Dream and other Shakespeare works, and Wagner's Ring of the Niblung. I was able to find a version of the Ring of the Niblung with full Rackham illustrations for you here.

As I said in the post about Old Book Illustrations, there are numerous resources available to you for finding decent illustrations, especially if they're in the public domain. One of my favorite sites for surfing public domain material is Project Gutenberg. You can find their main site at projectgutenberg.org. You'll see a search field to your left which will search thousands of books that have been scanned, including illustrations. There's a treasury of good books available. You'll find some Rackham illustrated ones such as Aesop's Fables, with several color illustrations, as well as a whole bunch of good black and white ones too. He also did A Christmas Carol, English Fairy Tales, and Tales From Shakespeare. And they're all worth checking out.

So I could go on about Arthur Rackham but you'll probably find out more about him for yourself, just look at the books above. His illustrations speak for themselves.