Arthur Rackham: To Benefit the Children

Arthur Rackham Illustration from "Undine"

"Arthur Rackham had become a public figure. Writers, well-known and less well-known, continually invited him to illustrate their works; but, as his time was pledged for years ahead, they were usually disappointed. He was now the father of a small daughter, Barbara, born in 1908, and the descendant of schoolmasters spoke out to insist that children deserved only the best in art. He gave an encyclopaedia his credo in the matter of children's art:

‘I can only say that I firmly believe in the greatest stimulating and educative power of imaginative, fantastic, and playful pictures and writings for children in their most impressionable years – a view that most unfortunately, I consider, has its opponents in these matter of fact days. Children will make no mistakes in the way of confusing the imaginative and symbolic with the actual. Nor are they at all blind to decorative or arbitrarily designed treatment in art, any more than ​they are to poetic or rhythmic form in literature. And it must be insisted on that nothing less than the best that can be had, cost what it may (and it can hardly be cheap) is good enough for those early impressionable years when standards are formed for life. Any accepting, or even choosing, art or literature of a lower standard, as good enough for children, is a disastrous and costly mistake.’

 

Barbara was to find him a good father in all sorts of ways, a really interesting and knowledgeable guide to books, museums, corners of London, and so on – and of course always ready and eager to draw anything and everything on demand. When as a child she ran into his room in the morning, he would first feel on the bedside table for his spectacles, then under the pillow for his gold hunter watch; flicking it open, he would look at the time – ‘Too early – go back to bed for – er – forty minutes!’ or ‘All right – in you come, Rabbits!’ He made a complete stage set and characters for Cinderella for her German toy theatre. He was fond of all inventive games, and never minded being invaded in his studio, in fact people and conversation around him never disturbed him while he was working. Barbara would often watch him at work, sitting at his drawing desk, with a paint brush in his mouth while he used a pen, or vice versa, making the weird grimaces of his characters as he drew them – a fascinating performance for a child. ​

 

As a return for all this entertainment, Barbara, in course of time, had to pose for her father. ‘Go on – get over there – bend over and pick up an apple,’ he would say; ‘hold your skirt out with the other hand – put your leg further in front, no, the other one – and now twist round towards me and shake your hair over your shoulder – that’s it – now stay still.’ And then, after what seemed an eternity – ‘All right, you can drop the pose – but now get up on that chair and see if you can be another child throwing the apples down from the tree.’"

To be continued

 

(Excerpts from "Arthur Rackham: His Life and Work" by Derek Hudson.)