If you go down to the woods today... There's always something Arthur Rackham-esque about hedgerows and woodland, and something about the fidelity to line and tone of a camera seems well-suited to capturing it. It's tempting to say that his characteristic blend of the uncanny and an ambivalent innocence is very English, but it's probably more true to say it's very Northern European -- something to do with wolves and witches, babes in the woods, and dodgy woodcutters.
Certainly, other illustrators of folk and fairy tales have shown a similar feeling for those earthy tones and twisted shapes -- Swede John Bauer and Russian Ivan Bilibin, for example -- but Rackham did always seem somehow to invest his tangled roots and malevolent dwarves with a greater sense of character.
2 comments:
Boy wouldn't I be pleased if your woodland photos were gathered together in a Blurb book. There's something about them that hold the eye. And your sawed tree trunk ends are simply special. Nice!
The "other" Mike C (Cannone), Ramona, California.
Mike,
Thanks, you may yet get your wish. However, I should say that these dark-toned images are where viewing photographs online shines, so to speak -- the illuminated screen really brings out the dark, warm colours, which tend to block up and go dark and muddy in print.
Mike
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