Modern Illuminators

Art and literature have been closely linked for much of their history. Art has great power to give visual substance to the realm of words. Illustration should be more than a visual rendition of the author's description. It should illuminate the text, adding to its meaning and the experience of the story, rather than distracting from it. To see my own attempts at illumination visit http://www.jacobrowanstudios.com/ Please feel free to suggest illustrators and artists

[zombienormal]

[iheartmyart]

Kay Nielsen (1896-1957), Sir Olaf in a Kingdom of Wraiths and Ghosts, Watercolor for In Powder and Crinoline, 1913

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See more artwork by Kay Nielson on iheartmyart. Discover more illustration on iheartmyart.

[matt-kish-deactivated20170503]

“Keep true to the dreams of thy youth.”

This is the story of my tattoo.

In Nathaniel Philbrick’s book Why Read Moby-Dick?, the author mentions that later in life, Herman Melville owned a small, portable wooden writing desk. Upon his passing, Melville’s family found a small piece of paper pasted inside this desk upon which was written the Friedrich Schiller quote “Keep true to the dreams of thy youth.” This is interesting because Melville’s fortunes as a writer faded rapidly after the publication of Moby-Dick, and by his death Melville and his work were almost entirely forgotten. And yet, Melville continued to write very prolifically despite the fact that almost no one cared. Melville was a very deliberate man, and the placement of that quote inside his writing desk must have been significant. While we will never know the truth, it is tempting to think that even as a young person, Melville dreamed of writing, and that it was those youthful dreams that drove him to continue writing even in the absence of commercial or financial success.

When I was a very young child, well before I could even read, I recall spending hours and hours with the lushly illustrated 12 volume collection of stories, folk tales, poems and myths titled My Book House. The volumes were arranged sequentially, parallel to the development of a young person’s mind, so the first volume was almost entirely nursery rhymes and fables, while later volumes contained abridged versions of classics like Dante’s Inferno and Don Quixote. The books were really quite remarkable and the illustrations were astounding. 

I became aware very quickly that the illustrations were telling a story and since, at first, I could not read the words myself, I created new stories based on what I saw. Later, as I learned to read, I was delighted to discover that more often than not, the stories I created in my mind to accompany the illustrations were not too terribly off the mark from what I was reading. More than anything, I loved the sense of wonder these stories and images provoked in me. Through these books, their words, and their art I was transported to far-off lands and distant times, and I came face to face with gods, monsters and great heroes and heroines. These books were the foundation for the dreams of my youth.

The illustration above, by artist Donn P. Crane, is of Siegfried killing the dragon Fafnir. It was one of the greatest things I had ever seen as a child, and I spent hours and hours simply staring at it, mentally tracing the lines of the scales in my mind and immersing myself in the scene. This image, more than anything else, perfectly captures my childhood.

The My Book House volumes faded into hazy memories for me by the early 1980s. By that time, I was in middle school and reading comic books, paperback science fiction and fantasy novels, and seeing every sword & sorcery movie my parents would allow. And yet I still cherished my memories of these books, their stories, and their art. And that image of Siegfried and Fafnir was preserved in my mind forever. Or so I thought.

In June of 2012, I started keeping a sketchbook for the first time in many years. I had seen my first art book, Moby-Dick in Pictures, published to some level of praise and acclaim, and I was considering what the practice of making art actually meant to me. I thought back on the beautifully illustrated books and comics of my childhood and for the first time in many years, I remembered My Book House and Donn P. Crane’s Siegfried and Fafnir. I hadn’t actually seen the books, or the illustrations, in a very long time yet I trusted my memory and decided to re-draw the scene, without Siegfried, in my sketchbook. This is what I drew.

And it was actually another year or so before I thought to even compare my drawing with the original. I still didn’t own a set of the My Book House volumes (I do now), but I was able to find the illustration relatively easily online. I was absolutely stunned at how different the two images were yet how much, to me at least, they were connected in all the essential ways. Over the decades, the original illustration had been morphing and evolving and growing in my mind, no doubt shaped by my own life and experiences, until it became something simultaneously new and still familiar.

After my second book, an illustrated version of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, was published, I was feeling very heartsick. That book, and the venom of Conrad’s story, had affected me deeply and I felt quite hopeless. I thought I may never even draw again, because being pushed up against the horror for so long had robbed me of the desire to do so. I thought back to Melville’s writing desk, and that quote, and the reasons why I started making art in the first place and I remembered those dreams from my youth. I remembered My Book House and Siegfried and the Dragon and that sense of wonder. And I remembered my sketchbook and my version of the dragon. And so I got that image permanently inked on my body, as a reminder of why it is that I am an artist, and what keeps me making art each and every day. For me, as for Melville and maybe many of you, it is these dreams and hopes from my youth that push me forward and keep me hopeful.

And that’s the story of my tattoo.

[steerpike]

Alan Lee - The Castle of Pentecost

[hartigancomics]

DRÁCULA, DRACUL, VLAD?, BAH… (1984) by Alberto Breccia

[bookriot]

Picture books are tricky creatures. The challenge often lies in the ability to tell a story over 30 or so pages, with just a few hundred words. Even after all the right words are chosen, the images have to work with them to reveal another layer of story. When executed perfectly, a picture book can linger in one’s imagination for a long, long time. The best ones have an ageless quality.

I didn’t always feel this way. I thought picture books could talk about only so many things, that the medium wasn’t flexible enough, that it only told one kind of story over and over again. It was hard to imagine that the world of picture books was bigger than Dr. Seuss and Oliver Jeffers—marvellous as they are—but thanks to book-pushing friends, I was glad to see that it was indeed, so much bigger than I expected. If not life-changing, these books were certainly opinion-changing.

http://bookriot.com/2016/02/18/picture-book-perfection-6-pretty-picks/

[itscolossal]

Babel Tower: A Kinetic Mirrored Ziggurat Reflects the Surrounding Iranian Landscape / By Shirin Abedinirad and Gugo Torelli.

[modernilluminators]

The Tower of Babel 

[finsterforst]

Illustrations by Kay Nielsen, from East of the Sun and West of the Moon : Old Tales from the North 

1922

[modernilluminators]

Covers of great illuminated classics

[modernilluminators]

(via The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot)

Click on link to see the complete poem illustrated by Julian Peters. This is absolutely stunning. The world could do with more people making things like this. 

[modernilluminators]

Author Portraits: Edgar Allan Poe, T.S. Eliot, and H.P. Lovecraft. Staedtler pigment liner in my sketchbook. 

[jacobrowanstudios]

Part of Babel, a 40"x10" drawing. Ink, gouache, and graphite on illustration board.

This is part of an old drawing from early 2014 which I wasn’t satisfied with and which has been tucked way in an unused corner of my studio. Recently I’ve developed some new techniques involving graphite over ink and I thought I’d try to breath some new life into this drawing. The working title is Babel.  

[modernilluminators]

Inspired by the Tower of Babel story in Genesis 11. 

[thebristolboard]

Original drawings by the Brazilian artist, Henrique Alvim Corrêa, from the Belgium first edition of H. G. Wells’ classic science-fiction novel, War of the Worlds, published in 1906.

[jacobrowanstudios]

Choruses. Five 11"x5" drawings. Ink on watercolor paper.

Visual experiments with the idea of choruses and projected sound.

Be sure to check out my website: http://www.jacobrowanstudios.com I’ve uploaded lots of new work and reorganized my portfolios.

[jacobrowanstudios]

“Vignettes from the Desert” Five 11"x5" drawings. Ink on watercolor paper

Visual experiments with the idea of the desert.

Be sure to check out my website: http://www.jacobrowanstudios.com I’ve uploaded lots of new work and reorganized my portfolios.

[modernilluminators]

Images from the Saint John’s Bible. 

[matt-kish-deactivated20170503]

CHASING THE WHALE: Extracts 01: “And God created great whales.” GENESIS.

10 7/8 inches by 7 ½ inches

acrylic paint on found paper

June 8, 2015

[modernilluminators]

Matt Kish was kind enough to send out post cards with this image and I was a fortunate recipient. I am currently reading Moby Dick for the first time and his images have done much to deepen my experience of the story.  

[modernilluminators]

“The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe, illuminated by Gustave Doré. 

Part 1