{ feuilleton }

Avatar

• • • Being a journal by artist and designer John Coulthart, cataloguing interests, obsessions and passing enthusiasms.


 

The art of Maxwell Armfield, 1881–1972

armfield1.jpg

De Profundis.

I’ve known Maxwell Armfield’s work in the past mainly for the appearance of his paintings in books of late Victorian or even Pre-Raphaelite art. His depiction of Faustine (1904), which illustrates a Swinburne poem, is probably the most popular of these, with a subject resembling Rossetti’s portraits of Jane Morris. So it’s a surprise to find his illustration work using a very different, more open style based on Ancient Greek art and (possibly) Classical enthusiasts such as John Flaxman. Among the online examples, the redoubtable Archive.org has a few book downloads available including a volume of Armfield’s rather tepid poetry, The Hanging Garden, and other verse (1914), which nonetheless includes the fine illustrations shown here. In addition there’s a curious fable by Vernon Lee, The Ballet of the Nations; a Present-day Morality (1915) in which Death stages a ballet (aka another war) to decimate humanity, and a short book Rhythmic Shape; A Text-book of Design (1920), Armfield’s guide to art and design theory.

armfield2,jpg

“Out of the East he came.”

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
The illustrators archive

 


 

Share this:  Post to Twitter   Post to Yahoo Buzz   Post to Delicious   Post to Digg   Post to Facebook   Post to Ping.fm   Post to Reddit   Post to StumbleUpon 

 


 

Posted in {art}, {design}, {illustrators}, {painting}.

Tags: , , , .

 


 


 

2 comments or trackbacks

  1. #1 posted by anne sharpe

    gravatar

    I have what seems like a very old book “Stories from Hans Chrisian Andersen” published by The Temple Press, Printers, Letchworth,( no date), translated by Mrs E Lucas and illustrated by Maxwell Armfield. The illustrations are delightful! I wondered if you could assist in advising me as to whether the book is worth any money, and even if not, what should I do with it? I live in South Africa, but travel to the UK quite often. Thanks

  2. #2 posted by John

    gravatar

    Hi Anne. I only write about things I like, I’m not a book dealer. If you want to know the going rate of a book I’d advise browsing Abebooks. I doubt that you’ll find anyone online interested in buying a book unless they can see the volume in person, photos don’t show you the overall condition, whether pages are missing/damaged, etc.

 


 

Leave a comment for ‘The art of Maxwell Armfield, 1881–1972’

Please note: This is not a bookselling site. Comments asking about the value of books will be deleted.

Some HTML is allowed: ‹b›, ‹i›, ‹a›, ‹blockquote› | Gravatars are encouraged.

 

 

Recent posts


 

Noted


 

Recent work

    Booklife

 

Psychedelic Wonderland
2010 calendar

    Psychedelic Wonderland 2010 calendar

 


 

Other work

    The Haunter of the Dark
    CafePress

 


 

 






 

 


 

tracker

 


 

“feed your head”