{art} – Page 551 – { feuilleton }

The art of Dugald Stewart Walker, 1883–1937

A posting of Dugald Stewart Walker’s work this week at the always excellent Golden Age Comic Book Stories sent me back again to the Internet Archive to see if there might be further examples among their collection of scanned library books. Sure enough there’s not only a copy of the book which GACBS sampled from, Padraic Colum’s The Girl Who Sat By The Ashes, but also other fairy tale collections by Colum, including the one featured here, The Boy Who Knew What the Birds Said (1918). Colum is well-represented in the Internet Archive’s American Library section and many of his titles seem to be at least partly illustrated. A cursory glance at some of the others turned up his retelling of Greek myths illustrated by Willy Pogány.

I’m not as keen on Walker’s work as I am other artists of this period—he has a tendency to give his adult characters gnome-like features—but the line work and compositions are first class. The Boy Who Knew What the Birds Said is especially nice for its many peacock details, some of which are featured below.

left: Bloom-of-Youth and the Witch of the Elders; right: What the Peacock and the Crow Told Each Other.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Peacocks
• Willy Pogány’s Parsifal

Oliver Postgate, 1925–2008

The Clangers (and a Froglet).

Lots of eulogies for Oliver Postgate doing the rounds just now, somewhat inevitable when his Smallfilms productions for the BBC furnished the imaginations of generations of British children in the Sixties and Seventies. Smallfilms’ films matched their name, being short animations created on minimal budgets by a trio of Postgate (writing, narration), Peter Firmin (artwork and animation) and Vernon Elliot (music). Postgate’s voice was the single constant across the disparate stories. For anyone of a certain age his distinctive tones carry that punch of primal recognition common to all things which make a strong impression during childhood.

Noggin the Nog.

I watched everything Smallfilms produced but being a space-obsessed Space Age kid my favourites were always The Clangers, a family of hooting, pink creatures who shared a moon-like planetoid with a Soup Dragon and (in an orbiting nest) an Iron Chicken. Being equally obsessed with Norse mythology, however, I also enjoyed Noggin the Nog, which never seemed to get repeated very often, probably because the early films were made in black and white. Oliver Postgate seemed to like dragons; as well as the Soup Dragon, Noggin had a very traditional Ice Dragon with a pile of treasure while the otherwise non-fantasy Ivor the Engine—tales of a small Welsh steam train—included a tiny dragon among the cast of characters, perhaps derived from the national emblem of Wales. Postgate and Peter Firmin reworked some of these stories into book form and my favourite books in our school library were the Noggin the Nog ones and Tove Jansson’s tales of the Moomins. The Clangers aren’t as alien as they first appear when you know that their true identity can be found in the 1967 tale of Noggin and the Moon Mouse.

Needless to say, YouTube has numerous opportunities for us to sate curiosity or indulge nostalgia, including BBC 4’s 2005 documentary about Smallfilms. The Guardian gathered a few choice examples as an addendum to their obituary page.

• Lengthy Times obituary
• The homespun genius of Oliver Postgate
• See Emily play | The BBC meets the girl from Bagpuss

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Occultism for kids

Darkness visible

Pandemonium by John Martin (1841).

Happy birthday to John Milton, 400-years-old today.

“High on a throne of a royal state, which far / Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind” by Gustave Doré (1866).

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The etching and engraving archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Chiaroscuro II: Joseph Wright of Derby, 1734–1797
• Angels 4: Fallen angels
• Death from above
• The apocalyptic art of Francis Danby

Baroque snowflakes

I haven’t done a seasonal card design for a couple of years, I often feel too enervated by the whole idea or else lack sufficient inspiration. But after seeing recent snowflake designs by the wonderful Marian Bantjes I thought I’d try some similar ones of my own. Looking back at her work just now I’m amused to see that she kept her designs simple and elegant while I went overboard with the detailing as usual. I created quite a few of these shapes but the ones that make up the final card are the best of the bunch. In a rare fit of generosity you’re welcome to download a high-res PDF and print it yourself. The size is A4 (210mm x 297mm) and—unlike most cards—when folded down the middle can either stand vertically or horizontally.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Kirsten Hassenfeld’s paper sculptures

The Sonic Assassins

Searching through discs for scans of Jim Cawthorn art turned up this comic strip curio from a November 29th, 1971 issue of UK underground magazine Frendz. Cawthorn and writer Michael Moorcock present rock band Hawkwind as musical superheroes and although this is done largely as a promotional piece for that year’s new album, In Search of Space, the Sonic Assassins tag was one which stuck, becoming almost a secondary name for the band in later years. The name Void City also recurred later as the name of a track on the Choose Your Masques album. It may have been around this time that Cawthorn painted special T-shirt designs for Hawkwind; up to 1980 Dave Brock was still wearing his Baron Meliadus shirt on stage.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Jim Cawthorn, 1929–2008
• Design as virus #7: eyes and triangles
• Barney Bubbles: artist and designer