THE GOLDEN AGE OF ILLUSTRATION: ELEANOR BRICKDALE

from The Fairy Tale Magazine Jan. Mini-Issue

THE LAND BY THE SEA

The

Golden Age of Illustration: eleanorFortescue-Brickdale

The Golden Age of Illustration is a term applied to a time period (1880s - 1920s) of unprecedented excellence in book and magazine illustrations by artists in Europe and America.

Advances in technology at the time allowed for accurate and inexpensive reproductions of their art, which allowed quality books to be available to the voracious public demand for new graphic art. When many people think of the Golden Age of Illustration, Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac, and other male artists come to mind, but there were also female artists that excelled during this time.

Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale (January 25, 1872 - March 10, 1945) was one such artist. This English artist, known for her paintings and book illustrations in the Pre-Raphaelite style, was one of the most popular artists of the Edwardian era. She also designed stain glass windows and small-scale sculptures which followed the Pre-Raphaelite tradition of applied art through various media to celebrate the beauty of nature and the human form. Born in Upper Norwood, Surrey, Eleanor demonstrated a natural talent for drawing that led to her entering the Crystal Palace School of Art at age 17. However, even with showing great skill, it took her three tries before eventually bein

being accepted to the Royal Academy in London, possibly due to the school's reluctance at the time to accepting female students. While there, Brickdale came under the influence of John Byam Shaw, an artist protégé of John Everett Millais. When Shaw eventually went on to establish his own art school in 1911, Eleanor became a teacher there. Brickdale's first major painting was The Pale Complexion of True Love, 1899, (pictured below) and soon afterwards, she began exhibiting her oil paintings at the Royal Academy, while her watercolor paintingsJohn Byam Shaw & Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale, 1911

were exhibited in several solo shows at the Dowdeswell Gallery. Eleanor al Eleanor also had the honor of becoming the first female member of the Institute of Painters in Oils in 1902. In 1909, Ernest Brown commissioned Brickdale to do 28 watercolor illustrations for Tennyson's Idylls of the King, which Eleanor painted over the course of two years. Her illustrations were exhibited at the Leicester Gallery in 1911, and 24 of them went on to be published in a deluxe edition of the first four Idylls the following year. Throughout her career, Brickdale illustrated many books, such as Poems by Tennyson (1905), Calthorp, A Diary of an 18th Century Garden (1926), and The Story of St. Elizabeth of Hungary (1912), to name a few. In 1919, Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale’s Golden Book of The Pale Complexion of True Love, 1899

Famous Women was published by Hodder and Stoughton. This compilation of stories with her illustrations, featured some of the most famous women in history and legend as written by such authors as Lord Tennyson, William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, and John Keats, among others. Sadly, in 1938, Brickdale suffered a stroke which ended her career as she was unable to paint the last seven years of her life. However, towards the end of her life, she recognized that her Pre-Raphaelite style had run its course, as the art world was moving into the Post-Impressionist, Modernist, and Surrealist styles of the modern age.

Romeo & Juliet Final Farewell, 1910

Brickdale's art is remembered today for its astounding beauty and "escapist" style that depicted a gentle world of chivalry and legend, mingled with the romantic imagery of a bygone era of English literature. When I view her art, I am struck by the exquisite attention to detail Brickdale brought to all the elements in her compositions - from the draping of fabric and the sumptuous clothing design worn by the individuals in her paintings - to the gorgeous elements of nature she incorporated throughout much of her work. I feel her true love of flowers, gardens, and the wild beauty of the natural world shines and creates an experience that draws the viewer deep into the artistic narrative she's expressing. One can easily get lost in her wonderful paintings with their brilliance of color, as each piece inspires a unique story in the viewer's mind.