Can You Imagine a George Lucas Museum?

“I’m a storyteller at heart,” Star Wars mastermind George Lucas says at the beginning of his proposal for a new museum to be built on the grounds of San Francisco’s Presidio, “and I understand the power of a visual image to tell a story.” The Lucas Cultural Arts Museum, the proposed name for the museum, “will be a center highlighting populist art from some of the great illustrators of the last 150 years through today’s digital art used to create animated and live-action movies, visual effects, props and sketches.” Many museums offer exhibitions or departments dedicated to this brand of “populist art,” but Lucas’ museum, relying heavily on its founder’s personal collection (and $300 million USD of his money), will explore that art and its influence on an unprecedented scale. A veritable “Death Star” of  public-friendly art, The Lucas Cultural Arts Museum boggles the imagination with possibility. Can you imagine a George Lucas museum? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Can You Imagine a George Lucas Museum?"

[Image: Queen Amidala Gown. Costume Designer: Trisha Biggar. Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. TM & © 1999 Lucasfilm Ltd. Image source here.]

Child’s Play

One of the great joys of parenthood is reading to your child. All those great illustrated books that you tucked back in the back of your mind as adulthood crowded the front suddenly emerge from your subconscious. So many contemporary illustrators owe a huge debt to their Victorian forebears, who essentially created the idea of illustrated children’s tales and, therefore, childhood itself. Arthur Rackham stands among the first-rank illustrators of that initial wave of creativity. Born September 18, 1867, Rackham first gained the public’s attention with his illustrations to Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (originally part of The Little White Bird) by J.M. Barrie. (Rackham’s frontispiece appears above, from 1906.) Seven-day-old Peter Pan watches fairies flee from him as he stands among the garden’s trees, which twist with almost sinister intent. Director Guillermo Del Toro credits Rackham as one of the visual influences for Pan's Labyrinth, in which nature itself seems to conspire against the young child’s happiness in her fulfillment of her quest. Rackham’s images appear as fresh as they did over a century ago, with none of that Victorian mustiness.

Rackham achieves that perfect balance of realism with magic that makes the magic seem actually believable. In one illustration for Flora Annie Steel’s 1918 edition of English Fairy Tales, Rackham shows “The giant Galligantua and the wicked old magician transform the duke's daughter into a white hind” (above, from 1918). The fidelity of the white hind makes the grotesque giant and wizened wizard almost believable. That balance is the key to all successful children’s illustration, at least for me, and Alex. One of Alex’s favorite illustrators, Sylvia Long, can put rabbits in pajamas or eyeglasses on bears and make even adults momentarily suspend their disbelief thanks to her superior draftsmanship. Rackham worked at a time when the line between book illustration and fine art wasn’t as clearly drawn as today and even exhibited some of his work in the Louvre in 1914. Only in the last twenty years, after a long dismissal of such art as kid’s stuff, have collectors and museums re-recognized the artistry of creators such as Rackham.

Rackham turned his eye to other subjects that were certainly not child’s play, but no less imaginative. In 1910, Rackham painted a series of illustrations for Richard Wagner's "The Ring" (one example above). The sense of flowing movement from upper left to the dark right corner is effortless. We feel as if we’re falling with the figures Rackham draws. The sharp diagonal line reveals Rackham’s interest in Japonisme, especially ukiyo-e, Japanese wood-block prints, which opened the eyes of Western artists to new compositional possibilities. Rackham also illustrated Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream and tales by Edgar Allan Poe, among other “adult” works. If you want to lump Rackham in with any group of artists or movement, Art Nouveau would probably suit him best, but there’s an individuality to Rackham’s art that keeps it fresh and virtually as timeless as the wonder of childhood itself.

Keeping Chivalry Alive

It’s difficult for us today to understand the impact that daily comics had on American culture in the first decades of the twentieth century. When the Great Depression sent America spiraling into economic despair, comics provided a cheap form of entertainment for the whole family. The colorful Sunday sections opened up whole new worlds for children looking for a brighter future, if only in their imagination. Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant harked back to the days of King Arthur but really pointed to a near future in which chivalry was not dead and honor still had a place. Born August 16, 1892, Foster wrapped up that hopeful package in beautifully rendered scenes such as that of Prince Valiant with Aleta (above, from 1939). Influenced by Howard Pyle and Arthur Rackham and other giants of the Victorian Age’s renaissance of illustration, Foster brought a stunningly imaginative hyper-realism to his scenes born of the love of the outdoors he developed during his youth in rural Canada. A life-long love of reading, especially of exotic foreign lands, provided a store of knowledge Foster mined for nearly half a century of Prince Valiant stories.

I’m old enough to remember the last decade or so of Prince Valiant comics by Foster. Each Sunday I’d pour over the color comics section and stare at the intricacies of Foster’s work, so very alien next to the minimalist art of Charles Schulz. Anyone who could draw a circle could draw Charlie Brown, but it took knowledge of anatomy, perspective, and how to render drapery to come even close to Foster’s Prince. I’d try to imitate scenes such as Prince Valiant on a ship (above, from 1942) in vain, hoping to run before I could even crawl as a draftsman. I also remember that the continued hold of Prince Valiant on popular culture allowed people to compare baseball player Pete Rose’s haircut, circa 1979, when he joined my beloved Philadelphia Phillies, to that worn by Prince Valiant. I doubt Rose had Foster’s character in mind when making his tonsorial choice, but for a young boy looking for real-life analogues to Foster’s chivalric code, Rose’s hustling style of play seemed the closest thing available at the time. Of course, Rose failed to live up to that code of honor in later years.


Foster’s link to Prince Valiant is so strong that many forget his earlier work on Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan (an example appears above). William Randolph Hearst actually allowed Foster to begin Prince Valiant and own the strip itself (a rare concession back then) based on the popularity of his Tarzan work, which set the standard for all the Tarzan movies and books to follow. From the jungle to the castle battlements, Foster mastered them all. Later comics artists such as Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko almost universally cite Hal Foster as a seminal influence on their career, making Foster a godfather of sorts to superheroes ranging from Captain America to Spider-Man. The common bond of all these heroes is the code of chivalry, updated, of course, to suit changing times, but not that much different than the days of Arthur as told by the pen of Foster.

Following in Line

Aubrey Beardsley, The Peacock Skirt, 1894, Line block proof on Japanese vellum, Collection of Dr. Michael Richard Barclay

When Aubrey Beardsley, decadent bad boy of British illustration, died after a scant quarter century on this earth in 1898, he left a body of work that sent shock waves throughout the world of illustration. You either embraced or rejected Beardsley, but you could never ignore the boundless talent that created works such as The Peacock Skirt (above). The Peacock Skirt came to symbolize the abundantly overflowing skill of Beardsley and was quoted in the works of those who followed many times over. Rodney Engen’s The Age of Enchantment: Beardsley, Dulac and their Contemporaries 1890-1930, the catalogue to the exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, recreates this golden age of illustration that began with Beardsley in many ways but never ended in any real sense. Engen ties together many of the prevailing forces on artists of that era and highlights the art and personal lives of these great, often forgotten masters of illustration.


Edmund Dulac, Sinbad the Sailor entertains Sinbad the Landsman [from Stories from the Arabian Nights], 1914, Kendra and Allan Daniel Collection

The same Orientalism that flavored many of Beardsley’s works appears clearly in the illustrations of Edmund Dulac, the French-born Art Deco artist who took his love of the East and Far East further than any Western illustrator had done before. In his illustrations of the Stories from the Arabian Nights (an example above), Dulac created “a more refined world of orientalising, which greatly appealed to a younger audience tired of gloomy historicism,” Engen writes. Dulac’s close study of Persian miniatures, one of his many passions in collecting, provided a living sense of detail that comes across in his work. A friend of the W.B. Yeats, Dulac shared the poet’s love of the Japanese Noh drama, another aspect of the Orient that Dulac lived rather than copied in his drawings. A dramatic figure to the end, Dulac died in 1953, at 70 years of age, from a heart attack after dancing the flamenco.

Jessie M. King, The Sea Voices [from Seven Happy Days], 1914, pen and ink, watercolour, and sivler on vellum, Victoria and Albert Museum

Beardsley’s love of Arthurian legends continued on in the works of many artists, including Jessie Marion King. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and their love of medievalism created a lasting impression on all British art of the period, but perhaps left their most lasting imprint on children’s illustration. One of the Pre-Raphaelites, Edward Burne-Jones, actually served as a mentor to Beardsley during his work illustrating Le Morte Darthur. After Beardsley’s death, however, the dark aspects of medievalism gave way to “a healthier, less dark and more wholesome love of fantasy,” as can be seen in such works as King’s The Sea Voices (above). King loved the folk ballads of her native Scotland and even designed her own mock medieval dresses to wear as an outward sign of her love of the Arthurian and the fantastic. The gentle washes of color add a softer feel to King’s art that the stark black and white of Beardsley lacked. After World War I, a rage for color eclipsed the days of pure black and white line illustration and further challenged artists.

Edward Detmold, Tiger, Butterflies and Fan Palms, colour etching, Private Collection

“With the rise of the wealthy Edwardian middle classes,” Engen writes, “came a yearning for escape from the horrors of industrialization and the urban sprawl that accompanied it.” Epitomizing this “new rural religion” is the work of Edward and Maurice Detmold, twin brothers who collaborated on works stunning in their naturalistic detail that drew comparisons to Durer while they were still teenagers. “The Detmolds were, for a generation of enthusiasts, the supreme masters of nature in art,” Engen claims, backing it such claims with works such as Edward’s Tiger, Butterflies and Fan Palms (above), painted after his brother’s tragic suicide in 1908.

The story of the Detmolds is just one of the many fascinating tales of these forgotten artists. Sidney Sime, who scratched imps and devils onto the walls of the coal mines he worked in as a child, rose from poverty to become a revolutionary figure in terms of technique and imagination, creating images as disturbing as any by Odilon Redon. When asked to explain his hesitancy over illustrating the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Sime responded, “You see, I am looking forward to meeting Poe in Hell and I am loathe to do anything that would embarrass the encounter.” Arthur Rackham created 3,000 illustrations and 150 books over a 40-year career dominated by Germanic influences such as Durer, Bosch, and Grunewald. His nephew called him “the only truly happy man I have come across” thanks to his ability to escape into his work regardless of wars and even air raids. Perhaps the most quizzical figure of this group, Alastair, drew fantastic, unreal images that echoed Beardsley at his most decadent and perhaps even surpassed the master. Engen calls Alastair “an enigmatic puzzle, a curious mixture of petulance, childishness and anger, who refused to be pinned down and was always on the move.” Engen gives each of these shadowed figures another day in the sun, spotlighting the immense talent behind these striking personalities.

Kay Nielsen, The Faun, watercolour and bodycolour, Kendra and Allan Daniel Collection

For me, the most fascinating of these forgotten artists remains Kay Nielsen, the Danish artist who took his love for folklore and married it to his encyclopedic grasp of multiple artistic cultures. “Nielsen’s winning formula was derived largely from his beloved folkloric background,” Engen argues, “he also borrowed from a love of early Italian painting, from the delicate Persian miniatures and Indian and Chinese landscapes which he mixed and borrowed in a process he called ‘artistic wandering.’” Such “wandering” led Nielsen to a successful career in illustration through works such as The Faun (above) and later brought him to America and Hollywood to work on Walt Disney’s Fantasia, specifically the “Bald Mountain” and “Ave Maria” sections. Many of the works by Nielsen come from the Kendra and Allen Daniel Collection, which was on display in 2007 at the Brandywine River Museum in the Flights Into Fantasy exhibition (reviewed here). The inclusion of Nielsen in this international exhibition will hopefully raise his profile within the art world as well as establish this era of illustration as more than just kids’ stuff.

Aubrey Beardsley, Sir Launcelot and the Witch Hellawes [full-page illustration for Le Morte Darthur]. 1893-4. Private Collection

Engen chooses 1930 as the cutoff date for this exhibition with a degree of sadness. Although the taste for Beardsley-inspired art (including Le Morte Darthur, above) faded, the artists themselves remained to “live out their careers in disappointment, anger and soul-destroying neglect,” Engen laments. “As they watched the century progress and its poor standards of artistic taste surround them, it was for many too much to bear.” Edward Detmold continued working after his brother’s death, eventually becoming a hermit, until despairing over fading sales and taking his own life in 1956. Kay Nielsen died a broken and forgotten man in 1957. Many others simply faded into the shadows of art history, waiting to be rediscovered. Fortunately, the boldness and brightness of the work itself lives on in this catalogue and exhibition, perhaps finally reaching that hour when their lives, which Nielsen once said were “devoted to the lyrical and the poetic,” no longer seem lived in vain.


[Many thanks to the Dulwich Picture Gallery for providing me with a review copy of the catalogue to The Age of Enchantment: Beardsley, Dulac and their Contemporaries 1890-1930 and for the images above from the exhibition.]