A Thousand Words
In my last post, I included a self-portrait. Actually, it’s a beautiful painting by Jesse Wilcox Smith, of a woman with children climbing all over her, and that is how I often appear, so think of me when you look upon it.
I was reading a picture book to my 5-year-old today called An Easter Alphabet by Nora Tarlow. It’s not an especially good book (I’ve been reading lots of alphabet books to him in preparation for phonics instruction), but it has some beautiful color plates of Victorian paintings and postcards. I looked up one of the artists and found this website with paintings by women for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. Lest you snort after having read my paper about a woman’s role, let me say…read it again. You should browse these beautiful representational paintings, many tenderly depicting children and family life.
The artist for whom I searched was Ida Waugh. Here are some lovely illustrations she did for a children’s book called Bonny Bairns by Amy Ella Blanchard.
Now I think it’s time for another list of:
Carmon’s Top Ten Illustrators and Artists
(by no means exhaustive, but it will do for today!)
Tasha Tudor
Howard Pyle
N.C. Wyeth (he was Pyle’s pupil at the Brandywine School of Art)
Trina Schart Hyman
Carl Larsson
Mary Cassatt
Beatrix Potter
Claude Monet
Maxfield Parrish
Frederick Remington
While I was poking around for information on artists today, I ran across this interesting speech by Margaret Hodges, who wrote the book Saint George and the Dragon which was illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman. Miss Hodges is a professor of library science (my kind of gal!), and she founded an impressive children’s book room at the University of Pittsburgh. It is named the Elizabeth Nesbitt Room (named after a woman who was a Pittsburgh librarian, not the famous author), and interestingly its motto is, “A Goodly Heritage.” This is taken from Psalm 16:6: “The lines are fallen to me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage.” I didn’t know that kind of thing was allowed in a public university, but I think it’s a nice motto for a children’s library.
If you are interested in the subject of art and your tastes are similar to mine, here are some books that you might enjoy:
Visions of Adventure: N.C. Wyeth and the Brandywine Artists, John Edward Dell, editor
Painters of Faith by Gene Edward Veith
Carl and Karin Larsson: Creators of Swedish Style, Michael Snodin, editor
The Private World of Tasha Tudor by Richard Brown
The Ultimate Peter Rabbit, edited by Camilla Hallinan (a DK book)
The Larsson book and Sleeping Beauty by Trina Schart Hyman are available at Bookcloseouts. I have also updated my bargains page with other good deals there.
April 18th, 2003 at 7:42 am
Wow! Those paintings were…very good. Did you see the one painted by Louise Abbema when she was only 14? I look at that sort of thing and I get discouraged
I certainly will never be an artist like that! *sigh*
Did you, er…notice that the majority of those women painters went to *gasp* COLLEGE to learn art? *grin*
April 18th, 2003 at 3:28 pm
We have a couple of books illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman — my daughter loves her style and copies her work for practice. Katherine’s dream is to illustrate the complete Faerie Queene some day.