Musings: Rackham

An English illustrator with a penchant for translating the absurd, magical fairy tales into striking visual pieces of wonder, Arthur Rackham's work continues to inspire the likes of  photographers such as Tim Walker and creative minds on a whole spectrum of artistic projects.



I was swept away with nostalgic enchantment in a millisecond. It is interesting to see how someone has depicted numerous fairy tales and given an insight into how at least one person reading the weird and wonderful stories interpreted the characters our culture has come to love. Often with a tea-stain softness, his illustrations are detailed yet distorted, bending our vision of the world around us into a skewed imaginary land of adventure and blissful imagination explorations. I feel so mind-tingling, leg-skipping elated when I see his work. It's escapism and the absurdities of dreams that we individually experience but maybe can't always articulate, in a visual piece of tangible, beautiful work.

© Arthur Rackham

© Arthur Rackham

© Arthur Rackham