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Contained on the CD disc is a collection of out-of-print books, illustrated by Walter Crane,
whose pages have been scanned and compiled in PDF format.
Walter Crane was a vast figure in his chosen field and often his illustrations are mini-monuments all on their own. He wrote about design as well as practising it. He was an ardent and active socialist politician. Sometimes the intellectual got the upper hand in his art but mostly not and the intellectual part was his metier, the tools of his trade. His art was most felicitious, and perhaps he too, when he goes into his world of make-believe and then he comes across as really spontaneous and fantasy-full, in fact never short of surprises. He must have really enjoyed his work because almost everything he does comes off wonderfully. This was a very eclectic man who studied everything and borrowed everywhere: Classical Greek, Christian, Japanese and the divil knows what else, and I’m sure his writings on design, some of which are included on the CD, will tell the curious reader a lot more. Like a fine actor, his own personality doesn’t really intrude on the reader. | He was ready and able to tackle any job put in front of him and did so with consummate professionalism. But there’s much you’ll recognise him by. He would put his alter ego, his ‘Crane’ monogram, just about everywhere he could, and his notion of female beauty was constant: a Greek profile---straight line from tip of nose to top of brow, which the reader will note on his Cinderella who contrasts with the scrawny frames and wide shoulders or her two ugly sisters, and where there was no excuse for drapery he would give his women long dresses instead . His well-fed and matronly Cinderella doesn’t really come off, which might be telling; after all so many tear-jerking love stories are Cinderella-type stories, so maybe he just wasn't romantic.
Crane really had a vast compass---there’s an awful lot there that’s good and wholesome and inspirational; it’s all rich fare for the art lover. There is a big selection of his books on this CD, the biggest, in fact, that has been compiled on one disc ever. The quality is high in most of them. A few illustrations from those books are shown here below but they are to be considered a personal selection of this reader. |
