FROM MR. ARTHUR RACKHAM'S 'GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES.'
BY LEAVE OF MESSRS. FREEMANTLE.
Mr. J. D. Batten, Mr. H. J. Ford, and Mr. H. R. Millar represent, in various ways, the modern art of fairy-tale illustration at its best. Mr. Batten's connection with Mr. Joseph Jacob's treasuries of fairy-lore, Mr. Ford's long record of work in the multicoloured fairy and true story books edited by Mr. Lang, and the drawings of Mr. Millar in various collections of fairy tales, entitle them to a foremost place among contemporary illustrators of the world's immortal wonder-stories.
Mr. Batten knows the rules of chivalry, of sentiment, humour, and horridness, as they exist in the magical convention of the real fairy-tales, and whether their purpose be merry or sad, heroic or grotesque, he illustrates the old tales of Celt and Saxon, of India, Arabia and Greece with appreciation of the largeness and splendour of their conception. One might wish for more vitality in his women, and think that a representation of the mournful beauty of Deirdre, the passion of Circe or of Medea, should differ from the untroubled sweetness of the King's daughter of faery. Still one appreciates the dignity of these smooth-browed women, and, after all, the passionate figures of Greek and Celtic epics need translation before they can figure in fairy-tale books. Mr. Batten's ideas are never trite and never morbid. His giants are gigantic, his monsters of true devastating breed, and his drawings—especially the later ones—are as able technically as they are apt to the occasion.
FROM MR. BATTEN'S 'INDIAN FAIRY TALES.'
BY LEAVE OF DAVID NUTT.
There can hardly be an existent fairy-story among the hundreds told before the making of books that Mr. Ford has not illustrated in one version or another. The telling-house of every nation has yielded stories for Mr. Lang's annual volumes; and since the appearance of 'The Blue Fairy Book' in 1888, Mr. Ford, alone or in collaboration with Mr. Jacomb Hood, Mr. Lancelot Speed and other well-known artists, has illustrated the stories Mr. Lang has gathered. Moreover, in addition to seven volumes of fairy tales, and many true story and animal story books, Mr. Ford has made drawings for Æsop, for the 'Arabian Nights,' and for 'Early Italian Love Stories.' His decorative and illustrative ideal has never lacked distinction, and his recent work is the coherent development of that of fourteen years ago, though he has gained in freedom and variety of conception and in quality of expression. Mr. Ford's art is obviously founded on that of Walter Crane, but he looks at a subject with greater interest in its dramatic possibilities, and in the facts of place and time than the later 'Crane' convention admits. An abundant fancy, familiarity with the facts of legendary, romantic and animal life, over a wide tract of country and through long ages of time, fill the decorative pages of the artist with a plentitude of graceful, vigorous and persuasive forms. The well-devised pages of Miss Emily J. Harding's 'Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen,' are akin in form to the drawings of Mr. Batten and of Mr. Ford, though regard for the national tone of the stories gives these illustrations individuality and interest.
