Friday, February 8, 2013

Really Old Old-School Artist Week Day 5:
Arthur Rackham

And so we come to the conclusion of my week of "Really Old Old-School Artists." Today's artist is Arthur Rackham, and it may be a long time coming from me to old Arthur. I've never really felt the need to feature Rackham in one of these posts because his work is really all over the internet, and has already made its way (along with the likes of John D. Batten) into many an OSR product relying on public domain artwork (e.g., John Stater's Blood & Treasure). The reason I'm delving into such familiar old-old-school artist territory is because most of the Rackham illustrations I'm featuring today have yet to reach the point of oversaturation among us OSR types. The particularly gruesome image below (the first image with the chopped off heads, e.g.) comes from the 1907 edition of The Ingoldsby Legends, a book based on the 19th Century collection of myths, legends, ghost stories and poetry prepared by Richard H. Barham (under the pseudonym of Thomas Ingoldsby of Tappington Manor).


2 comments:

  1. Nice overview! Arthur Rackham has long been one of my favorite illustrators and an influence on my own drawing style.

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  2. It's times like this that I wish Wayne Reynolds would stick to coloring books.

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