FullReads

[Note:

1: This was written in 1902.]

Answers not dissimilar have been given before by other artists in like case. But it was this rigid fidelity to her individual vision and personal conviction which constituted her strength. There are always stupid, well-meaning busybodies in the world, who go about making question of the sonneteer why he does not attempt something epic and homicidal, or worrying the carver of cherry-stones to try his hand at a Colossus; but though they disturb and discompose, they luckily do no material harm. They did no material harm to Kate Greenaway. She yielded, no doubt, to pressure put upon her to try figures on a larger scale; to illustrate books, which was not her strong point, as it only put fetters upon her fancy; but, in the main, she courageously preserved the even tenor of her way, which was to people the artistic demesne she administered with the tiny figures which no one else could make more captivating, or clothe more adroitly. It may be doubted whether the collector will set much store by Bret Harte’s Queen of the Pirate Isle or the Pied Piper of Hamelin, suitable at first sight as is the latter, with its child-element, to her inventive idiosyncrasy. But he will revel in the dainty scenes of “Almanacks” (1883 to 1895, and 1897); in the charming Birthday Book of 1880; in Mother Goose, A Day in a Child’s Life, Little Ann, Marigold Garden and the rest, of which the grace is perennial, though the popularity for the moment may have waned.

I have an idea that Mother Goose; or, the Old Nursery Rhymes, 1881, was one of Miss Greenaway’s favourites, although it may have been displaced in her own mind by subsequent successes. Nothing can certainly be more deftly-tinted than the design of the “old woman who lived under a hill,” and peeled apples; nothing more seductive, in infantile attitude, than the little boy and girl, who, with their arms around each other, stand watching the black-cat in the plum-tree. Then there is Daffy-down-dilly, who has come up to town, with “a yellow petticoat and a green gown,” in which attire, aided by a straw hat tied under her chin, she manages to look exceedingly attractive, as she passes in front of the white house with the pink roof and the red shutters and the green palings. One of the most beautiful pictures in this gallery is the dear little “Ten-o’-clock Scholar” in his worked smock, as, trailing his blue-and-white school-bag behind him, he creeps unwillingly to his lessons at the most picturesque timbered cottage you can imagine. Another absolutely delightful portrait is that of “Little Tom Tucker,” in sky-blue suit and frilled collar, singing, with his hands behind him, as if he never could grow old. And there is not one of these little compositions that is without its charm of colour and accessory–blue plates on the dresser in the background, the parterres of a formal garden with old-fashioned flowers, quaint dwellings with their gates and grass-work, odd corners of countryside and village street, and all, generally, in the clear air or sunlight. For in this favoured Greenaway-realm, as in the island-valley of Avilion there

falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadow’d, happy, fair with orchard-lawns.

To Mother Goose followed A Day in a Child’s Life, also 1881, and Little Ann, 1883. The former of these contained various songs set to music by Mr. Myles B. Foster, the organist of the Foundling Hospital, and accompanied by designs on rather a larger scale than those in Mother Goose. It also included a larger proportion of the floral decorations which were among the artist’s chief gifts. Foxgloves and buttercups, tulips and roses, are flung about the pages of the book; and there are many pictures, notably one of a little green-coated figure perched upon a five-barred gate, which repeat the triumphs of its predecessor. In Little Ann and other Poems, which is dedicated to the four children of the artist’s friend, the late Frederick Locker-Lampson, she illustrated a selection from the verses for “Infant Minds” of Jane and Ann Taylor, daughters of that Isaac Taylor of Ongar, who was first a line engraver and afterwards an Independent Minister.[2] The dedication contains a charming row of tiny portraits of the Locker-Lampson family. These illustrations may seem to contradict what has been said as to Miss Greenaway’s ability to interpret the conceptions of others. But this particular task left her perfectly free to “go her own gait,” and to embroider the text which, in this case, was little more than a pretext for her pencil.