Serials to Graphic Novels

by Catherine J Golden

  The Eye of a Naturalist—Beatrix Potter and Realistic Representation

  In his landmark Children’s Books in England, Harvey Darton singles out Beatrix Potter for producing the best illustrated children’s books at the fin de siècle: “there is no better evidence for the new confidence which the creators of children’s books had in their—relatively new—craft than the riches that accrued during the last years of the Victorian period and the first decade of the twentieth century. Beatrix Potter could almost stand for everyone” (326). In the field of illustrated Victorian children’s books, Potter also “could almost stand” for the rich watercolor tradition of Randolph Caldecott, Walter Crane, and Kate Greenaway, a triumvirate of children’s illustrators to which she is often compared.23 Young Beatrix read illustrated books that were standards in the Victorian library and paid attention to contemporary graphic artists. She favored Caldecott and Crane over Greenaway.24 Potter’s father, Rupert Potter, collected Caldecott watercolors,25 and Caldecott’s blend of playfulness and naturalism informs Potter’s animal illustrations; in particular, Caldecott’s A Frog He Would A-Wooing Go (1883) finds expression in Potter’s fishing frog character, Jeremy Fisher, from The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher (1906). As a child, Beatrix read and enjoyed the nonsensical verse of Edward Lear and John Tenniel’s illustrations of Alice and even made an attempt to illustrate Lear’s “The Owl and the Pussy Cat” and the White Rabbit of Wonderland as well as Joel Chandler Harris’s Uncle Remus, but she never published them.26 However, if we look across illustrative styles in the arc of the Victorian illustrated book, Potter’s artistic approach to illustration shows a reengagement with a style of lifelike artistic representation at times referred to as the Millais school.27

  A comparison of John Everett Millais and Beatrix Potter may seem surprising: Millais was on the cusp of middle age when Beatrix was born; the older artist was Academy-trained and the younger largely self-taught; one exhibited at the Royal Academy shows, and the other made her mark in book illustration—a field “then as now … viewed as a stepchild among the arts” (Goodman 14).28 Millais was the youngest pupil to be accepted at the prestigious Royal Academy—he was admitted at the age of eleven—while Potter at Millais’s age took lessons from a Miss Cameron and earned a certificate from the Committee on the Council of Education in 1881.29 A cofounder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Millais began an artistic movement that reformed British art in its aim for simplicity and truth to nature, and he has earned a secure place in art history as a successful painter and water colorist. Best-known as the author and illustrator of Peter Rabbit, Beatrix Potter is immortalized in the nursery—a place of childhood—that has overshadowed her accomplishments as a water-colorist and naturalist artist.

  The lives and creative accomplishments of one of Victorian England’s most successful society painters and a children’s author-illustrator thirty-seven years his junior are interconnected, nonetheless. The Millais and Potter families often summered in Dalguise, Scotland, and Millais was a close friend of Potter’s father. Rupert Potter, a businessman and lawyer, was an amateur painter and photographer, and he often assisted Millais by supplying him with photographs of subjects and landscape scenes that the artist used as an aide-memoire to complete his paintings when a model was not available or he had returned from a painting expedition. The Potters were dedicated to the arts, and with her father, who taught her photography, Beatrix frequently attended the exhibitions at the Royal Academy where Millais regularly exhibited.

  In her journal entries from 1881–97, Potter mentions Millais in over forty-five entries; the only other individuals who occupied her thoughts to that extent are her father and her brother, Bertram. Some of the references are mundane—on 28 April 1883, Potter reports that she has visited four picture galleries and only likes best the pictures of children drawn by “Mr. Millais and perhaps Sir F. Leighton”; on 14 March 1884, Beatrix notes that she and her father visited Millais, who had been in bed for three days with neuralgia and a toothache (Linder, JBP 39, 71).30 Other references reveal her wit, such as an earlier entry of 5 March 1883: “Papa asked Mr. Millais what he thought of the Rossetti pictures. He said they were all rubbish, that the people had goitres—that Rossetti never learnt drawing and could not draw. A funny accusation for one P.R.B. to make at another” (31).

  Still other entries show Millais to be Potter’s artistic mentor. On 6 March 1883, Potter comments, “Papa asked Mr. Millais about mixing the paints, and he very kindly said what I must get” (Linder, JBP 32). When she visited Millais’s studio, he took an interest in Potter’s artwork and included her in their discussions although at times he teased her. The fullest journal reference to Millais appears on 13 April 1896, the day of Millais’s death. Potter recalls, “I shall always have a most affectionate remembrance of Sir John Millais…. He gave me the kindest encouragement with my drawings … but he really paid me a compliment for he said that ‘plenty of people can draw, but you and my son John have observation’” (JBP 418).31 Potter’s biographer Linda Lear presents this compliment as “an encomium she privately cherished for the rest of her life” (Beatrix 45), for Millais here “made the distinction between those that could merely draw and those whose drawings had ‘the divine spark of’ observation” (96). To Lear, Potter’s scientific illustrations have “such accuracy they could almost be photographs”; they possess “that spark, as well as a pure translucency that marks the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites both on Potter’s pallet and use of light” (96). Potter admired the Pre-Raphaelites, who, in her estimation, had a “‘somewhat niggling but absolutely genuine admiration for copying natural detail’” (qtd. in Hobbs 15).32

  Potter particularly admired Millais’s early style exemplified in Ophelia (1851–52), a canvas the Pre-Raphaelite artist painted out-of-doors and which earned him praise for his skill in drawing a beautiful, natural landscape. Millais took pains to paint and illustrate what he saw with accuracy, whether he was rendering an historical subject, an everyday landscape, or a portrait. For his famous portrait of John Ruskin in front of a waterfall in Glenfinlas, Scotland (1853–54), Millais captured every detail of the waterfall and rocky landscape, framing his subject with photographic realism (he completed the figure of Ruskin in his London studio, however). Potter likewise cherished pristine country scenery, and, as I have argued elsewhere,33 she became a book author and illustrator after her unsuccessful attempt to become a naturalist artist.

  Potter longed to enter “the grandiose world so genially dominated both at home and at the Academy by Millais” (57), notes Potter’s biographer Margaret Lane. From childhood, Potter drew out-of-doors and filled her sketchbooks with drawings and watercolors of natural history specimens that she and her brother, Bertram, collected on their three-month family vacations in Scotland and the Lake District and later smuggled into the upper-floor nursery of their London home at No. 2 Bolton Gardens, West Brompton. Beatrix and Bertram snuck live and dead rabbits, mice, hedgehogs, owls, bats, and even a fox into the nursery. The live animals became pets, and some of the dead specimens proved invaluable to examine under a hand-lens or a microscope. From age eight, Beatrix dissected animals and plant samples, classified them, drew and painted them, and compared her drawings to the models on display at the Natural History Museum34 from which they differ in one respect: Potter drew mushrooms in their woodland and grassy habitats just as they would appear in nature, a quality she carried into her book illustrations. Potter’s portfolio of natural history studies was not well received in 1896 by the botanists and director at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, and she directed her energies into illustrated children’s tales.35 In composing her book illustrations, Potter returned to “picture-letters” (JBP 250) that she sent to the children of Annie Carter Moore, her former governess, and her early natural history studies of animal and plant specimens.

  Potter’s still beloved series of twenty-three picture books shows her artistic skill, keen observation of nature, and talent for close-ups of one o
r two main figures, traits that distinguish the work of Sixties illustrators like Millais. Throughout her storybook series, relatively few illustrations include a group of characters, and many plates are close-ups of one animal character. Although she had difficulty drawing humans,36 Potter was skilled in copying animals and nature with photographic accuracy. Potter placed her figures in well-executed landscapes—primarily the pond, the woodland, the garden, and the countryside; however, some of her stories are set in a middle-class Victorian home or a dollhouse, such as in The Tale of Two Bad Mice (1904), which she modeled after an actual dollhouse her publisher Norman Warne made for his niece Winifred Warne. Whereas Caldecott and Greenaway favored an idealized country setting, Potter, like Millais, showed an allegiance to identifiable geographical sites.37 She set The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher (1906) in Esthwaite Water and The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin (1903) in Derwentwater in the Lake District; the old owl’s island where Squirrel Nutkin has his adventure and loses his tail is St. Herbert’s Island of Derwentwater.

  Potter excels as a naturalist in Squirrel Nutkin in the illustrations where Nutkin gathers pincushions from a briar bush and plays “ninepins” with fir cones and oak apples (36, 28). In both plates, Potter foregrounds figure over background although she includes in the woodland setting accurately rendered mushrooms, oak apples, fir cones, and rose hips—all subjects that Potter drew as a young artist. The shape of the upturned mushroom caps in the ninepins illustration as well as the brownish color and leggy stems of the fungus resemble a watercolor of a Cortinarius torvus mushroom that Potter completed in 1893 in Dunkeld in the Lake District.38 A watercolor of a rose hip simply titled “Hips” executed at age twelve served as a model for an illustration of Nutkin as he “gathered robin’s pincushions off a briar bush” (37). In both the rose hip study and the book illustration, Potter captures the orange-red hue of the fruit of the rose plant, the curling projections on each blossom’s end, and the tear-like shape of the seed receptacle of the rose hip as well as the color and texture of the robin’s pincushions, a red fibrous growth that forms on wild rose stems.39

  The pictures of Squirrel Nutkin foremost recall Potter’s studies of the British red squirrel, Sciurus vulgaris, which she drew from life and rendered with artistry and accuracy to the smallest detail. The illustration of Nutkin gathering pincushions (see fig. 42) shows the squirrel shifting its weight fully onto its back paws to free its forepaws to grip the pincushion. The squirrel’s fluffy tail fans its back. The reddish-brown coat, red markings on its legs and arms, and the white patch on its underside also reveal Potter’s skill as a naturalist artist, expressed in an undated watercolor study entitled “Squirrels on a Log.”40

  Figure 42. “Squirrel Nutkin Gathering Pincushions from a Briar Bush.” Illustration by Beatrix Potter from her ‘The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin’ © Frederick Warne and Co., 1903, 2002. Reproduced by permission of Frederick Warne & Co. .

  For The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher, Potter likewise called upon the many natural history studies she drew of water lilies with pronounced yellow centers, white petals, and spongy leaves.41 Her drawings of Jeremy Fisher reveal detailed observations of a frog’s webbed feet, bulging eyes, reptilian nose, and curving underside culled from her frog studies including “Sketches of Frogs,” a pencil study of frogs drawn in various positions.42 In one illustration of Jeremy Fisher swimming toward a water lily, the reader can anticipate a swift kick from Jeremy by the positioning of the frog’s webbed feet under the water. The twenty-six illustrations for this book include close-ups of a beetle, a trout, and a water rat, as well as Jeremy the frog—all subjects that she drew from life. When her publisher questioned the authenticity of Jeremy’s yellow-green coloring, Potter put her model in a jelly jar and brought it to Warne’s London office to prove that her frog, like all her animals, was true to nature.43

  Granted, Potter’s children’s book illustrations blend scientific observations with an element of fancy since most of her animals, including Jeremy Fisher, wear clothes. Potter admired the work of Tenniel as well as Caldecott, and her clothed animals resemble Tenniel’s depiction of the White Rabbit for Alice in Wonderland in that clothes never obscure a character’s animal characteristics. Potter never changed an animal’s anatomy and criticized Kenneth Grahame because in Mr. Toad of The Wind in the Willows (1908), he created “‘A mistake to fly in the face of nature—A frog may wear galoshes; but I don’t hold with toads having beards or wigs!’” (qtd. in Linder, A History 175).44 Peter Rabbit wears his trademark blue coat with shiny brass buttons and the shoes of a Victorian schoolboy. But his white underside, light brown fur, almond-shaped eyes, and fluffy white tail designate him a Belgian rabbit, modeled after Potter’s own two pet Belgian rabbits, Peter and Benjamin.

  Elements of nature also advance the moral of her stories. In The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Potter most famously uses a robin redbreast as a visual motif that recurs in The Tale of Benjamin Bunny (1904), Peter Rabbit’s sequel. The robin shows itself in Mr. McGregor’s garden, a place where Peter’s mother warns him not to venture. Each successive appearance in Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny strengthens the bird’s symbolic function as Peter’s lapsed conscience. In commenting on Peter’s character, the robin functions as a revealing detail in a Cruikshank or Phiz illustration. For example, Cruikshank’s “Mr. Bumble and Mrs. Corney Taking Tea” from Oliver Twist introduces Paul Pry, an interfering busybody from an 1825 play called Paul Pry by John Poole; the figurine of Paul Pry on Mrs. Corney’s mantel (not mentioned in the text) intimates Mr. Bumble’s mercenary motive for marriage before Dickens reveals it. Potter incorporates an element of nature well known to English gardeners to serve a similar symbolic function.

  The most famous of the robin’s five appearances is the first (see fig. 43) where Peter Rabbit is gorging on radishes (20);45 the robin redbreast is, as Margaret Lane notes, “boldly observant on the spade while Peter overeats himself of radishes” (71). The plate is noteworthy for its naturalism as well as its symbolism. A robin, which lays a blue egg the color of Peter’s trademark jacket, is known to be active during the day, to frequent open farmland, and to have an acute sense of observation; this bird hunts by sight as well as hearing. From her study of birds in nature and dead birds that she found on her rambles,46 Potter captured the traits and anatomy of the European robin with its distinctive orange-red breast and face, whitish belly, brown upper parts, and black eye and bill. The background of the illustration is an English garden that Potter depicts with lifelike realism. There are leafy yellow-green lettuces, long and thin French beans, and tapering red radishes with large green leaves. Naughty Peter holds the conical taproot of an accurately rendered radish in each paw to facilitate continuous feasting. In this plate and throughout her storybook series, Potter illustrates with photographic accuracy and truth to nature, traits that recall Millais and the school of representational realism.

  Figure 43. “Peter Rabbit Eating Radishes.” Illustration by Beatrix Potter from her ‘The Tale of Peter Rabbit’ © Frederick Warne and Co., 1902, 2002. Reproduced by permission of Frederick Warne & Co. .

  George Du Maurier—A Sixties Artist Reengaging Caricature and Realism in the US Periodical and Book Market

  George Du Maurier made his reputation as a Sixties illustrator along with Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Holman Hunt, and Frederick Walker, among others. Du Maurier’s illustrations demonstrate a commitment to naturalism and feeling, favor close-ups over panoramic views, and privilege figure over background. As an illustrator of his own novels that he published in the US market, however, Du Maurier was an inheritor of two illustrative traditions: realism and caricature.

  In “The Illustrating of Books,” Du Maurier reveals his dual artistic allegiances. On the one hand, he writes that Millais, Rossetti, and Hunt provide readers “extraordinary pleasure,” and Tenniel’s pictures for Alice are “simply perfect” (1: 351). In his letters, he frequently mentions Millais, admires Millais’s work
, and notes in a letter to his mother dated March 1863, that as an illustrator of The Cornhill Magazine, “I’m in devilish good company—Leighton and Millais” (D. Du Maurier 201). Like Millais, Du Maurier was a consummate illustrator of women and was known for capturing the pretentions of Victorian society and the intricacy of daily bourgeois life. On the other hand, Du Maurier also revered the early caricaturists of “the good old school” (1: 351) and championed the illustrated book when it was falling out of fashion as a form of adult entertainment in England. In “The Illustrating of Books,” Du Maurier praises Thackeray as an author-illustrator, “who had a genuine gift of sketching,” although he admits, “His drawing and execution do not come up to the standard of today, but we know what he meant his people to be like” (2: 371). Du Maurier also lauds the book illustrations and Punch drawings of John Leech, another caricaturist with whom he worked side by side at Punch and whose post as a cartoonist he eventually assumed;47 in a rare 1895 interview with Robert H. Sherard published in The Westminster Budget, Du Maurier even calls Leech “‘one of my intimates: my master’” (qtd. in Sherard 24).

  In Du Maurier’s bestseller Trilby (1894), the three English artists lend the eponymous Trilby O’Ferrall books to improve her mind written by Du Maurier’s own favorite authors—Sir Walter Scott as well as Dickens and Thackeray whose books came out with caricature-style illustrations. At the end of the novel when Trilby is dying, Little Billee’s mother, Mrs. Bagot, reads her David Copperfield (1850), illustrated by Phiz, “But the best of all was for Trilby to look over John Leech’s Pictures of Life and Character, just out” (418). The original illustrators of Dickens are also foremost in Du Maurier’s mind in his 1890 article “The Illustrating of Books”: