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Thursday 25 January 2007

Mad Hatter's Tea Party - John Tenniel

Another illustration tonight, this time a classic from Alice in Wonderland: the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, one that many of us can probably remember from childhood.

Illustrations are not art, and nor are they intended to be -- they lack, after all, the scope, depth and integration needed to function as art -- but the best illustrations have more delight than a truck-load of the crap you find infesting today's art galleries.

The function of illustrations is generally not to give us a shortcut to philosophy, as good art will do, but instead to summarise, to condense, to encapsulate a thousand words of a story into a picture that will tell it with all the economy the illustrator can muster. At that, John Tenniel was a master.

LINKS: John Tenniel - Wikipedia
More on value judgements in art - Peter Cresswell (Not PC)

RELATED: Art, Books
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1 comment:

  1. Rebel Radius25 Jan 2007, 23:37:00

    Alice - head bowed.

    The white rabbit - head raised above Alice.

    The Mad hatter - head raised above everyone.

    The picture could be Helen Clark and the Labour Party at a political rally.

    ReplyDelete

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