In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, printing technology advanced by leaps and bounds, while images were still in their infancy, and illustration became an important part of publications. This year marks the 140th anniversary of the birth of the famous French illustrator Edmund Dulac, who is one of the three masters of illustration in Europe's golden age with his varied style, expansive dabbling and exquisite picture.
Du Lac was born in 1882 to a middle-class family in Toulouse, southern France. At an early age, he developed a keen interest in painting and studied systematically in his 10s. As an adult, he followed the general trajectory of the middle-class families of the time and entered the University of Toulouse to study law.
Du Lac
But rigorous legal courses were tedious and boring for Dulac, so he used his spare time to study at a nearby academy of fine arts. Unexpectedly, this extracurricular hobby also brought him a scholarship, which also made him decide to part ways with the law and switch to studying painting professionally.
Dulac's self-portrait
In 1904, at the age of 22, Durac came to London, determined to make a living by painting. With the rapid development of printing, the publishing world is in full swing, the demand for illustration has also grown by leaps and bounds, and the golden age of illustration has begun for 20 years, giving birth to a number of famous illustrators such as Arthur Rackham.
Arthur Lakhan's masterpiece
Color illustrations were popular in the London publishing industry at that time, and in order to ensure that the illustrations were brightly colored, the illustrations had to be printed on a special paper that was coated so that it could not be directly bound to the book, but could only be attached.
Illustration was an important part of the publication before the imagery appeared
Therefore, illustrators do not have to consider the technical restrictions on the use of color at that time when creating, nor do they have to specially thicken the lines and borders of thick patterns, the development of chromatic printing has relaxed the restrictions of illustrators, and also made the illustration market unprecedentedly prosperous with the publishing industry.
Du Lac's career as a professional illustrator began with Charlotte Brontë's famous Jane Eyre. As a newcomer to the "foreigner" and a novice, drawing illustrations for Britain's most popular novels was no small challenge.
Illustration of Jane Eyre
But Dulac did it brilliantly. From "Jane Eyre", we can already get a glimpse of the characteristics of Durac's later creations: changeable style, boundless imagination, clever mixing of various elements, and at the same time in line with the reader's expectations of the text.
The first work to enter the world of illustration was "Jane Eyre"
"Jane Eyre" won the recognition of the British art world for Durak, who joined the local fine arts association, received an olive branch from the publisher, and published his works steadily every year.
One Thousand and One Nights is Dulac's famous work
In 1907, the oriental style of "One Thousand and One Nights" made Dulac famous in one fell swoop, and his magnificent and fantastical pictures gave a concrete carrier to the imagination of exotic romance in Europe, which was obsessed with oriental culture at that time. Vivid and brilliant colors add to this "abstract Orient", and exotic Arabian style has become Dulac's most successful theme.
Dulac's illustrations are full of mysterious oriental styles
In the following years, Dulac published shakespeare storms, Rubais, Edgar Allan Poe's poems and other works. In addition to his great achievements in the literary world, his illustrations also shine in the field of fairy tales.
Illustration by Dulac for Cinderella
His illustrations have fantasy wonders unique to fairy tales, but they also carry a shadow of the real world that is not low. After 1910, "Sleeping Beauty - A Collection of French Fairy Tales", "Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales", "Sinbad the Navigator and Other Stories" were published one after another.
In 1918, when he was 35 years old, his illustration career reached a turning point when he published his last commercially successful book, Hawthorne's Fairy Tale Picture Book, which became a watershed in his career.
Luxury children's books with beautiful illustrations are expensive
Affected by the war, the market for luxury children's books has shrunk severely, and fine illustrations need to be supported by expensive book prices. After that, Durac no longer illustrated the scenery of the Golden Age, and even fell into a debt crisis.
Portrait of a Lady in the Garden
Reality pushed Durac to make another living, and thus ventured into many fields: opening comic strips in newspapers, drawing covers for magazines, drawing portraits of customers, designing costumes for stage plays, drawing cards, designing stamps and banknotes... He even tried to compose music, and because of Yeats's poetry composition, he had a conflict with this friend...
Stamps designed by Du Lac for Elizabeth II
Time seemed to be a reincarnation, until 1950, in his old age, Durac returned to his old business, returned to the embrace of fairy tale books, and published "The Golden Rooster" and "The Wedding of Cupid and Pussek". Perhaps, no matter how varied his style is and how widely he has dabbled in the field, the most important place in his heart is still the fairy tale world that is far away from the world.
EDIT—Sean
The image comes from the Internet