Comparison - Tenniel's and Rackham's Caterpillars

 I don't necessarily think that it was very fair of me comparing Tenniel and Arthur Rackham’s Alice illustrations just by looking at their respective Gryphons, because that was a contest where Tenniel was always going to come out on top.

So I decided to offer by way of contrast what I feel is one of Tenniel’s less effective illustrations against one of Rackham’s most effective. So, here is Tenniel’s caterpillar :

And here is Arthur Rackham’s –

Now, Rackham did like to gently watercolour his illustrations, and when you’re as good as Rackham was, who would blame you? I’m nowhere near as good using colour as I am just using ink, and I make no bones about it. Add to that the fact that my scanner hates light blues, and when it picks them up at all it tends to make them grey. Here's a photograph of my copy :-

Still, hopefully my copy might give you just a little flavour of the Rackham original. I think that this realisation of the caterpillar is probably my favourite of any. Tenniel never showed the caterpillar’s face, which admittedly enabled him to pull off the optical illusion whereby what you think is it’s profile could just as easily be two top legs. For me, Rackham gets it right. He kind of looks like a dried out, superannuated academic.

Then, when you add to that Rackham’s great facility at depicting a fantasy woodland, you’ve got something of quality.