Of all the sets of illustrations for the Alice books that have been produced during my lifetime, there are two in particular that have really inspired me. The first is Ralph Steadman’s.
If you delve at all into the history of how Alice has been
illustrated over the years, certain illustrators’ work tends to be held up as landmarks.
Tenniel, Rackham and Peake are all examples of such and so is Ralph Steadman.
Ralph Steadman is a world famous British artist, illustrator and cartoonist. In
the late sixties Ralph Steadman illustrated both of the Alice books. Of all of
the Alice illustrators I've seen I think that Ralph Steadman captures the
madness and the twisted logic of the books better than anyone, even Tenniel.
Which is not to say that I like all of his illustrations. I
would like to say that I appreciate them, but that’s not the same thing. There
are some that I do actually really dislike. But then in a way that’s all part
of what you want from an illustration. With the best will in the world the
Alice books need something more than the bland and inoffensive. When we get to
Helen Oxenbury you’ll see someone whose Alice work is certainly not offensive,
but it’s anything but bland. I’ll come to the Steadman illustrations that
provoke my dislike later.
I do like what Steadman does with the character of Alice.
Her starting point seems to have been Tenniel’s – long flowing hair with Alice band,
pinafore dress and all. Tenniel’s Alice has hair that for the most part is just
there. Steadman’s Alice has hair that at times almost takes on almost a life of
its own. The way he uses it in the Wool and Water illustration is almost
genius. I once saw Ralph Steadman contributing to a documentary about the work
of Aubrey Beardsley, so it’s likely he was a fan. The Wool and Water
illustration I mentioned seems to me to show Beardsley’s influence very much. Steadman’s
Alice is as much a bystander as Tenniel’s, but her expressions of surprise, confusion
and at times almost horror mirror the reader’s reaction to the strangeness all
around.
Steadman uses hatching but very unobtrusively and you’re
more likely to be drawn to his characteristic use of what look to be ink blots
. There’s a feeling of violent action – either manifest or repressed within
many of his illustrations, yet at the same time there is a strong geometrical
quality to his work. One of my favourites of his illustrations shows Alice
entering and emerging from the looking glass at the same time which
demonstrates this. His use of the chessboard pattern in some of his
illustrations for Looking Glass gets as far away from Tenniel’s flat tableaux
as it is possible to get on a two dimensional surface. They put me in mind of
illustrations I’ve seen which try to explain how space is curved. Some of his
compositions are so brilliantly and intricately constructed that it almost
makes my eyes hurt to try to completely unravel what I’m looking at. I
particularly like the two knights fighting in Looking Glass.
So what’s not to like? Well. . . Ralph Steadman illustrated
the books at the end of the sixties, a time in which the books were ‘discovered’
by a certain proportion of the readership who wondered what exactly the
caterpillar was smoking in his hookah. The kind of misguided person who
believes that the books were written under the influence of narcotics. I think
we have to be honest here. The caterpillar is introduced in the last couple of
sentences of Chapter IV - “. . . her eyes immediately met those of a
large blue caterpillar, that was sitting on the top with its arms folded,
quietly smoking a long hookah, and taking not the smallest notice of her or of
anything else.” Then at the start of Chapter V the description continues – “The
Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence: at last
the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and addressed her in a
languid, sleepy voice.” So, the Caterpillar is smoking an unnamed substance. At
first he seems oblivious to his surroundings, and even when he does notice
Alice he seems sleepy – one might almost say – drugged. So I don’t know if I
can reasonably complain because Steadman’s caterpillar looks spaced out. Martin
Gardner’s Annotated Alice suggests that Steadman gives it the face of self-confessed
drug user John Lennon. There’s a general resemblance. But he had the
caterpillar smoking some kind of cigarette through a long cigarette holder. The
fact that Carroll says he was smoking a hookah leads you to surmise this is a
joint. I think that I can justify the cigarette holder and will do so shortly –
but this doesn’t mean I have to like it.
Which brings me to what I really dislike. I can’t get over
my dislike of Ralph Steadman’s portrayal of the Hatter. Yes, he is completely
different from Tenniel’s. But in one illustration he looks like a bloodhound –
his open mouth looks like a shiny black nose. He wears what in one illustration
appears to be union jack sunglasses. All he has in the way of hats is a plain
bowler. Which surprises me a little considering the way that Steadman uses
clothes symbolically in other places. For example, the White Rabbit, the
Caterpillar, the lobster and others all wear pinstriped trousers. In the case
of the White Rabbit this completes an ensemble which makes him look for all the
world like a harassed commuter. It gives you an idea that there is some kind of
weird Establishment in Wonderland that all of these characters in their own way
are part of. It also contrasts well with the playing cards who are painting the
roses red, to coin a phrase. These wear plain trousers, and in case we don’t
get the point then they are also wearing flat caps. The flat cap is as much as
a symbol of the blue collar working man as the bowler hat is a symbol of the white
collar middle class managing classes. It’s interesting that Bill the lizard,
who is also a hired hand, wears a flat cap, while the idle caterpillar smokes from
a cigarette holder, an affectation of the bourgeoisie. Was Lewis Carroll making
a dig at the class system? Probably not, if truth be told but it provides an interesting
extra dimension to the work.
Ralph Steadman is another illustrator of the books who does
not provide much in the way of backgrounds but manages to make a little go a
long way. All in all, I kind of think that Mad Hatter notwithstanding, Ralph
Steadman deserves a place alongside Tenniel and Peake on the branch at the top
of the tree. The branch marked Genius.
All of my copies of Ralph Steadman's illustrations can be found on my page of Alice in Wonderland illustrations. You can find this in the links to the right of the page.
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