The Sixties Alice - Ralph Steadman

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.

There Goes Bill

You already know that it’s hard for me to find time for drawing in the evenings since starting my new job so I won’t go through all that again. Still, this weekend I’ve managed to work through the block I’ve had on writing the next chapter of “Alice’s Adventures at the Pole”. I haven’t finished it yet, but I think about 1000 more words will do it and I know exactly what to write and how to get to the end of the chapter. I’m just not forcing it. I will possibly finish writing the chapter this evening.

In celebration I spent quite a bit of time yesterday working on an illustration. In my first illustration showing Alice’s features I spent a long time before getting it right and the final version was actually my third attempt. Well, yesterday I spent quite a long time on the first attempt at the next illustration, before realising that it wasn’t going to work. 

Yes, that is a Walrus, and yes, I am conscious that one of the most famous and beloved poems in the Alice books is “The Walrus and the Carpenter” recited by Tweedledum and Tweedledee in Looking Glass. Well, this is the same character. If it was good enough for Lewis Carroll to resurrect characters from the first book in the second, then it’s certainly good enough for me. I shan’t at the moment explain just how he features in the story though.

The connections with Tenniel’s Walrus are fairly obvious. Although my head is more detailed than Tenniel’s, the clothes he wears are very similar, with the spotted bow tie being the most obvious difference. Tenniel’s wears a plain bow tie. However I did do something different with the flippers. Tenniel’s walrus has front flippers that are rather more like a seal's. They are a little more elongated than a walrus’ flippers and they have little definition. With my walrus I exaggerated the qualities that make a walrus’ flippers different from a seal’s, shortening them a little and highlighting some of the detail.

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Well, that’s my Alice story and illustrations. On Friday I made some more copies. Last week I looked at the way some different illustrators chose to illustrate the Hatter. This week I wanted to look at another character who I think is difficult to be original with, namely, Bill the Lizard.

This is what Lewis Carroll wrote,

“she made out the words: “Where’s the other ladder?—Why, I hadn’t to bring but one; Bill’s got the other—Bill! fetch it here, lad!—Here, put ’em up at this corner—No, tie ’em together first—they don’t reach half high enough yet—Oh! they’ll do well enough; don’t be particular—Here, Bill! catch hold of this rope—Will the roof bear?—Mind that loose slate—Oh, it’s coming down! Heads below!” (a loud crash)—“Now, who did that?—It was Bill, I fancy—Who’s to go down the chimney?—Nay, I shan’t! You do it!—That I won’t, then!—Bill’s to go down—Here, Bill! the master says you’re to go down the chimney!”

“Oh! So Bill’s got to come down the chimney, has he?” said Alice to herself. “Shy, they seem to put everything upon Bill! I wouldn’t be in Bill’s place for a good deal: this fireplace is narrow, to be sure; but I think I can kick a little!”

She drew her foot as far down the chimney as she could, and waited till she heard a little animal (she couldn’t guess of what sort it was) scratching and scrambling about in the chimney close above her: then, saying to herself “This is Bill,” she gave one sharp kick, and waited to see what would happen next.

The first thing she heard was a general chorus of “There goes Bill!” 

This little episode where giant Alice boots Bill the Lizard back up out of the chimney has proved a very attractive one to illustrators through the years. Now, I do think that a lot of illustrators have drawn on Tenniel’s illustration of Bill. However, I also believe that Tenniel himself drew on Lewis Carroll’s original.

If you’ve followed my blog posts on the illustrations of the Alice books, then you’ll probably know that Lewis Carroll first wrote some of his stories down at the urging of Alice Liddell, and presented the handwritten manuscript to her as a gift for Christmas 1864. The manuscript contained over 30 of Carroll’s own illustrations to the story. It is now in the British Library.

Carroll took advice about publishing the story with his own illustrations after which he engaged John Tenniel to provide the illustrations. So before we look at any of Carroll’s illustrations let’s accept a couple of facts.

Lewis Carroll never claimed to be an artist or an illustrator.

The first facsimile of Carroll’s original manuscript was never published until a relatively short while ago, so during his lifetime only a handful of people would ever have seen his illustrations.

So, bearing that in mind, here’s my copy of Carroll’s own Bill illustration.

I’ve never copied one of his illustrations before, partly because he was an amateur, and I’ve been afraid that my amateurish deficiencies might magnify his. I think that the Bill illustration is one of his better ones. For one thing the mathematician clearly knew a bit about perspective, from the way he drew the roof and chimneys. It looks to me as if, like many young men of his class and background, he probably had lessons in drawing when he was growing up, as he does use some shading and I’ve already mentioned the perspective.

Okay, now let’s have a look at Tenniel’s –

So one glance comparing the two shows that this is the work of a very accomplished masterful illustrator, while Carroll’s is the work of an amateur. Tenniel’s Bill is more lizard like as you’d expect. He was a master of shading and uses it far more effectively and extensively than Carroll could. He knows that Bill and the chimney are what’s important to the scene so doesn’t include any more than this.

Now look again and see just how Tenniel has drawn (pardon the pun) from Carroll. Both Bills are in pretty similar positions. The shape of the tail makes me think of a snake rising from a snake charmer’s basket. Carroll’s Bill seems to hover in mid-air, while the only thing about Tenniel’s illustration to suggest any movement at all is the smoke rising from the pot underneath him.

Compare this with the copy I’ve recently made of Harry Rountree’s Bill.

The composition to me draws on Tenniel’s which as we’ve seen draws on Carroll’s. Like Tenniel, we see the chimney pot and Bill coming out of it, just as with Tenniel. As fine an illustrator as Harry Rountree, though, wouldn’t just largely copy Tenniel. So he has Bill upside down, which to my mind works really well. Harry Rountree was renowned through his life as a great illustrator of animals and birds, and his Bill is even more convincingly Saurian than Tenniel’s. Unlike Tenniel, Rountree uses motion lines and has soot rather than smoke being expelled with Bill. This gives it a really explosive quality. It’s my favourite illustration of the scene.

We’ve seen before that one of the illustrators who often got further away from Tenniel than most others was Mervyn Peake. Here’s his Bill.

Like Rountree he chooses to use motion lines, but doesn’t depict the chimney. Bill’s whole body is curved sinuously and he’s fully clothed. It’s an interesting choice, but for me it’s a rare occasion when one of Mervyn Peake’s illustrations doesn’t somehow give the scene the movement that you’d expect based on what he achieved with other scenes from the story.

So I’ll finish this post with a look at my copy of what Ralph Steadman did with this scene.

It’s very easy to look at Ralph Steadman’s illustrations of both Alice books and say, well, they’re nothing like Tenniel’s. And of course when you put them side by side it’s far easier to see the differences than the similarities. But it’s still Bill rising head first out of the chimney – and that’s what Tenniel drew. This has far more of an explosive quality than Tenniel’s – like Harry Rountree he uses motion lines underneath Bill, and there’s soot being expelled along with the lizard. The originality of this sketch, apart from the comical expression on Bill’s face, is the way his cap is rising faster than he is, suggested by the motion lines. I’m intrigued that Ralph Steadman gave him a cap – was he possibly influenced in this by the depiction of Bill in the Disney film of the fifties?

Who do you wish had illustrated the Alice books?

I’ve given a bit of thought to the question – of all the artists who have never to my knowledge illustrated the Alice books, which ones do I most wish had done it? I love this sort of question, and always when I come up with one, I start firming it up with rules and conditions. In this case I decided that the choice must be limited to only artists and illustrators who have been working at any time since 1865, the year of the publication of Wonderland. Strictly speaking I should possibly say only those working since the copyright ran out and anyone could have a go. Since this precludes one of my choices, though, I’m going to make 1865 the cut off point. My first choice, then, is a rather obvious one.

Sir Quentin Blake

I mean, it’s such an obvious choice, isn’t it, that I couldn’t help thinking that surely Sir Quentin must have illustrated the Alice books at one time or another. But if he did, I haven’t found any evidence of it whatsoever. Although he has illustrated the Walrus and the Carpenter for a book of poetry, anthologised in aid of the Children’s Trust.

It's interesting if you compare this to the equivalent Tenniel illustration.

 

At first sight they look very different, but look closer, and maybe you’ll agree with me that Sir Q., as I’d like to feel he’d let me call him, is actually drawing quite strongly on Tenniel, or at least paying an affectionate homage. Walrus on the left, carpenter on the right. Both sitting on the rocks. Big cliff on the far right. The oysters in both pictures seem to be very close cousins as well.

Sir Quentin is in his 80s now, and still going strong. He’s indelibly associated with the works of Roald Dahl – a couple of years ago when working my way through 50 great British illustrators I copied an illustration from “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, the first Dahl novel I ever read. For me it’s difficult to think of Roald Dahl’s books without thinking of Quentin Blake’s illustrations – as writer and illustrator they were an absolutely perfect match. Then, in the last decade, his illustrations have become the 'face' of David Walliams' extremely popular books. However, Sir Quentin’s portfolio is much wider and more varied than that, and I can’t help thinking that his quirky, expressive and individual style would make for a very interesting interpretation of the Alice books. His style looks deceptively simple. Yet when you try to make a copy of one of his illustrations you start to realise just how clever and precise it actually is. No single pen stroke is wasted, and as a result all of his pictures crackle and sparkle with life and personality.

Aubrey Beardsley

Hear me out. I know that his illustrations for Oscar Wilde’s Salome, as an example, ooze sexuality. That is not something I am advocating should be brought into the Alice books. But I think he’s fair game since, although Aubrey Beardsley was very much not a children’s illustrator, he did at one point illustrate an edition of the 1001 Arabian Nights. And furthermore. . . he was a genius in my book. Effectively his career lasted about 6 years, before his tragic early death from tuberculosis at the age of 26 in 1898. For the later part of that career he was often vilified. However his work is now more popular than ever, and his influence on artists, and graphic designers ever since, and especially since the 60s has been frankly immense.

Looking at this famous image from Salome that I copied you can see some of the hallmarks of the Art Nouveau style of which Beardsley was an innovator – the elongated liquid forms, for example. But look at the way he uses monochrome – this was not years ahead of his time, but decades. I first came to know of Beardsley and his work when I was 17, and studying my English A levels. (A levels are/were the qualifications you needed to pass in England and Wales in order to gain a place to study at University). One of my fellow students was not, frankly, great at English, but he was a superb artist, and he told me about basing his final project on Beardsley. When I researched this name which I knew nothing about, I too fell instantly under his spell.

Maybe I’m being fanciful here, but I do think it’s possible to see the influence of Aubrey Beardsley in some of the representations that have been made of the Alice books since. I haven’t yet made a copy of a brilliant – if rather disturbing – Charles Heath Robinson illustration from 1907 which I think owes something to Beardsley. Still this is a copy of Ralph Steadman’s illustration for the ‘Wool and Water’ chapter of Looking Glass. The water at the bottom of the picture is one obvious comparison, but it also seems to me that Alice's arms in particular are elongated and the liquid way that Alice's hair spreads into the water seems pretty suggestive of Beardsley to me. I do know that Ralph Steadman contributed to a BBC documentary about Beardsley as well in the past, so I think it's reasonable to suggest he may well be a fan. 

The Itch Test

2 years ago, during the first lockdown, I embarked upon a project of copying an illustration a day from 50 great British (or British based) illustrators. I thoroughly enjoyed it, although the results were often far from perfect. I learned about artists whom I was ignorant of previously, and came to appreciate some very fine work. My current obsession with illustrators of Lewis Carroll’s Alice books has had the same effect with me.

Of course, it all starts with John Tenniel. Following a prompt in a sketching group on Facebook, I copied a John Tenniel cartoon, “Dropping the Pilot” which led to me copying others. I’d copied at least part of several Alice illustrations over the last  years or so, but this reawakening of interest in Tenniel’s work then led to me taking on some more of the Alice illustrations, and so forth.

Of course, Tenniel has been one of my great illustrator heroes for a long time. For me, Tenniel’s work almost always passes what I’d like to think of as The Itch Test™. When I look at an illustration, if I really like it, then I get an itch to copy it. I almost always feel like this about Tenniel’s work. Admittedly, me copying a Tenniel sketch to try to understand how it was created is, I guess, a little like taking apart a working Rolex to find out how it works. The best you can hope for is not to do any damage. But I can’t help it. If you have an itch, then sooner or later you have to scratch it.

No other illustrator of the Alice books has made me itch quite so much as Tenniel. If we take Mervyn Peake, for example, I’ve already copied several of his illustrations for the Alice books, and some I think that some of his illustrations for the books rival, or (say it quietly) outdo Tenniel’s. But then some of them don’t make me itch at all. I think of, for example, his illustration of the Caterpillar. Peake was a great illustrator, and a superb draughtsman, and there’s nothing intrinsically bad about his caterpillar, but somehow it just doesn’t do it for me and I have no urge to copy it.

So, yesterday I decided to tackle Tenniel’s Humpty Dumpty. I like the way that the illustration is composed and constructed to give room on the page for the text. Afterwards I searched the internet for images of Humpty from Looking Glass produced by other artists, and I came upon one by an illustrator called E.B.Thurstan.

I wish that I knew more about Thurstan (not clear if this was a male or female illustrator) but I haven’t been able to find out anything. Still, the moment I saw it, my drawing hand began to itch – metaphorically at least. Yes, I think it’s fair to say that this is clearly in the tradition of Tenniel, but I think that the viewpoint looking down on Alice is particularly effective, and the background (at least in the original) is superb.

Speaking of itches, last week I thoroughly enjoyed copying Ralph Steadman’s Cheshire Cat. It started me looking more closely at Steadman’s illustrations for the 1973 editions of the Alice books. Ralph Steadman’s work has, I think, something of a marmite quality. I can understand you loving his work, and I can understand you having a strong reaction against his work – but I find it difficult to accept not having an opinion. I find that the Alice illustrations polarise me. I love certain illustrations, like this one of Alice and the White Knight which made my had start itching the moment I found it. 

On the other hand I really don’t like his illustrations of the Mad Hatter and March Hare, and also the caterpillar. Which is not to criticise the quality of the draughtsmanship. It’s that specific conception of the character depicted that I don’t like. Just a personal thing, and not something I think Ralph Steadman need lose any sleep over!

More Cheshire Cats

 Yes, I decided to take the Cheshire Cat theme and run with it some more. So let's recap. We have my copy of Tenniel's Cheshire Cat: - 

Then I added my copy of Helen Oxenbury's illustration of Alice and the Cheshire Cat :-

- and then my copy Mervyn Peake's 

SO, who have we got to add today? Well, here's my copy of Arthur Rackham's

Rackham's cat itself isn't that striking in comparison with some of the others. He's a little thinner and a little more manic than Tenniel's, but nowhere near as striking or alarming as Peake's. That tree though! Say what you like, Arthur Rackham couldn't half draw interesting trees.

Finally, now for something completely different. This is my copy of Ralph Steadman's illustration of the Cheshire Cat

Copying it helps you realise just how good Ralph Steadman is. His style looks chaotic, anarchic to first sight. It really isn't, though. There's some absolutely beautiful use of quite precise geometric shading here. In terms of my personal preference, this rivals Peake's at the top of my list.