Beatrix Potter: the art of illustration

Illustrated manuscript of 'The Owl and the Pussy-cat', by Beatrix Potter, about 1897. Museum no. BP.619A. © Frederick Warne & Co. Ltd.

Illustrated manuscript of 'The Owl and the Pussy-cat', by Beatrix Potter, about 1897. Museum no. BP.619A. © Frederick Warne & Co. Ltd.

Beatrix Potter and Edward Lear

From early childhood, Beatrix Potter was fascinated by Edward Lear's nonsense rhymes and limericks. The Owl and the Pussy-cat was a particular favourite. She copied it in several letters to children, interpreting Lear's words in her unique illustrative style. Like Lear, she understood children's delight in the sounds and meanings of words. Her language is similarly rhythmic and precise, and she, too, invented words and experimented with the limerick form.

Both Potter and Lear often wrote with a particular child in mind. She remarked that the secret to the success of The Tale of Peter Rabbit was that it was addressed to 'a real live child … not made to order'. Lear conceived his nonsense rhyme of The Owl and the Pussy-Cat as a 'picture poem' for Janet Symonds, the daughter of his friend John Addington Symonds. Four days earlier, Lear had noted in his diary, 'Their little girl is unwell - & all is sad'.

The two writers also both suffered periods of debilitating sickness, isolation and depression. Potter believed she was 'born to be a discredit' to her parents. Lear felt excluded by his epilepsy. He despised social propriety and yearned to 'giggle heartily and to hop on one leg'. To escape the constraints of polite society, they indulged their imaginations and revelled in rebellion and excess. Lear's 'old men' are impulsive and indulgent; Peter Rabbit sheds his jacket and shoes and gorges on lettuces and broad beans.

Cicely Mary Barker (1895–1973), Illustration of the Pink Fairies for Flower Fairies of the Garden, 1944. Reproduction of Flower Fairy illustrations, © The Estate of Cicely Mary Barker, 2009

Cicely Mary Barker (1895–1973), Illustration of the Pink Fairies for Flower Fairies of the Garden, 1944. Reproduction of Flower Fairy illustrations, © The Estate of Cicely Mary Barker, 2009

Beatrix Potter and Cicely Mary Barker

In the early 19th century there was a widespread enthusiasm for flower fairies. This originated in J.J. Grandville's illustrations to Les Fleurs Animées of 1847 – incited by the Narcissus, Grandville's flowers become disenchanted with their 'flower-life' and beg the Flower Fairy to permit them to live on earth as humans. From the late 19th century onwards the genre developed further in the work of Kate Greenaway and other artists, and in the 1920s it was popularised by Cicely Mary Barker, beginning with Flower Fairies of the Spring (1923). In her fascination with natural history and scientific observation Cicely Mary Barker has often been associated with Beatrix Potter. Potter also imagined 'a fairyland amongst the wild flowers, the animals, fungi, mosses, woods and streams, all the thousand objects of the countryside'.

Both artists began their careers producing designs for greetings cards manufacturers, and both were largely self-taught. Potter's lack of formal schooling preserved her originality, while Barker claimed to draw 'without any real thought or attention to artistic theories'. However, both were strongly influenced by what Potter described as the Pre-Raphaelites' 'niggling but absolutely genuine admiration for copying natural details'. Their principal concern was to explore the world of the imagination while remaining faithful to the true likeness of things. Sketching always from life, Barker produced meticulous preparatory studies of flowers and even obtained cuttings of less common varieties from Kew Gardens. Both she and Potter show a keen eye for natural beauty and a botanist's concern for scientific accuracy.

'Oakmen unloading the wagon, whilst rabbits eat', pencil & wash drawing by Beatrix Potter, 1916. © Frederick Warne & Co.

'Oakmen unloading the wagon, whilst rabbits eat', pencil & wash drawing by Beatrix Potter, 1916. © Frederick Warne & Co.

Beatrix Potter and Ernest Aris

Beatrix Potter had always illustrated her own stories but by 1916 her eyesight was beginning to fail and her hands were growing stiff. She urged her publisher to find 'some second string' to illustrate her new tale, The Oakmen.

Keen to retain the credit for the illustrations, Potter sought a commercial illustrator who would 'draw to order'. She sent pencil sketches of her designs, along with instructions, to a prolific children's illustrator, Ernest Aris (1882–1963). However, she was careful to conceal both the text of her story and her own identity.

In the end, copyright difficulties meant that The Oakmen was never published. Potter in any case felt that Aris was 'not quite a good enough artist'. For her, his work demonstrated 'considerable technical facility' but 'no originality'. Instead, Potter recounted the story in a picture-letter to her niece, Nancy Nicholson.

It may have been Aris's business-like approach that can account for his lack of imagination and subtlety. Indeed, he himself said that his artistic method had always been governed by a set of 'commandments'. Potter, however, refused to work to order, arguing that 'The more spontaneous the pleasure - the more happy the result'.

Maurice Sendak in front of Beatrix Potter's house, Hill Top Farm, Sawrey, Cumbria, UK. © Frederick Warne & Co

Maurice Sendak in front of Beatrix Potter's house, Hill Top Farm, Sawrey, Cumbria, UK. © Frederick Warne & Co

Maurice Sendak’s tribute to Beatrix Potter

Maurice Sendak (1928–) is the internationally acclaimed American author and illustrator of Where The Wild Things Are and In The Night Kitchen. The power of his stories both to delight and disturb makes him one of the most highly honoured yet controversial children’s authors and illustrators of our time. Sendak has often drawn on the work of earlier artists. His influences include Beatrix Potter, but also Albrecht Dürer, William Blake and Randolph Caldecott. He admires Potter’s art for its ‘beauty’, ‘poetry’ and ‘aliveness’: ‘And how she could draw! – a gift not all illustrators are endowed with.’

Sendak’s illustrations to Robert Graves’s children’s story, The Big Green Book (1962), incorporate several images by Beatrix Potter, including sketches of the bedroom she slept in at Camfield Place, the gabled roof of Bush Hall and the potting shed at Bedwell Lodge, immortalised as Mr. McGregor’s potting shed in The Tale of Peter Rabbit. It has been said that ‘No other children’s book artist has had the nerve to borrow with the abandon and playfulness of Sendak. His use of borrowed imagery is vigorous, transforming, never slavish.’

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