George Cruikshank

Nonfiction, Religion & Spirituality, New Age, History, Fiction & Literature
Cover of the book George Cruikshank by W. H. Chesson, Library of Alexandria
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: W. H. Chesson ISBN: 9781465516237
Publisher: Library of Alexandria Publication: March 8, 2015
Imprint: Language: English
Author: W. H. Chesson
ISBN: 9781465516237
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
Publication: March 8, 2015
Imprint:
Language: English
For years before he reached the great but unsensational age at which he died, a sort of cult was vested in his longevity. Dated plates—that entitled "The Rose and the Lily" (1875) offers the last example—imply that his art figured to him finally as a kind of athleticism. It was as if, in using his burin or needles, he was doing a "turn" before sightseers, with a hired Time innocuously scything on the platform beside him to show him off. Now that his mortality has been proven for a quarter of a century, we can coldly ask: why did he seem so old to himself and the world? Others greater than he—Titian, Watts—have laboured with genius under a heavier crown of snow than he; and the public has applauded their vigour without a doubt of their identity. The reason is that they have not been the journalists of their age. They have not, like Cruikshank, reflected in their works inventions and fashions, wars and scandals, jokes and politics, whence the world has emerged unrecognisably the same. It is said that when Cruikshank was eighty-three, he executed a sword-dance before an old officer who had mentally buried him. It was an action characteristic of a nature that was scarcely more naïve and impulsive at one time than another, but it was the most confusing proof of the fact in debate which he could have offered. It was not of a numeral that the doubter thought when the existence of Cruikshank was presented to his mind's eye. His thought we may elaborate as follows. The artist who drew Napoleon week by week, with all the vulgar insolence which only a great man's contemporaries can display towards him, was the same who, half a century after the Emperor's death, produced a conception of the "Leader of the Parisian Blood Red Republic of 1870." The artist who, in the last year of the reign of George the Third, depicted Thistlewood's lair in Cato Street, drew also, as though with "a mOther's tender care," almost every pane in that glass palace which the trees of Hyde Park inhabited in 1851
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
For years before he reached the great but unsensational age at which he died, a sort of cult was vested in his longevity. Dated plates—that entitled "The Rose and the Lily" (1875) offers the last example—imply that his art figured to him finally as a kind of athleticism. It was as if, in using his burin or needles, he was doing a "turn" before sightseers, with a hired Time innocuously scything on the platform beside him to show him off. Now that his mortality has been proven for a quarter of a century, we can coldly ask: why did he seem so old to himself and the world? Others greater than he—Titian, Watts—have laboured with genius under a heavier crown of snow than he; and the public has applauded their vigour without a doubt of their identity. The reason is that they have not been the journalists of their age. They have not, like Cruikshank, reflected in their works inventions and fashions, wars and scandals, jokes and politics, whence the world has emerged unrecognisably the same. It is said that when Cruikshank was eighty-three, he executed a sword-dance before an old officer who had mentally buried him. It was an action characteristic of a nature that was scarcely more naïve and impulsive at one time than another, but it was the most confusing proof of the fact in debate which he could have offered. It was not of a numeral that the doubter thought when the existence of Cruikshank was presented to his mind's eye. His thought we may elaborate as follows. The artist who drew Napoleon week by week, with all the vulgar insolence which only a great man's contemporaries can display towards him, was the same who, half a century after the Emperor's death, produced a conception of the "Leader of the Parisian Blood Red Republic of 1870." The artist who, in the last year of the reign of George the Third, depicted Thistlewood's lair in Cato Street, drew also, as though with "a mOther's tender care," almost every pane in that glass palace which the trees of Hyde Park inhabited in 1851

More books from Library of Alexandria

Cover of the book Washington: Its Sights and Insights 1909 by W. H. Chesson
Cover of the book My Friend Annabel Lee by W. H. Chesson
Cover of the book The Book of Noodles by W. H. Chesson
Cover of the book The Adventurous Seven: Their Hazardous Undertaking by W. H. Chesson
Cover of the book War and the Arme Blanche by W. H. Chesson
Cover of the book The Gray Angels by W. H. Chesson
Cover of the book Women, Church and State by W. H. Chesson
Cover of the book Nuova, or The New Bee by W. H. Chesson
Cover of the book La Comédie De La Mort by W. H. Chesson
Cover of the book The Silver Caves: A Mining Story by W. H. Chesson
Cover of the book History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia and Assyria (Complete) by W. H. Chesson
Cover of the book The Ancient Cities of the New World: Being Travels and Explorations in Mexico and Central America From 1857-1882 by W. H. Chesson
Cover of the book Spanish Composition by W. H. Chesson
Cover of the book Life of Schamyl and Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia by W. H. Chesson
Cover of the book Tratado do processo criminal preparatorio ou d'instrucção e pronuncia by W. H. Chesson
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy