Inspiring Young Readers
Randolph Caldecott
Born in 1846, Randolph Caldecott is often thought of as the quintessential Victorian children’s book illustrator but he was also a significant fine artist and illustrator of a range of adult books – a prolific output for someone who died at just 40 years of age.
He was born into a lower middle class background in the north of England and initially followed his father into the branch banking business. He began to develop his artistic and creative talents at night-school, attending the Manchester School of Art, and had a number of drawings accepted for various periodicals.
Moving to London, he decided he should take a chance on supporting himself by his artwork alone and, finding his drawings in demand, he was able to make his living through managing a growing portfolio of commissioned work. By the 1870s he was mixing with many of the key artistic names of the period – Rossetti, Du Maurier, Leighton and Millais – and began exhibiting work publically.
In 1877 he was approached by the colour printer Edmund Evans to provide illustrations for books – a commission that had previously gone to his contemporary, Walter Crane. As a result he produced the two books that would be the basis of his longer term reputation, The House that Jack Built and The Diverting History of John Gilpin, published in 1878. This was the beginning of a prolific and quite intense period of productivity before his health took a turn for the worse and his propensity for chest infections led to his death in 1886.
Caldecott’s work is always associated with the bucolic pleasures of English rural life – hunting, fishing and shooting feature highly and his England is the England of pre-industrial mythology. What Caldecott offered his readers was an escape from what many Victorians saw as the oppressive nature of urban industrialism and a return to a simpler, more natural life in a countryside many feared was being lost forever. He also took on the classic fairy tales, again turning them into escapist fantasies with an almost Medieval backdrop - the influence of Edward Burne-Jones and the Pre-Raphaelite movement being very clear in these illustrations.
As with many of his contemporaries, Caldecott essentially looks back and creates an England that probably never existed, populated by children, adults and even animals, all of whom are in their own way stylised and even stereotyped. What works in his favour, however, and makes him such an important figure in the world of children’s book illustration, is his dynamic use of colour and the sheer verve and energy all his subject display – his world is one where life is lived to the maximum and where children are as important, or even more important, than the adults.
I think it’s probably true to say that a Caldecott illustrated book might seem quite odd and even alien to the modern child and I’m not sure they’d naturally gravitate to his style. He is, however, very collectible amongst adults of a certain generation for who his illustrations were something they would encounter in books on a regular basis.
Although interest in him might be largely historical now, his influence lives on and the creation in the USA of the Caldecott Medal for outstanding children’s book illustration is a sign of the regard in which he is still held by those who follow the trail he helped to blaze.
Terry Potter
November 2016