International studio (25.1905)

said to have shown him the way to work the
unusual pictorial vein that is providing him with
such ample material. Mr. Rackham has found
for himself the Held in which he is now labouring
with conspicuous success, and has developed with
delightful ingenuity an absolutely personal style.
He owes his position to his special endowment of
quaint imagination, and to a rare understanding of
the executive devices by which his fancies can be
made properly credible.
He had, indeed, no peculiar advantages in his
youth which were calculated to develop in him an
extraordinary inventiveness, and his art training
was neither exceptionally complete nor marked by
unaccustomed features. It is true that from his
earliest childhood he loved to amuse himself with
a pencil and paintbox; and that, like many other
boys, who have in later life excelled as artists, he


"SNOWDROP": ILLUSTRATION BY ARTHUR RACKHAM
FOR GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES
IQO

was constantly sketching and scribbling, and trying
to give form to the ideas with which even then his
mind was filled; but he had no systematic art
education during his boyhood. His childish essays
were mostly fantastic creations, or drawings of
animals; but as a lad in his teens he began to take
himself seriously and to have convictions about
the need for careful study of nature. So at this
period he started landscape painting assiduously,
seeking in all sincerity to master the problems
which nature presented for solution, and searching
out unaided the facts which he felt would provide
him with a useful foundation on which to build
much later achievement.
As he grew towards manhood the opportunity
came to him to acquire a more disciplined type of
training, something in which he could be guided
by the experience of men who had a skilled know-
ledge of the matters with which he
was experimenting. Even then the
best he could do was to attend the
evening classes at the Lambeth School
of Art—where, however, he had the
advantage of being taught by a very
able master, Mr. W. Llewellyn—and
to devote a portion of his time to the
work in which he desired to excel.
That this mixture of self-education and
school training was of value to him, and
that it really helped him to progress in
the right direction, may be judged
from the fact that he was able at this
period to figure as an exhibitor at
the Academy, the Royal Institute of
Painters in Water Colours, and other
galleries, and to rank himself among
the abler craftsmen at a comparatively
early stage of his career.
It was not until 1892 that he finally
gave himself up to art work and made
painting his sole profession. He was
born in t86y, so that by this time he
had reached the age of hve-and-twenty,
and was in a position to judge with a
mature mind what were his chances of
success. His confidence in his powers
was certainly not misplaced, for he
found immediately that there was a
demand for his work, and that there
was a place in the art world for him
to fill. At first he was chiefly occupied
with drawings for reproduction, with
journalistic illustrations for the " Pall
Mall" and "Westminster" Budgets,