Field Journal 4 - improved

At the end of 19th century a lot of new colorful picture books were created for preschool children. Some of those beautifully illustrated books were created by British illustrators. One of such illustrators was Randolph Caldecott (1846-1886), born in Chester. Caldecott along with Kate Greenaway (1846-1901) and Walter Crane (1845-1915) were three great children books’ illustrators.

While Caldecott’s illustrations closely resemble the drawing style of Crane and Greenway, whom he knew well, he had a more humorous and lighter approach. The setting of his drawing was often an idealized eighteenth century. The sights from the neighborhoods of his place of birth often made it into his decorations: churches, farm building, farm animals and peasants. Caldecott’s images have a sweet and fun mood, which was characteristic of his personality.

While Crane had started a new way of decorating children’s books – same design from cover to cover, Caldecott took it a bit further. He tried to connect the words in the pictures and words in a such a way that they would complement each other: the pictures showed what was missing from the words, and the words told what the pictures did not show.

Beautiful illustrations created by Caldecott captured the attention of Edmun Evans who was planning on publishing a cheap series of children’s books. In 1878, Caldecott started working on illustration and the success of the first publication was so large that for every Christmas for the next eight years he and Evans would produce two colored children’s picture books, published by Routledge. Caldecott’s illustration varied from monochrome sketches to whole page colorful images.

One of his works was a book “Sing a Song for Sixpence” based on the Nursery Rhyme. Yet sixty years back the same rhyme had a lot of political meaning related to “Cato Street Conspiracy” in 1820 in which 24 men plotted a murder of the entire Cabinet at dinner. Caldecott’s illustrations for the book are very colorful and playful, not bearing the heavy context of the actual historical event.

Randolph Caldecott
Illustration for “Sing a Song for Sixpence”,1880
http://www.randolphcaldecott.org.uk/rhymes.htm

His illustration for children books are amazing. He drew characters and captured so well the facial expressions of animals and people. The characters he created are so lively and relatable that everybody would be touched and mesmerized by them and would not be left indifferent.

Randolph Caldecott
Illustration for “Hey Diddle Diddle”, 1880
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hey_Diddle_Diddle


I really like the illustrations for the Nursery Rhyme, “Hey Diddle Diddle”. They are so playful and light. I especially like how the dishes and flatware were transformed into this lively characters with emotions and dresses.

Randolph Caldecott
Illustration for “Hey Diddle Diddle”, 1880
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hey_Diddle_Diddle

Randolph Caldecott
Illustration for “The Milkmaid”, 1882
http://www.randolphcaldecott.org.uk/rhymes.htm

It was interesting to learn that Caldecott, even though he was drawing and modeling since childhood, did not originally start working in the graphic design business. While working in the head office in Manchester of the Manchester & Salford Bank he went to the night school at the Manchester School of Art. He started by submitting his work to local papers. His talent was soon recognized and he was able to become extremely during his lifetime.

Randolph Caldecott
Illustration for “The House that Jack Built”, 1887
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randolph_Caldecott

His pictures were exhibited at Royal Manchester Institute (1869) and Royal Academy (1876), and he was elected to the Royal Institute of Watercolor Painting in 1872. Caldecott Medal was named in honor of Randolph Caldecott. While his work included other illustrations, such as hunting, illustrations of the articles and holiday illustrations, he is more famous for his children’s books drawings. Even nowadays, Caldecott’s work is an inspiration to the children’s book illustrators around the world.