CLASSICAL FANTASTIC ART

For all those that we don't have enough by to make up a section of their own yet.

He ws born in November 1983. He lived in Putney in London, England and became famous for his detailed illustrations of animals and insects for such famous books as The Jungle Book and Aesop's Fables. One of his first publishers was JM Dent who had also previously recognised the talents of another great artist, Aubrey Beardsley. His later life was always haunted by the spectre of his older twin brother's suicide at the age of only twenty-four. Towards the end of his life he became very interested in spiritual issues and read extensively from The Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita and died, almost forgotten in the publishing world, in July 1957. Take a look in here at some of his brilliant work. These prints are around 30 years old at the time of writing and we have only a few available with little chance of ever finding any more of them. The originals were painted between 1903 and 1922.

Maxfield Parrish is one of the greatest American landscape painters ever. Most known for his 'girls on rocks' paintings, he lived in a truly individual way eschewing the social values of his time and doing things his way. His style has been much imitated over the years. One of his paintings was even used as the inspiration for an Enya album cover where a set was designed to match all the details of the painting!

Regarded as one of the greatest fantasy artists ever he inspired many of today's great names like Brian Froud and Alan Lee amongst others. His bold yet sensitive pen and ink work is unique in its execution. The subtle tones he uses speak of another world and invite us in. He illustrated many famous Celtic myths and legends during his lifetime and has many collectors of his work all round trhe world who will pay well into five figures for almost any piece of his original work.

I have put his birth and death dates so you don’t think he had access to an airbrush, modern pigments or digital technology, if you’ve been living on Venus all your life and don’t know who he is, that is! One of the first artists I appreciated as those who have found my hideaway on the website will know, and why. Blake was one of the first truly visionary artists in the fantasy genre. He had far less source material than nowadays and much of it is biblical. He was not an orthodox Christian. He was too aware of the hypocrisy amongst so many of his supposedly religious peers. He was a seeker of enlightenment and a political activist with high moral ideals. His paintings convey much of what he thought and felt as you’ll see inside. I hope you’ll find something here to put on the wall and keep his name and creativity alive.