Inspiration From Artists Wk 160 Featuring Artists: Beatrix Potter and William J Glackens .

BEATRIX POTTER (1866-1943) was a successful children’s book author and illustrator best known as the creator of Peter Rabbit and other animal characters.  Although born in London where she spent a large part of her life, the families of both her parents had their origins in the industrial north of England, and the money inherited from the Lancashire cotton industry enabled the Potters to live a comfortable life in London.  Her father was a qualified barrister, but chose not to practice, instead pursuing his passion for art and photography.  As a child Beatrix showed signs of inheriting her parents’ artistic talent - her mother was also a watercolour painter - but her childhood was quite lonely with few friends, and her fascination for painting and drawing occupied most of her spare time.  She was educated at home and encouraged to draw from an early age, keeping sketchbooks from the age of eight.  Her love of nature was shared by her brother who became a professional landscape oil painter and etcher. The family took long holidays in the countryside each year, including the Lake District where Beatrix spent many hours exploring and sketching the wildlife.  She had been painting for her own amusement for many years, but in 1890 had her first commercial success with her rabbit pictures sold as Christmas cards.  Several years later she turned the tale she had created into a picture book, but initially rejected by several publishers, she had 250 copies printed privately.  This Tale of Peter Rabbit was a great success with family and friends.  In 1902 a publisher agreed to print an initial quantity of 8,000 which sold out instantly, launching her career as a storyteller.   By 1905 six of her books had been published and she used the profits to buy her first farm, Hill Top, in the Lake District, and this became the inspiration for many of her subsequent books.  That summer she married, but her husband tragically fell ill and died four weeks later, following which she threw herself into running her farm.  She became a prominent member of the farming community and a fierce campaigner on local conservation issues, purchasing a considerable amount of land in the Lake District.  After her second marriage at the age of 47 she produced only a few more books and became more focused on farming.  Her passion for conservation existed long before it became popular and on her death she left 4,000 acres of land and 15 farms to the National Trust.  She remains one of the world’s best selling and best loved children’s authors.  She wrote over 60 books, including her 23 children’s tales, which have sold more than 250 million copies worldwide.

Over a quite long life - over 70 years - I've lived with rabbits (God, they were boring!), hamsters, tortoises (fascinating - if only I could have kept them alive) - and rats (and of course dogs - dogs were the best; humans far less so); I became very fond of rats - not of mice, which are incontinent and extraordinarily nervous.  The one thing I learned about rats  - even The Great Ralph (TM), All rights reserved - is that they were nothing like Beatrix Potter's creations.  There were many reasons for that, but this isn't a point worth pursuing here.  Potter, however, caught specimens, dissected them, stuffed them, made them personifications of human behaviour - and, well, OK.  That can be fun.   But - you knew a 'but' was coming, of course - none of this had the first thing to do with the animals themselves.  That's why I have never been an advocate of Beatrix Potter's books - she drew beautifully, she was very observant, but she was also a clinical dissector of dead animals, and created stories around them in images which pleased.  She sentimentalized them - she, as it were, de-animalized them: so - I never liked her work.  She was in no way as sentimental as some illustrators of the time - but actually, that's not a redeeming feature: she studied the dead animals, maybe even killed a few, and then sentimentalized them.   This may be totally unreasonable of me, and if it is, I'm quite sure you'll say so!  But she left a sour taste in my mouth, and there it is - there's something of the morgue about her - leavings from the animal graveyard.  When I had animals, I painted them from life, not as studies post mortem; and that's the way I preferred it, because they meant a lot to me.  Plus, I did not seek to anthropomorthize them into stories - though that could have been because I can't spell anthropomorphize ....  

Thanks, Robert. - that’s an encouraging start!

Sorry about that!  But - there it is; in later life, not that her later life defined her work in any way at all, she was remarkably anti-social, greeting visitors with, as one critic put it, "stupefying rudeness": well, maybe she'd just had enough of them!   I think, if you were brought up with her work - as I wasn't - you might be beguiled.  I wasn't and am not.  

But - she could draw!  There's no doubt about that.  

I do like her work, but wasn’t brought up on it, so don’t have fond memories, but I know others do and thought it worth taking a look at it here.  Of course not everyone will like her work, but a rather harsh reaction at the start of the thread  - on an artist I would have expected to be one of the least contentious - is a bit disappointing.

Well, there was I scrolling pleasantly through her beautiful work, and then I got to Robert’s reaction!  I always enjoyed Potters little books and reading them to my children. I have also enjoyed the film about her life and I don’t remember any unpleasantness there.  I think her work is lovely and will look for something to select later. I do think her drawings are a memory of another more innocent age for most of us, and are considerably better than some of the children’s books of today. Thanks Jenny for a detailed and informative introduction. Incidentally doesn’t the grumpy Mr MacGregor remind us of someone else…..!?

Whilst Robert brings forward some interesting facts about the artists/author it doesn't take away from her skill or creativity. Taxidermy would have been a past time for some in that era. I can see why her work appeals to many. I can't say I'm much of a fan but she was a talented artist.

How can you not like this!?