TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.
—In the original book, captions regarding color plates are placed on
the page before illustrations; captions have been relocated after
pictures.
—The caret character is used to represent superscripts, e.g. M^R.
—Bold text has been rendered as =bold text=.
KATE GREENAWAY
[Illustration: OFF TO THE VILLAGE.
_From a large water-colour drawing in the possession of Her Grace the
Duchess of Bedford._]
KATE
GREENAWAY
BY
M. H. SPIELMANN
AND
G. S. LAYARD
[Illustration: FROM LADY VICTORIA HERBERT’S BOOK-PLATE]
LONDON
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
1905
THIS BOOK
A TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF
KATE GREENAWAY
IS DEDICATED
TO
JOHN GREENAWAY
HER ONLY BROTHER AND LIFE-LONG COMPANION
[Illustration: HANDWRITING
_“K.G”
Nov. vi. 1901._
_Farewell; Kind heart. And if there be
In that unshored Immensity,
Child-Angels, they will welcome thee.
Clean-souled, clear-eyed, unspoiled, discreet;
Thou gav’st thy gifts to make Life sweet;—
These shall be flowers about thy feet!_
]
Preface
Apart from her work, full record of which is made in the following
pages, there was in the life of Kate Greenaway one outstanding
feature—her friendship with John Ruskin. To this, without the
permission of the great critic’s legal representatives, no sort of
justice could have been done. It is therefore our first duty and
pleasure to put on record our great indebtedness to Mrs. Arthur
Severn, Mr. Alexander Wedderburn, K.C., and Mr. George Allen, for
their liberality in allowing us to make copious extracts from Ruskin’s
side of the vigorous correspondence which was carried on between
him and Kate Greenaway for so many years; this generous permission
is only accompanied by the proviso that, in accordance with the
undertaking announced by the editors and publisher of the Library
Edition of Ruskin’s complete work, all of his published letters shall
ultimately be included in that noble issue. These letters have here
been printed with the strictest adherence to Ruskin’s peculiar method
of punctuation—long and short dashes in place of commas, semicolons,
and the like. From Kate Greenaway’s side of the correspondence abundant
drafts have also been made, for they reveal the writer’s character
and method of thought better than any independent estimate could do.
That no violence has been done to her native modesty is proved by the
following letter kindly communicated to us by Mrs. Severn. It was
written at the time when the preparation of the ultimate _Life of
Ruskin_ was under discussion:—
_8th June 1900._
39, FROGNAL, HAMPSTEAD, N.W.
My dearest Joanie— ... I feel it is very kind of you to consider my
wishes about the letters, as I know of course you could do as you wished
about them. In the later letters, I think, there is nothing I should
object to any one reading—in the early ones nothing I should mind you
reading; but there might be things in some one would feel perhaps better
not published....
I have a great many letters of his—one for nearly every day for three
years, but they are all of the time of my early letters, before his
great illness. Since—he has never written—as you will remember. I
should like to have any letters in the Life, if one is written, that
were thought desirable.
I am not sure the later ones of mine are much in a literary way; but he
did say some of the earlier ones ‘ought to exist as long as the most
beautiful of my drawings should—because they were also beautiful.’ I
tell you this because you know how great was the affection between us
that you will not think it conceit. I feel so honoured by it, that I can
only feel honoured for my name ever to appear near his. My dearest love
to you.
KATIE.
From the facsimile letter given in the following pages, it will be
observed that Kate Greenaway later on developed a habit of frequently
employing capital letters in unusual places. These, as a mere
eccentricity, have been corrected in transcription.
Our gratitude—may we say the gratitude of our readers also?—is
due to the several ladies and gentlemen who have supplied us with
reminiscences, correspondence, and other information duly acknowledged
in the text; indeed, with but one or two exceptions, we have been
favoured with the most obliging responses. Mrs. Arthur Severn, Lady
Maria and the Hon. Gerald Ponsonby, Mrs. Frederick Locker-Lampson, Mr.
Austin Dobson, Miss Violet Dickinson, Mr. William Marcus Ward, the
Rev. W. J. Loftie, Mr. Edward Jones, Mr. Ernest G. Brown, and the late
Mr. Edmund Evans, whose death at the age of seventy-nine occurred as
this book was passing through the press, all have shown an interest and
have extended a friendly help which cannot be too highly appreciated or
too cordially recognised.
A word must be said concerning the illustrations. The published
works of Kate Greenaway are known, and ought to be found, in every
house where children live and are loved. We have therefore confined
ourselves, with a few rare and intentional exceptions, to work quite
unknown to the public, such as early drawings of the cottage at
Rolleston where her career, undreamed of as yet, was being determined,
thumb-nail sketches with which she embellished her letters, and
more important drawings done for sale to picture-buyers or for
presentation to friends. About half a hundred have been reproduced
with particular care by the ‘three-colour process,’ for the most part
with extraordinary success, the rest by other methods suited to the
exigencies of the case. For the use of the originals we are indebted
to the kindness of many owners—to Her Grace the Duchess of Bedford,
to Mr. Ernest G. Brown, Miss Violet Dickinson, Mr. Alfred Emmott,
M.P., Mr. W. Finch, Mr. Campbell S. Holberton, Mr. Charles P. Johnson,
Mrs. W. Levy, the Hon. Gerald Ponsonby, Mr. John Riley, Mr. Stuart
M. Samuel, M.P., Mrs. Arthur Severn, Mr. Henry Silver, the Hon. Mrs.
W. Le Poer Trench, Mr. Harry J. Veitch, Mr. Wm. Marcus Ward, and Mr.
Creeser, as well as to Mr. John Greenaway. Other illustrations come
from the collections of Miss Evans, Lady Victoria Herbert, Mrs. F.
Locker-Lampson, Rev. W. J. Loftie, F.S.A., Lady Pontifex, and Mr.
B. Elkin Mocatta. To all of them we express our hearty thanks, and
to Messrs. Cassell & Co. our indebtedness for having permitted the
publication of the border illustration with Mr. Austin Dobson’s ‘Home
Beauty,’ the copyright of which they hold; and to Messrs. M’Caw,
Stevenson & Orr, Ltd., of Belfast, similar acknowledgments must be
made for according their consent in respect of the three famous
Christmas cards which appear in colour. Our thanks are also due to
Messrs. Frederick Warne & Co. for their courtesy in allowing us to
reproduce the illustrations of ‘Bubbles’ and ‘The Bubble’ as well as
the end-papers. The last-named are based upon the nursery wallpaper to
which, with the artist’s permission, the illustrations of one of her
_Almanacks_ were adapted by Mr. David Walker. Messrs. Warne are the
present holders of the bulk of Kate Greenaway’s published copyright
work as well as of the stock of books which were originally issued by
Messrs. G. Routledge & Sons, and from them nearly all the books dealt
with in the following pages are still to be obtained.
Contents
CHAPTER I
PAGE
Introductory 1
CHAPTER II
Early Years: Birth—Autobiography of Childhood—First Visit to
Rolleston—Love of Flowers—Family Trouble—Evening Parties and
Entertainments 8
CHAPTER III
Childhood in Rolleston: Early Reading—Adventures in London
Streets—A Community of Dolls—Buckingham Palace—Life in
Rolleston—Education—Brother and Father 21
CHAPTER IV
Student Days and Early Success: Early Promise and Art
Classes—South Kensington Prizes—Lady Butler—Dudley Gallery—Rev.
W. J. Loftie and Messrs. Marcus Ward—_Amateur
Theatricals_—Toy-Books and Fairy Tales—Progress 41
CHAPTER V
1877-1878
The Triumph of _Under the Window_: Royal Academy—Mr. and Mrs.
Edmund Evans—Mr. Evans’s Colour-printing—John Ruskin on Kate
Greenaway—_Topo_—Randolph Caldecott, and Mr. Walter Crane 55
CHAPTER VI
1879-1880
Christmas Cards and Books—H. Stacy Marks, R.A., John Ruskin,
and Frederick Locker-Lampson 73
CHAPTER VII
1881-1882
The Empress Frederick, Mrs. Richmond Ritchie, Ruskin, and
Mr. Punch—_A Day in a Child’s Life_—_Little Ann_ and
_Mother Goose_ 98
CHAPTER VIII
1882 (_continued_) and 1883
The Ruskin and Severn Friendship ripens—At Brantwood—_The Art
of England_—Ruskin’s Advice—Kate Greenaway’s First _Almanack_—A
Greenaway ‘Boom’—Mr. Austin Dobson 109
CHAPTER IX
1884-1885
_Language of Flowers_—_Mavor’s Spelling-Book_—_Dame Wiggins
of Lee_—Ruskin Correspondence—His Tuition and Plans for
Co-operation—Intimacy with Mrs. Severn and her Children 127
CHAPTER X
1885 AND 1886
The Move to Frognal—Ruskin: Letters and Confidences, Praise
and Blame, his Illness—Mrs. Allingham 142
CHAPTER XI
1887-1890
Kate Greenaway as a Correspondent—Her Letters to Ruskin—Her
Friends—Learning Perspective—Ruskin’s Last Letters—_The Pied
Piper of Hamelin_—Mrs. Allingham, R.W.S.—The _Book of
Games_—Elected to the Royal Institute of Painters in
Water-Colours—Paris Exhibition—Death of Mr. John Greenaway, Sr. 163
CHAPTER XII
1891-1895
Kate Greenaway’s First Exhibition—The Hon. Gerald
Ponsonby—_Almanacks_—Contributions to the Columbian Exposition,
Chicago—Book-plates—Lady Maria Ponsonby—Works Sold—_The Ladies’
Home Journal_—Death of Mrs. Greenaway—Lady Mayo—Brantwood
again—Kate Greenaway’s Criticism of Modern Art—Marie
Bashkirtseff—Friendship with Miss Violet Dickinson—Religious
Opinions—Ruskin—Views on Mr. George Meredith, etc. 179
CHAPTER XIII
1896-1897
The Last of the Almanacks—Opinions on Books, Pictures, the New
Woman, and Eternal Man—Her Defence of Ruskin 201
CHAPTER XIV
1898-1901
Kate Greenaway’s Third Exhibition—Correspondence with John
Ruskin, and Mr. and Mrs. Stuart M. Samuel—Her Views on Art,
Religion, and Books—Her Oil-painting—Death of Ruskin—Illness
and Death of Kate Greenaway—Posthumous Exhibition—The Kate
Greenaway Memorial 224
CHAPTER XV
Verse-writing: Kate Greenaway’s Feeling for Poetry—Problem,
Tragedy, and Resignation—Charm of her Verses for Children—On
Death 257
CHAPTER XVI
The Artist: A Review and an Estimate 265
LIST OF BOOKS, etc., illustrated wholly or in part by Kate
Greenaway 285
INDEX. 291
List of Illustrations
IN COLOUR
OWNER OF ORIGINAL PAGE
1. Off to the Village _Duchess of Bedford_ _Frontispiece_
2. Sisters _Stuart M. Samuel, Esq., M.P._ 4
3. In the Chappells’ Cottage _John Greenaway, Esq._ 10
at Rolleston—The Kitchen
4. The Kitchen Pump and Old _John Greenaway, Esq._ 12
Cheese Press, Rolleston
5. Winter, 1892 _Stuart M. Samuel, Esq., M.P._ 20
6. The Open Door _Mrs. Arthur Severn_ 26
7. The Chappells’ Cottage, _John Greenaway, Esq._ 36
Farm, and Croft at
Rolleston
8. Thomas Chappell (‘Dadad’) _John Greenaway, Esq._ 38
9. Kate Greenaway’s _Nat. Art Library, Victoria and 42
Student-work Albert Museum, S. Kensington_
10. The Elf Ring _John Greenaway, Esq._ 48
11. The Little Model _Mrs. J. St. G. Whitly_ 58
12. ‘Mary had a Little Lamb’ _Mrs. Arthur Severn_ 62
13. Bubbles:—
(1) The Bubble }_The Hon. Gerald Ponsonby_ between
(2) Bubbles } pp. 64 and 65
14. Christmas Cards _Wm. Marcus Ward, Esq._ 74
15. The Little Go-cart _Harry J. Veitch, Esq._ 80
16. Pink Ribbons _Stuart M. Samuel, Esq., M.P._ 88
17. A Calm in a Teacup _Mrs. Arthur Severn_ 94
18. Out for a Walk _Ernest G. Brown, Esq._ 100
19. ‘Lucy Locket lost her _W. Finch, Esq._ 104
Pocket’
20. Two Girls going to School _John Riley, Esq._ 114
21. The Old Farm-house _Campbell S. Holberton, Esq._ 122
22. The Red Boy _Charles P. Johnson, Esq._ 130
23. Many Happy Returns of the _Mrs. Arthur Severn_ 136
Day
24. The Naughty Little Girl _Miss Violet Severn_ between pp. 140
(4 pages) and 141
25. The Cherry Woman _Harry J. Veitch, Esq._ 150
26. Taking in the Roses _Stuart M. Samuel, Esq., M.P._ 160
27. The Garden Seat _Harry J. Veitch, Esq._ 166
28. Happy Returns of the Day _Stuart M. Samuel, Esq., M.P._ 170
29. Cottages _Harry J. Veitch, Esq._ 172
30. Portrait of a Lady _The Hon. Gerald Ponsonby_ 180
31. Joan Ponsonby, 1891 _The Hon. Gerald Ponsonby_ 182
32. Brother and Sister _Charles P. Johnson, Esq._ 188
33. The Bracken Gatherers _The Hon. Mrs. W. Le Poer Trench_ 194
34. A Surrey Cottage _Alfred Emmott, Esq., M.P._ 198
35. The Pink Sash _Stuart M. Samuel, Esq., M.P._ 204
36. The Peacock Girl _John Greenaway, Esq._ 210
37. Vera Evelyn Samuel _Stuart M. Samuel, Esq., M.P._ 212
38. Two Girls in a Garden _John Riley, Esq._ 216
39. The Dancing of the _Mrs. Arthur Severn_ 218
Felspar Fairies
40. A Baby in White _Stuart M. Samuel, Esq., M.P._ 222
41. Book-plate of Miss Vera _Stuart M. Samuel, Esq., M.P._ 226
Evelyn Samuel
42. Kate Greenaway before _Mrs. Arthur Severn_ 230
the Fates
43. The Fable of the Girl _W. Finch, Esq._ 236
and her Milk Pail
44. The Muff (unfinished) _John Greenaway, Esq._ 240
45. The Stick Fire _Harry J. Veitch, Esq._ 244
46. Two at a Stile _Mrs. W. Levy._ 246
47. Waiting _The Hon. Gerald Ponsonby_ 250
48. Springtime _Henry Silver, Esq._ 256
49. Swansdown _Stuart M. Samuel, Esq., M.P._ 260
50. ‘Dead’ _John Greenaway, Esq._ 264
51. The May Dance _Miss Violet Dickinson_ 272
52. Alfy (unfinished) _John Greenaway, Esq._ 274
IN BLACK AND WHITE
1. John Greenaway (Father of _John Greenaway, Esq._ 40
Kate Greenaway). By Birket
Foster, R.W.S.
2. Kate Greenaway’s _Nat. Art Library, Victoria and_ 44
Student-work _Albert Museum, S. Kensington_
3. Kate Greenaway at the ages ...... 46
of 16 and 21. (From
Photographs)
4. Pencil Sketches of _The Rev. W. J. Loftie, F.S.A._ 50
‘Tragedy’
5. John Greenaway (Brother _John Greenaway, Esq._ 52
of Kate Greenaway)
6. Pencil Sketches _The Rev. W. J. Loftie, F.S.A._ 66
7. Kate Greenaway, 1880. ...... 84
(From a Photograph by
Elliott & Fry)
8. Frederick Locker-Lampson _Mrs. Frederick Locker-Lampson_ 86
9. The Twins } _Mrs. Frederick Locker-Lampson_
} between pp. 90
10. Little Dinky } and 91
11. Water-colour Drawings _Mrs. Frederick Locker-Lampson_ 92
on Letters
12. Water-colour Drawing on _Mrs. Frederick Locker-Lampson_ 96
Letter
13. Letter from John Ruskin _Mrs. Arthur Severn_ 111
to Kate Greenaway,
27th Dec. 1882
14. ‘Home-Beauty’ _Mrs. Croft_ 125
15. Kate Greenaway’s Home, ...... 142
39, Frognal, Hampstead.
(From a Photograph)
16. Tea Room leading out from ...... 144
the Studio, 39, Frognal,
Hampstead. (From a
Photograph)
17. The Studio, 39, Frognal, ...... 146
Hampstead. (From a
Photograph)
18. Letter from John Ruskin _Mrs. Arthur Severn_ 157-159
to Kate Greenaway,
8th Nov. 1886
19. ‘Rover.’ (From a ...... 164
Photograph)
20. Pencil and Tint Drawing _B. Elkin Mocatta, Esq._ 174
21. Kate Greenaway in her ...... 178
Studio, 1895. (From a
Private Photograph by
Mrs. Wm. Miller)
22. Mabel Ponsonby _The Hon. Gerald Ponsonby_ 184
23. Eileen Ponsonby _The Hon. Gerald Ponsonby_ 186
24. Sketch on Letter to _Miss Violet Dickinson_ 192
Miss Violet Dickinson,
8th July 1896
25. Sketch on Letter to _Miss Violet Dickinson_ 193
Miss Violet Dickinson,
10th Dec. 1896
26. Sketch on Letter to _Miss Violet Dickinson_ 194
Miss Violet Dickinson,
19th Jan. 1897
27. Letter from Kate _Mrs. Arthur Severn_ 217
Greenaway to John
Ruskin (‘Kate Nickleby’)
28. Sketch on Letter to _Miss Violet Dickinson_ 225
Miss Violet Dickinson
29. ‘Ronald’s Clock’ _Mrs. M. H. Spielmann_ 248
30. Sketch-design for the _Mrs. Arthur Lasenby Liberty_ 255
Plate affixed above
the Kate Greenaway Cot
in the Gt. Ormond
St. Hospital
31. Pencil Study from Life _M. H. Spielmann, Esq._ 276
32. Letter from Kate _Mrs. Arthur Severn_ 278
Greenaway to John
Ruskin
33. The Picnic _John Greenaway, Esq._ 280
34. Pen Sketch _John Greenaway, Esq._ 282
35 to 90. Fifty-six Thumb-nail and other Sketches with Pen and Pencil,
throughout the Text, viz.:
26 on Letters to John Ruskin, in the possession of Mrs. Arthur
Severn (pp. 1, 8, 18, 21, 23, 116, 152, 162, 163, 165, 179, 197,
199, 202, 207, 222, 232, 233, 237, 239, 241, 243, 247, 277, 283,
284).
5 from Pencil Sketches, in the possession of M. H. Spielmann, Esq.
(pp. 5, 55, 123, 131, 245).
5 from the MS. of Kate Greenaway’s Autobiography, in the possession
of John Greenaway, Esq. (pp. 26, 30, 33, 35, 40).
5 from Book-plates, etc., in the possession of Mrs. Frederick
Locker-Lampson (pp. 20, 54, 72, 88, 97).
4 on Letters to Miss Violet Dickinson, in the possession of Miss
Violet Dickinson (pp. 63, 210, 213, 221).
4 Early Rough Sketches for Christmas Cards and Valentines, in the
possession of Wm. Marcus Ward, Esq. (pp. 45, 75, 279, 280).
2 from Pencil Sketches, in the possession of Lady Pontifex (pp. 6
and 108).
1 from a Book-plate, in the possession of Lady Victoria Herbert
(p. 7).
1 on a Letter to Miss Lily Evans, in the possession of Miss Lily
Evans (p. 107).
1 Skit by Randolph Caldecott, in the possession of John Greenaway,
Esq. (p. 69).
1 Poem by Austin Dobson, Esq., in the album of Ernest G. Brown,
Esq. (p. vii.).
1 Sketch-plan of Kitchen at Rolleston (p. 11).
_The Illustrations in colour in this volume have been engraved and
printed by The Menpes Press._
KATE GREENAWAY
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
[Illustration: On a Letter to Ruskin.]
About the name of Kate Greenaway there floats a perfume so sweet and
fragrant that even at the moment of her death we thought more of the
artist we admired than of the friend we had lost. Grateful for the
work she had produced, with all its charm and tender cheerfulness, the
world has recognised that that work was above all things sincere. And,
indeed, as her art was, so were her character and her mind: never was
an artist’s self more truly reflected in that which her hand produced.
All the sincerity and genuine effort seen in her drawings, all the
modesty, humour, and love, all the sense of beauty and of charm, all
the daintiness of conception and realisation, the keen intelligence,
the understanding of children, the feeling for landscape, with all the
purity, simplicity, and grace of mind—all those qualities, in short,
which sing to us out of her bright and happy pages—were to be found
in the personality of the artist herself. All childhood, all babyhood,
held her love: a love that was a little wistful perhaps. Retiring, and
even shy, to only a few she gave her friendship—a precious possession.
For how many are there who, gifted as she was, have achieved a triumph,
have conquered the applause and admiration of two hemispheres, and yet
have chosen to withdraw into the shade, caring for no praise but such
as she might thankfully accept as a mark of what she was trying to
accomplish, never realising (such was her innate modesty) the extent
and significance of her success?
Here was a fine character, transparently beautiful and simple as her
own art, original and graceful as her own genius. Large-hearted and
right-minded, Kate Greenaway was gentle in her kindness, lofty and firm
in principle, forgiving to the malevolent, and loyal to her friends—a
combination of qualities happily not unrivalled among women, but rare
indeed when united to attributes of genius.
It is true that what Kate Greenaway mainly did was to draw Christmas
cards, illustrate a score or two of toy-books, and produce a number
of dainty water-colour drawings; and that is the sum of her work.
Why, then, is her name a household word in Great and Greater Britain,
and even abroad where the mention of some of the greatest artists of
England of to-day scarcely calls forth so much as an intelligent glance
of recognition? It is because of the universal appeal she made, almost
unconsciously, to the universal heart.
All who love childhood, even though they may not be blessed with the
full measure of her insight and sympathy, all who love the fields and
flowers and the brightness of healthy and sunny natures, must feel
that Kate Greenaway had a claim on her country’s regard and upon the
love of a whole generation. She was the Baby’s Friend, the Children’s
Champion, who stood absolutely alone in her relations to the public.
Randolph Caldecott laboured to amuse the little ones; Mr. Walter
Crane, to entertain them. They aimed at interesting children in their
drawings; but Kate Greenaway interested us in the children themselves.
She taught us more of the charm of their ways than we had seen before;
she showed us their graces, their little foibles, their thousand little
prettinesses, the sweet little characteristics and psychology of their
tender age, as no one else had done it before. What are Edouard Frère’s
little children to hers? What are Fröhlich’s, what are Richter’s?
She felt, with Douglas Jerrold, that ‘babes are earthly angels to
keep us from the stars,’ and has peopled for us a fairy-world which
we recognise nevertheless for our own. She had a hundred imitators
(from whom she suffered enough), but which of them is a rival on her
own ground? M. Boutet de Monvel was inspired by her; but with all his
draughtsman’s talent and astonishing invention and resource, he has
not what she has: he has given us the _insouciance_ of childhood, but
at what sacrifice of touch; he has given us some of the beauty, but at
what surrender of nearly all the lovableness and charm. And not babies
and school-girls only, but maidens who are past the ignorance though
not the innocence of childhood; not roses only, but all the flowers of
the garden; not the fields only, but the fair landscape of the English
country-side,—all these things Kate Greenaway has shown us, with
winning and delightful quaintness, and has made us all the happier for
her own happiness in them; and, showing us all these things, she has
made us love them and her drawings the more for the teaching and the
loveliness in them, and herself as well for having made them.
The children who welcomed her work when it first appeared are grown up
now and are looking rather old, and those who bought the picture-books
‘for the little ones’ (as they said) but enjoyed them so much
themselves, are mostly wearing spectacles. And all the while Kate
Greenaway worked hard, making hundreds, and thousands, of her little
pictures, and doing more for the pleasure and happiness of the little
folks than most little folks know. So that now when her pencil and her
brush are laid aside for ever, and herself has been called away, her
life-task being done, it is surely well that we should remember her
in affection, and wrap up the memory of her name in a little of the
lavender of her love that filled her heart and welled over into her
work.
One of the charms, as has been said, most striking in the character of
‘K. G.’ (as she was called by her most intimate friends and relatives)
was her modesty. A quiet, bright little lady, whose fame had spread all
over the world, and whose books were making her rich, and her publisher
prosperous and content—there she was, whom everybody wanted to know,
yet who preferred to remain quite retired, living with her relatives
in the delightful house Mr. Norman Shaw had designed for her—happy
when she was told how children loved her work, but unhappy when people
who were not her intimate friends wanted to talk to her about it. She
was, therefore, so little seen in the world that M. Arsène Alexandre
declared his suspicion that Kate Greenaway must really have been an
angel who would now and then visit this green earth only to leave a
new picture-book for the children, and then fly away again. She has
flown away for ever now; but the gift she left behind is more than the
gift of a book or of a row of books. She left a pure love of childhood
in many hearts that never felt it before, and the lesson of a greater
kindness to be done, and a delight in simple and tender joys. And to
children her gift was not only this; but she put before them pictures
more beautiful in their way and quaint than had ever been seen, and
she taught them, too, to look more kindly on their playmates, more
wisely on their own little lives, and with better understanding on the
beauties of garden and meadow and sky with which Heaven has embellished
the world. It was a great deal to do, and she did it well—so well that
there is no sadness in her friends’ memory of her; and their gratitude
is tinged with pride that her name will be remembered with honour in
her country for generations to come.
What Kate Greenaway did with her modest pencil was by her example to
revolutionise one form of book-illustration—helped by Mr. Edmund
Evans, the colour-printer, and his wood-blocks, as will be shown later
on. And for a time she dressed the children of two continents. The
smart dress with which society decks out its offspring, so little
consonant with the idea of a natural and happy childhood, was repellent
to Kate Greenaway. So she set about devising frocks and aprons, hats
and breeches, funnily neat and prim, in the style of 1800, adding
beauty and comfort to natural grace. In the first instance her
Christmas cards spread abroad her dainty fancy; then her books, and
finally her almanacks over a period of fifteen years, carried her
designs into many countries and made converts wherever they were seen.
An Englishman visiting Jules Breton, in the painter’s country-house in
Normandy, found all the children in Greenaway costumes; for they alone,
declared Breton, fitted children and sunshine, and they only were
worthy of beautifying the _chef-d’œuvres du bon Dieu_.
[Illustration: SISTERS.
‘Girl with blue sash and basket of roses, with a baby.’
_From a water-colour drawing in the possession of Stuart M. Samuel,
Esq., M.P._]
Indeed, Kate Greenaway is known on the Continent of Europe along with
the very few English artists whose names are familiar to the foreign
public—with those of Millais, Leighton, Burne-Jones, Watts, and Walter
Crane—being recognised as the great domestic artist who, though her
subjects were infantile, her treatment often elementary, and her little
faults clear to the first glance, merited respect for originality of
invention and for rare creative quality. It was realised that she was
a _tête d’école_, the head and founder of a school—even though that
school was but a Kindergarten—the inventor of a new way of seeing and
doing, quite apart from the exquisite qualities of what she did and
what she expressed. It is true that her personal identity may have
been somewhat vague. An English customer was once in the shop of the
chief bookseller of Lyons, who was showing a considerable collection of
English picture-books for children. ‘How charming they are!’ he cried;
‘we have nothing like them in France. Ah, say what you like—Walter
Crane and Kate Greenaway are true artists—they are two of your
greatest men!’ It was explained that Kate Greenaway was a lady. The
bookseller looked up curiously. ‘I can affirm it,’ said the visitor;
‘Miss Greenaway is a friend of mine.’ ‘Ah, truly?’ replied the other,
politely yet incredulous. Later on the story was duly recounted to
Miss Greenaway. ‘That does not surprise me,’ she replied, with a gay
little laugh. ‘Only the other day a correspondent who called himself
“a foreign admirer” sent me a photograph of myself which he said he
had procured, and he asked me to put my autograph to it. It was the
portrait of a good-looking young man with a black moustache. And when I
explained, he wrote back that he feared I was laughing at him, as Kate
is a man’s name—in Holland.’
[Illustration]
But if her personality was a ‘mystification’ to the foreigner, there
was no doubt about her art. In France, where she was a great favourite,
and where her extensive contribution of drawings to the Paris
Exhibition of 1889 had raised her vastly in the opinion of those who
knew her only by her picture-books, she was cordially appreciated. But
she had been appreciated long before that. Nearly twenty years earlier
the tribute of M. Ernest Chesneau was so keen and sympathetic in its
insight, and so graceful in its recognition, that Mr. Ruskin declared
to the Oxford undergraduates that no expressions of his own could vie
with the tactful delicacy of the French critic. But in his lecture on
‘The Art of England’ (_Fairyland_) Ruskin found words to declare for
himself that in her drawings ‘you have the radiance and innocence of
reinstated infant divinity showered again among the flowers of English
meadows.’ And privately he wrote to her: ‘Holbein lives for all time
with his grim and ugly “Dance of Death”; a not dissimilar and more
beautiful immortality may be in store for you if you worthily apply
yourself to produce a “Dance of Life.”’
The touchstone of all art in which there is an element of greatness is
the appeal which it makes to the foreigner, to the high and the low
alike. Kate Greenaway’s appeal was unerring. Dr. Muther has paid his
tribute, on behalf of Germany, to the exquisite fusion of truth and
grace in her picture-books, which he declared to be the most beautiful
in the world; and, moreover, he does justice to her exquisite feeling
for landscape seen in the utmost simplicity—for she was not always
drawing children. But when she did, she loved the landscape setting
almost, if not quite, as much as the little people whom she sent to
play in it.
[Illustration: From a Pencil Sketch in the possession of Lady Pontifex.]
In speaking of Kate Greenaway as a ‘great’ artist, we do not, of
course, mean that she was technically accomplished in the sense
or degree that a great picture-painter or a sculptor may be. Her
figure-drawing was by no means always impeccable; and the fact of the
design and composition being generally ‘right’ arose, we imagine, as
much from intuition as from the result of scholarly training. And that
is the chief thing. As he grows older, even the artist who is primarily
technician and purist is apt to ask, ‘What does technical excellence
matter so long as the gist of the thing is there? Is not that a finer
thing which convinces us from the instinct of the painter than that
which satisfies us from his knowledge of it?’ Yet Kate could draw an
eye or the outline of a face with unsurpassable skill: firmness and a
sense of beauty were among her leading virtues. The painter with whom
she had most affinity was perhaps Mr. G. D. Leslie, for her period
and treatment are not unlike. Her sense of humour is allied to that
of Stacy Marks; and her sentiment to that of Fred Walker. Yet she was
wholly personal (as will be shown later on when the details of her art
come to be discussed), and full of independence, courage, and fixity
of purpose. And just as G. F. Watts in his portraits of men and women
invariably sought out the finest and most noble quality in his constant
search for beauty in the sitter, not only in features but in character,
so did Kate Greenaway in her quiet little drawings show us all that was
sweet and pleasant and charming in children’s lives of days gone by in
country-side and village, and left out all that was ugly, wrong, or bad.
[Illustration: Book-plate designed for Lady Victoria Herbert.]
The life and progress of the fascinating artist lie here before the
reader, with their quaint beginning and logical development.