Original collection of more than 100 images surveys Crane's best paintings and the first illustrations for children's books. Includes scenes from fairy and folk tales and classics by Shakespeare, Hawthorne, and Spenser.

Reproduction of the original: Walter Crane ́s Painting Book by Walter Crane

An exploration of the life and work of Walter Crane, the pioneering British socialist artist who transformed the illustration of children’s books. This volume in Thames & Hudson’s The Illustrators series showcases the work of Walter Crane, one of the most influential children’s book creators of his generation. Crane transformed the illustration of children’s books with his bold outlines, jeweled colors, and vivid characters. While many knew Crane for fantastical children’s tales, he was also a leading voice in the aesthetic and Arts and Crafts movements and a powerful socialist. Along with Randolph Caldecott and Kate Greenaway, Crane pioneered the child-in-the-garden motifs that would characterize nursery rhymes and children’s stories for decades. Craftsman and visionary at once, he created powerful images for the new socialism in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Distinguished biographer Jenny Uglow expertly narrates a fascinating study of how Crane’s art and politics developed from his childhood love of Pre-Raphaelite painting and the influence of the ideas of William Morris and other progressive thinkers of the time. This book is a brilliant record of an artist who blended styles and influences like no one before him.

"Written by an international team of illustration historians, practitioners, and educators, History of Illustration covers image-making and print history from around the world, spanning from the prehistoric to the contemporary. With hundreds of color image, this book to contextualize the many types of illustrations within social, cultural, and technical parameters, presenting information in a flowing chronology. This essential guide is the first comprehensive history of illustration as its own discipline. Readers will gain an ability to critically analyze images from technical, cultural, and ideological standpoints in order to arrive at an appreciation of art form of both past and present illustration"--

As winter begins to fade, Queen Flora goes to her garden and awakens the flowers.