EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 23 © 2018 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

29 Robert L. Stevenson’s ‘Treasure Island’. To this day the pictures he did for the book are still considered to be some of his best work. Although Stevenson’s book is set in Britain and later on a fictitious island, Wyeth used Chadds Ford as the background, incorporating elements from the region (houses, trees, roads, etc.), and even had the character of Long John Silver (who befriends and later betrays young Jim Hawkins) resemble his once mentor and teacher Howard Pyle. Wyeth’s illustrated version of the book became immensely popular, going through various reprints (and even being reprinted to this day), and was the first of many children’s classics he would illustrate for the series. This was where Wyeth’s artwork reached its greatest prominence, and showed why he was the most popular illustrator of the day. Although he used models for his characters (mostly members of his family), and for the backgrounds the New England region he lived in, it was the uncanny use of light and shadow (and colour) that really gave life to his paintings. The feeling the viewer got of really “being there”, came fromWyeth’s masterful use of colour: the cobalt-blue skies, the sun- drenched afternoons, sunlight seeping through the leaves of a forest, or the light crawling through a window or opened door into a darkened room, all gave Wyeth’s paintings the elements of realism. His paintings would also inspire movies. The 1930 movie-version of the ‘Last of the Mohicans’ would be inspired by Wyeth’s images taken from the book he illustrated, not to mention ‘The Yearling’ from 1946, a colour film which seemed to have been lifted directly from his paintings for said book, its author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings claiming: “They copied exactly several of [Wyeth’s] Yearling paintings. That is, exactly as physical ‘properties’ and human beings could copy the great art of his brush.” Although Wyeth achieved great popularity with his FACING PAGE: “Stand away from that girl!” repeated de Spain harshly, backing the words with a step forward, oil on canvas, 1915. Cover illustration for ‘Nan of Music Mountain’ written by Frank H. Spearman and published by Charles Scribner’s and Sons in 1916. RIGHT: The Story of Whaling , oil on panel, 1940. Although Wyeth didn’t like travelling or moving away from where he lived, his imagination could take him to the farthest corners of the world.