Kate Greenaway

“ Indeed, charm and delicacy rather than strength are characteristic of Kate Greenaway’s genius. We see them, for example, in the little ‘Swansdown’ and companion drawings here reproduced full size, and we see them also in the playful ‘Calm in a Teacup,’ and in ‘Mary had a Little Lamb,’ which the artist drew as a Christmas card for Professor Ruskin, with their delicate touches of colour and the exquisite pencil outline—so unhesitating and firm nevertheless, that, despite their simplicity, they rarely fail to realise the exact degree of beauty or of character intended. ”

“ The outstanding merit of Kate Greenaway’s work is its obvious freedom from affectation, its true and unadulterated [266] English character. What Dr. Nordau mistook for affectation is simply humour—a quaintness which is not less sincere and honest for being sometimes sufficiently self-conscious to make and enjoy and sustain the fun. Such grace of action, such invariable delicacy and perfect taste of her little pictures, belong only to a mind of the sweetest order—the spontaneity and style, only to an artist of the rarest instinct. ”

“ And not babies [3] 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. ”

“ Just as Blake is most highly valued for his illustration and Cruikshank and Goya for their etched plates, rather than for their pictures, so Kate Greenaway must be judged, not by the dignity of her materials, or by the area of her canvas, but by the originality of her genius, and by the strength and depth of the impression she has stamped on the mind and sentiment of the world. As Mr. Holman Hunt, Millais, and their associates invigorated the art of England by their foundation of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, so Kate Greenaway introduced a Pre-Raphaelite spirit into the art of the nursery. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Faults, no doubt, of a technical sort Kate Greenaway shows in many of her drawings, and, as we have seen, mannerisms at times betrayed her. She would exaggerate in her faces the pointed chin that was a charm of her model Gertie’s face. She would draw eyes too far apart, as Ford Madox Brown came to do; yet how exquisitely those eyes were drawn, and how admirably placed within their sockets! perfect in accuracy of touch, and delightful in their beauty. The knees of her girls are sometimes too low down; the draperies are often too little studied and lack grace of line ”

“ Henceforth not only did Ruskin and Kate Greenaway constantly meet either at Hampstead or at Brantwood, where she paid him several delightful visits, but they carried on a spirited correspondence, which on his side certainly ran to five hundred letters, and on hers to probably double that number. For when, in 1888, illness compelled him to cease writing, Kate made it her kindly business to continue her frequent missives in order to add to the pleasures and relieve the monotony of a comparatively inactive old age. ”

“ This is Miss Maud Locker-Lampson, looking so lovely in a purple and green dress like a wild hyacinth. You would so love all these nice dear children—they are so nice—so good-looking. And there is something else you would like—the loveliest tiny grey kitten, such a sweet.
Kate Greenaway to Ruskin
Sept. 1, 1898.
Isn’t it a pity more people do not love things?—The beautiful things of the world are so little to so many; they go for drives where all they look upon is so lovely and they care not one bit, but long to get home again as quickly as possible. ”

“ Everything is idyllic, poetic, and touched by a congenial breath of tender melancholy.’
The appreciation of Kate Greenaway’s work was universal. In France its reception was always enthusiastic, and the critics expressed their delight with characteristic felicity. They recognised, said one, [80] that until Kate Greenaway there had been no author and artist for the boy citizens whose trousers are always too short, and for the girl citizens whose hands are always too red. ”

“ An American journal—the Literary World, of Boston—declared that the delicacy and beauty of her faces in outline were as good as Flaxman; and the curious quality of ‘affectionateness’ in the drawings, their ingenuousness and prettiness that would have moved the heart of Stothard and touched the soul of Blake, firmly established the young artist in the position to which her former book had raised her. But not until A Day in a Child’s Life did Kate Greenaway show her full power as a painter of flowers—by the side of which even her pictures of boys and girls seem to many to yield in interest. ”

“ From the melancholy of her imaginary heroine, and from the brightness of her joyous self when she appeals to her vast child-constituency, we may turn to the occasional depression which is mirrored in some of her late verses when she considers her own life and achievement. It is not to be supposed for a moment that Kate Greenaway was morbid naturally, but she was easily dejected, particularly when, as we have seen, she fell into despair on realising that the world had forgotten her and passed her by while her imitators were reaping the reward which her own genius and originality had sown. ”

“ Her subjects were, in the main, young girls, children, flowers, and landscape; and the air of artless simplicity, freshness, humour, and purity of these little works so appealed to public and artists alike that the enthusiastic welcome habitually accorded to them is to be attributed to something more than love of novelty. In the line she had struck out Kate Greenaway was encouraged by H. Stacy Marks, R.A., and she refused to listen to those friends who urged her to return to a more conventional manner. ”

“ For ten years Kate Greenaway’s faithful companion.
[165]
One day there is a touch of sensitiveness:—‘I am often amused at the women who sell the violets—they so often smell them before presenting them to the purchaser—this is not always an attraction.’ Another day she touches off a portrait:—‘My sister’s little girl is good to contemplate. Her profile is like a cheerful Burne-Jones.’
Now she airs a prejudice:—‘I wish there were no worms in the garden. I am so frightened when I sow things to see them turn up. I know they are useful but they are not nice-looking. ”

“ C. Wilhelm’s beautiful drawings of dainty animated flowers, a design in which Kate Greenaway would assuredly have rejoiced.
H. Stacy Marks, R.A., it has been said, was one of Miss Greenaway’s most valued and helpful friends. The letters of this year that follow show how sincere and kind he was, and how candid a critic. A constant visitor and adviser, and an ardent admirer of her work from early years, he did more than any one to encourage her, to foster her genius, and to bring her into notice. ”

“ The chief authority for Kate Greenaway's life is the exhaustive volume published in 1905 by M. H. Spielmann and G. S. Layard. This, amply illustrated by reproductions of drawings and water-colours, and enriched by copious extracts from the artist's correspondence with Ruskin, is also written with much critical insight, and genuine sympathy for Miss Greenaway's aims and achievement. To a subsequent volume, Kate Greenaway: Sixteen Examples in Colour of the Artist's Work (Black's British Artists) , 1910, Mr. Spielmann prefixed a short study. See also Ruskin 's Fors Clavigera, and Praeterita ”

“ 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. ”

“ The love of red Surrey cottages, green fields, and groups of little children was common to both artists, and Kate’s imitation is more apparent than real; her renderings of them are honest and tender, full of sentiment, and of accurate, vigorous observation. She does not seem to have studied landscape for its breadth, or sought to read and transcribe the mighty message of poetry it holds for every whole-hearted worshipper. Rather did she seek for the passages of beauty and the pretty scenes which appealed to her, delighting in the sonnet, as it were, rather than in the epic. ”

“ He then produced a telling little skit on her manner which so delighted Kate Greenaway that she preserved it till her dying day.
[70]
Randolph Caldecott to Kate Greenaway
46, Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury,
September 30, 1878.
Dear Miss Greenaway—The two children of whom I spoke were recommended to me by a Mr. Robertson of 6, Britten Street, Chelsea, himself a model. He seemed to say that he had the power of causing the children to sit. One is a ‘Saxon boy’ of six years old—called A. Frost; the other is a ‘vivacious girl of an auburn colour’ entitled Minnie Frost. ”

“ They are not mock heroics, but the half-spoken utterances of real passion, of the baulked, helpless, disillusioned woman of her creation, who is emerging into a philosophic and sufficiently satisfactory state of mind. And they are representative of by far the larger portion of her literary output.
What Kate Greenaway might have accomplished had she devoted as much time to verses for children as in accumulating poetic material of an introspective nature, may be gathered from the pretty and dainty rhymes with which every one who is familiar with her books is well acquainted. ”

“ Kate Greenaway to Frederick Locker
24 May, 1882.
I’ve been to call on the Caldecotts to-day with Mrs. Evans. My brother showed me some of his (Mr. Caldecott’s) new drawings yesterday at Racquet Court. They are so uncommonly clever. The Dish running away with the Spoon—you can’t think how much he has made of it. I wish I had such a mind. I’m feeling very low about [90] my own powers just now, for I have been looking at the originals for the new Crane book. Some of them are literally dreams of beauty. I do wish you could see them. There is one—a long low design of a Harvest Home. ”

“ When I looked to see what it was there were two acorns! shining and looking so brilliant. I could not have thought a small thing could show so much colour.
I go on liking things more and more, seeing them more and more beautiful. Don’t you think it is a great possession to be able to get so much joy out of things that are always there to give it, and do not change? What a great pity my hands are not clever enough to do what my mind and eyes see, but there it is!
Kate Greenaway to Ruskin
Nov. 7, 1899.
There are not any very good children’s books about just now that I have seen. ”

“ One such cottage at Hambledon, Surrey, she particularly admired, where a green door had faded to a peacock blue. She liked only blue and white skies; stormy effects gave her no pleasure.... ‘The sincerest form of flattery’ (imitation) annoyed her, and did her reputation harm, as her many imitators went beyond, in fact out-Kate-Greenawayed Kate Greenaway in their caricatures, and many people did not know one from the other. ”

“ Yes, I know well how tired you are, and I do hope you’ll play on the sands and do nothing but what the children do—all day long. As soon as you are yourself again I’ll tell you exactly what I want about the drawings. There was work enough for a week in that one of the girl with brown background, alone.—And you ought to do nothing but patches of colour with a brush big enough to tar a boat with for months to come.
Then Fors Clavigera appeared embellished for the first time with a headpiece from Kate Greenaway’s pencil—a charming little girl watching the sun set across the sea. ”

“ 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.
i7
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. ”

“ Chappell was a truly worthy woman,—one of the noblest. Indeed, Kate Greenaway always insisted that she was the kindest, most generous, most charitable, the cheerfullest, and most careful woman she had ever known. To quote her words, ‘in all things she was highest and best.’ She meant nothing derogatory to her husband when she told every one before his face that he was a ‘poor creature.’ He entirely agreed. There was no hint at his being ‘wanting’ in any particular, but rather that Providence was at fault in not vouchsafing him a full measure of health and [30] strength. ”