Something I found interesting in this week's study of Clemence Housman's The Were-Wolf is the similarity in framing between Laurence Housman's illustrations and many of the Pre-Raphaelite illustrations (e.g., those by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt, and John Everett Millais) we looked at while studying The Moxon Tennyson and "Goblin Market." Like the Pre-Rapaelites, Housman adapts to the dimensional constraints the genre of book illustrations imposes by depicting only slices of the scenes being illustrated - there often seems to be more going on out of frame, the presence of which is either partially revealed or merely suggested to the viewer. This gives each illustration the sense of being in media res. I think this works uniquely well for book illustrations. There's no sense of unity that other full-scale works of art typically provide; everything is in flux, developing in real time with the reader making his/her way through the narrative. Additionally, I noticed Housman, again, like the Pre-Raphaelites, adapt to the cramped dimensions by forgoing clear demarcations between foreground, midground, and background, the content of each illustration being presented on a relatively level perspective. This contributes the the book's fantasticism, giving each scence an unreal vibe.
Submitted by Justin Hovey on