Hugh Thomson – Illustrator

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I noticed Hugh Thomson’s work when I was browsing the Stephen Lucious Gwynn books about Ireland and did a broad search for other books he illustrated. He was an Irish illustrator best know for pen-and-ink illustrations. I browsed 5 books with his illustrations back in February published between 1895 and 1913; I’ve selected at sample image from each one.

The Story of Rosina and other Verses (1895)

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Two historical reflections:

  • Do you prefer the pen-and-ink or the color illustrations? Today we are so bombarded with colorful illustrations/photographs that we tend to expect color…..but the pen-and- ink show a different kind of detail.

  • Based on the Wikipedia entry, Thomson died in 1920 at 59 years old. His career as an illustrator declined with World War I and he was forced to find other work during the last years of his life. I wonder how many people will find the COVID-19 pandemic as disruptive to their livelihood/life plan as previous generations found the World Wars.

As I was writing this blog post, I noticed that the Wikipedia entry for Thomson has a list of selected works that includes links to Internet Archive. Some of the books do not list Thomson in their metadata (i.e. the illustrator was not listed along with the text’s author) so I didn’t find them in my broad search. Hurray! I have some additional Thomson illustrated books to browse!

Newport Teahouse and Green Animals

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The issues of House & Garden from the second half of 1983 (available on Internet Archive) include pictures from two Newport RI places that I visited back in 2014…and I always like to find places I’ve visited in magazine pages:

Green Animals Topiary Garden (my blog post from October 2014 and the official site). It was one of my favorite places because it was outdoors…and so different from the ostentatious houses.

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Chinese Teahouse at Marble House

(the official site and my blog post with depictions of the Tea House published in the 1916 Architectural Record that includes some of my photos from 2014). I only saw the outside in 2014 so it was interesting to see the picture of inside from 1983 and the ‘Votes for Women’ cup from its association with the suffrage movement.

Another significance for these issues – my husband and I had just made our big move from Texas to the east coast (Virginia) in 1983. We had moved into our house at the end of June and within a couple of weeks, the air conditioner compressor stopped working! As I browsed through the 1214 pages of this volume, I remembered that I would have been way too busy to have noticed them at all in 1983 (unless they happened to be available to thumb through while I was waiting for an appointment). Here are some other images from the volume that I am enjoying so many years later!

Stephen Lucius Gwynn Books about Ireland

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I’ve enjoyed 5 books with pictures of Ireland published in the same decade as World War I. The author – Stephen Lucius Gwynn – was an Irish MP and writer with close links to the Iris literary revival; he had a long and varied career (I always browse the Wikipedia entry for the authors/illustrators of books I enjoy).  These books were illustrated by Irish illustrators of the time; many are in color; I selected one or two for each book. I find the illustrations of this period – just before color photography took over for books like this – very appealing. They capture the places as they were…also representing the history of book illustration.  

The Famous Cities of Ireland (1915) with illustrations by Hugh Thomson

Leinster (1911) with illustrations by Alexander Williams

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The Fair Hills of Ireland (1914) with illustrations by Hugh Thomson

Munster (1912) with illustrations by Alexander Williams

Ulster (1911) with illustrations by Alexander Williams

It is interesting to think about the time it took to produce these illustrations compared to photography. Do as many people make their living as artists today?

Technology has changed our work and the way we live in so many ways. I’ve changed almost entirely from physical to digital books over the past decade! I don’t need to go anywhere to obtain my books these days and there is always a huge number of books readily available to me. I find myself savoring the illustrations – painting and photographs - in books/website more than ever. What a boon during this pandemic year!

American Museum of Natural History in 1953

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The 1953 volume of the Magazine of the American Museum of Natural History is available from Internet Archive (here is the link for whole collection list). I am featuring the volume of magazines published the year I was born this week. There were two items that resonated…that reminded me of other years in my life.

The first was an article about Bandelier National Monument.

I’ve been to the place at least 4 times: Spring 1971, August 1980, September 1981, and March 2005. The first time was for a picnic during a high school trip. In 1980 and 1981 my husband and I camped there. We hiked to the lower falls in 1981….and took our best pictures of the place.

The sideshow below is a mix of pictures from the 1980 and 1981 trips. Based on the pictures, we took longer hikes in 1981. My husband did all the photography. I scanned the slides years later.

In 2005, it was a wet day. It was a bit larger group with my parents, husband and daughter. We only walked around near the visitor center. It is a place to visualize how people lived long ago….and the juxtaposition of more modern history of the world in nearby Los Alamos, the lab at the forefront of creating the first atomic bombs.

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The second item was a picture of horsetails.

I remember reading about the plant in a textbook when I was in college in the mid70s…and then being thrilled to see and recognize a stand growing in Platt National Park when we visited a few months later. I had probably seen them before but overlooked them…didn’t realize that these are remnants of primitive plants that used to be the understory of the giant forests that eventually formed coal deposits. The genus (Equisetaceae) was eaten by dinosaurs!

I like finding publications from meaningful times in my life ….it’s a tangible connection to history. It’s also fun to see places I have seen more recently and to think about how they’ve changed … how they’ve remained the same.

eBotanical Prints – January 2021

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22 new books for the botanical prints list in January – all from Internet Archive. 7 are a continuation from December: the annual publication from the Georgia Botanical Society (Tipularia).  I started through the magazines of the Arnold Arboretum (Arnoldia) toward the end of the month. There are a lot of them still go…fodder for the browsing in February and maybe beyond.

The dates for the publications range from 1822 to 2018…close to 200 years but not as broad as some recent months. There is one image for each of the 22 new books; click an any sample images below to get an enlarged version. Enjoy the January eBotanical Prints! The whole list of 2063 eBooks can be accessed here.

Tipularia - 1993 * Georgia Botanical Society * sample image * 1993

Tipularia - 1992 * Georgia Botanical Society * sample image * 1992

Tipularia - 1991 * Georgia Botanical Society * sample image * 1991

Tipularia - 1990 * Georgia Botanical Society * sample image * 1990

Tipularia - 1989 * Georgia Botanical Society * sample image * 1989

Tipularia - 1988 * Georgia Botanical Society * sample image * 1988

Tipularia - 1987 * Georgia Botanical Society * sample image * 1987

The fern portfolio. All the species of British ferns are included in this volume * Heath, Francis George * sample image * 1885

Our woodland trees * Heath, Francis George * sample image * 1878

Autumnal leaves * Heath, Francis George * sample image * 1885

Garden Rockery: How to make, plant, and manage it * Heath, Francis George * sample image * 1908

The Fern World * Heath, Francis George * sample image * 1877

Monographie des prêles * Kornfeld, Albert (editor) * sample image * 1822

Phillipine Hoya species: a monograph * Kloppenburg, Dale * sample image * 1991

Flora and ecology of the Santa Monica Mountains * Southern California Botanists * sample image * 2007

Arnoldia -  v.48:no.1-4 (1988) * Arnold Arboretum * sample image * 1988

Arnoldia -  v.76:no.1 (2018) * Arnold Arboretum * sample image * 2018

Arnoldia -  v.76:no.2 (2018) * Arnold Arboretum * sample image * 2018

Arnoldia -  v.75:no.1 (2017) * Arnold Arboretum * sample image * 2017

Arnoldia -  v.75:no.2 (2017) * Arnold Arboretum * sample image * 2017

Arnoldia -  v.75:no.3 (2017) * Arnold Arboretum * sample image * 2017

Arnoldia -  v.75:no.4 (2017) * Arnold Arboretum * sample image * 2017

Kate Greenaway’s Queen of the Pirate Isle Illustrations

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Project Gutenberg has the 1885 edition of Bret Harte’s The Queen of the Pirate Isle with illustrations by Kate Greenaway. I was looking at it more for the illustrations than the text since I was working my way down the list of books she illustrated. She set a style for children’s clothes in her illustrations (see the Wikipedia entry for her and then look for the books in the ‘Books Illustrated’ list in Internet Archive…it’s a good way to look at the work of an illustrator when the works are old enough to no longer be under copyright). She died in 1901 so books are out of the copyright window.

For girls – the clothes seem more for ‘dress up’ play that for everyday activity. I’ve clipped 6 images from the book to provide a flavor of the book….and Kate Greenaway illustrations of children.

House & Garden Magazines

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Internet Archive has quite few volumes of the House & Garden magazines digitized; they are in volumes with 6 issues each (like were in physical library reference sections). A search for the title “House & garden” provides a long list with all the volumes having a publication date of 1901 in the metadata (which is when the magazine was first published)!  It’s not possible to find the volumes for a particular year of interest on the list.   I am still working my way through the volumes…slowly but surely…but I am featuring 9 of the volumes in this post that I’ve already enjoyed.

The earliest volume is from July-December 1901. I always pay attention to books from 1901 because that is the year my paternal grandfather was born (earlier in the year). His parents had immigrated to the US from Eastern Europe and were tenant farms in Texas. Their lives were a far cry from the houses and gardens depicted in the magazine. I did find something familiar in this volume: pictures of Biltmore near Ashville, NC. George Vanderbilt would have been still alive when the article was written, and his daughter (born in 1900) would have been a toddler. What different environment it would have been to grow up in such a place!

I enjoy thinking about how people lived the magazine depict…the types of materials used for flooring and roofs...plumbing and lighting…elaborate gardens with water features…cottage gardens…architectural features like built-ins, garden rooms, and porches. The covers are often the only color pages in the early volumes…easy to spot when browsing through. Here are some samples:

July – December 1908

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There are pictures of the White House Rose Garden as it was during the Reagan administration in the September – December 1984 volume.

I’ve been browsing the volumes in no particular order so far, keeping track of the ones I’ve browsed…eventually I’ll have to go back and try to find the volumes I somehow missed.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Groceries. Snow is in our forecast and we had no half-and-half to make snow ice cream! I opted to make a quick trip to the grocery store for it and other items to avoid going again for 3 weeks. I went at the usual early time and it seemed like there were a few more people (maybe others that wanted to get ‘snow day’ foods) but still easy to stay distanced and find everything on the list quickly. I wore two masks; my daughter had talked about double masking now that our masks have been though the laundry enough times that the fibers might not be as tight. My glasses anti-fog wipe treatment worked just as well as it did with one mask.  I bought a slice of red velvet cake and ate it for my morning snack…felt like I had too much caffeine in me shortly afterward….but still enjoyed the treat. Overall – a good morning errand and reward!

Books Illustrated by Joseph Pennell

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During November, I browsed through 24 books illustrated by Joseph Pennell published between 1889 and 1918. The project was initiated by his book on Modern Illustration published in 1894 that I found early in the month. As I browsed through it, it seemed like a good reference to use for searching Internet Archive to find books illustrated by artists he cited; it’s so easy to search for names of authors (even though sometimes the illustrators are not listed in the metadata which makes it harder…then it’s back to the reference or the Wikipedia entry for the illustrator and searching by title).  I opted to start my browsing with Joseph Pennell and collected some sample images from each book for this post. My main interest is the illustrations…the snapshots they provide of places as they were during Pennell’s time.

There are 4 more books  in the 24 where Pennell is the author and illustrator: Joseph Pennell's pictures of war work in England (1917), San Francisco, the city of the Golden Gate (1916), Lithography and lithographers (1916), and  Joseph Pennell's pictures of war work in America (1918). The books of World War I industrial scenes could easily be adjuncts to history classes about that time….most of them gritty…many awe inspiring.  

Then there are the Highways and Byways books by various authors but with Pennell as the illustrator (or one of the illustrators):

Highways and byways in Normandy - Dearmer, Percey; Pennell, Joseph (1910)

Highways and byways in East Anglia - Dutt, William Alfred; Pennell, Joseph (1901)

Highways and byways in Devon and Cornwall - Norway, Arthur Hamilton; Pennell, Joseph; Thomson, Hugh (1897)

Highways and byways in Yorkshire - Norway, Arthur Hamilton; Pennell, Joseph; Thomson, Hugh (1899)

This is another example of how to find books to browse on Internet Archive; a simple search for “highways and byways in” yielded other books in the series that I’ve put on my list to browse... another thread to those others illustrators of Pennell’s time.

3 books were authored by  Henry James with Pennell as the illustrator: English Hours (1905), and A Little Tour in France (1901), and Italian Hours (1909).

Pennell illustrated Maurice Henry Hewlett’s The Road to Tuscany (1904) published in 2 volumes (vol 1 and vol 2).

Pennell was an American but spent his career based in London…but he travelled widely. Aside from the San Francisco book which he authored himself, there are 2 books in the 24 about places in the US:  The Creoles of Louisiana - Cable, George Washington; Pennell, Joseph (1914) and The new New York : a commentary on the place and the people - Van Dyke, John Charles; Pennell, Joseph (1909).

3 books are about places in Italy:

Italian Journeys - Howell, William Dean; Pennell, Joseph (1907)

Gleanings from Venetian history - Crawford, Francis Marion; Pennell, Joseph (1905)

The makers of modern Rome - Oliphant, Margaret; Riviere, Henry Parsons; Pennell, Joseph (1895)

2 books about places in Spain:

The Alhambra - Irving, Washington; Pennell, Joseph; Pennell, Elizabeth Robins (1896)

Castilian Days - Hay, John; Pennell, Joseph (1903)

And then the last 3 that I didn’t group with anything else

Old Chelsea, a summer-day's stroll - Martin, Benjamin Ellis; Pennell, Joseph (1889)

On the Broads - Dodd, Anna Bowman; Pennell, Joseph (1896)

Raiderland; all about grey Galloway, its stories, traditions, characters, humours - Crockett, Samuel Rutherford; Pennell, Joseph (1904)

 

Overall – a lot to enjoy browsing through these 24 books on Internet Archive…great activity for a cold winter day.

eBotanical Prints – November 2020

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20 new eBooks added to the botanical prints list in November. They are all available from Internet Archive. The oldest is from 1682 – The Anatomy of Plants by Nehemiah Grew – the ‘father of plant anatomy.’ 6 books were published in the 1700s and the rest in the 1800s. I enjoyed the variety of books I browsed since I had been making my way through Annals of Botany for 2 months (September and October)! When I selected the sample images – I thought about why I made the selections I did from all the wonderful images in these books. Sometimes I choose because I know and enjoy the plant…sometimes it’s the color…sometimes it is a plant totally new to me. Overall – I like the mosaic of images in the post (and that each image can be enlarged with a click). Enjoy the November eBotanical Prints! The whole list of 2021 eBooks can be accessed here.

Medical flora or, Manual of the medical botany of the United States of North America Vol 1 * Rafineque, Constantine Samuel * sample image * 1828

Medical flora or, Manual of the medical botany of the United States of North America Vol 2 * Rafineque, Constantine Samuel * sample image * 1828

Thirty-eight plates, with explanations : intended to illustrate Linnaeus's System of vegetables, and particularly adapted to the Letters on the elements of botany * Martyn, Thimas; Nodder, Frederick Polydore * sample image * 1817

Flora rustica: exhibiting ... figures of such plants as are either useful or injurious in husbandry V1 and V2 * Martyn, Thimas; Nodder, Frederick Polydore * sample image * 1791

Flora rustica: exhibiting ... figures of such plants as are either useful or injurious in husbandry V3 and V4 * Martyn, Thimas; Nodder, Frederick Polydore * sample image * 1791

Traité des arbres forestiers : ou histoire et description des arbre indigènes ou naturalisés… * Jaume Saint-Hilaire, Jean Henri * sample image * 1824

Botanique medicinal * Jaume Saint-Hilaire, Jean Henri * sample image * 1799

The anatomy of plants * Grew, Nehemiah * sample image * 1682

Recueil de plantes coloriees * Rousseau, Jean-Jacques * sample image * 1789

Plants of the coast of Coromandel Vol 1 * Roxburgh, William * sample image * 1795

Plants of the coast of Coromandel Vol 2 * Roxburgh, William * sample image * 1798

Plants of the coast of Coromandel Vol 3 * Roxburgh, William * sample image * 1819

Plantarum Brasiliae icones et descriptiones hactenus ineditae * Pohl, Johann Emnuel * sample image * 1827

Nova genera et species plantarum t. 1 * Bonpland, Aime * sample image * 1815

Nova genera et species plantarum t. 2 * Bonpland, Aime * sample image * 1817

Nova genera et species plantarum t. 3 * Bonpland, Aime * sample image * 1818

Nova genera et species plantarum t. 4 * Bonpland, Aime * sample image * 1818

Nova genera et species plantarum t. 5 * Bonpland, Aime * sample image * 1821

Nova genera et species plantarum t. 6 * Bonpland, Aime * sample image * 1823

Nova genera et species plantarum t. 7 * Bonpland, Aime * sample image * 1825

Alfred East’s The Art of Landscape Painting in Oil Colour

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I happened upon a book on Internet Archive I had browsed back in 2012 – The Art of Landscape Painting in Oil Colour by Alfred East…and enjoyed the illustrations again.

I particularly enjoyed the ‘Studies of Effect’ series. Since I’ve done a lot more thinking about light as I’ve improved my photographic skills, I probably appreciated them more now than I did 8 years ago.

These days – there are other steps I typically take when I spot something of interest in Internet Archive – either the topic of the book or the author…or maybe just a single picture. I frequently look for the biography of the author in Wikipedia (and maybe follow some of the external links or references). Since East was a British artist, I did a search on The British Museum site and found 32 items! It’s awesome to be able to follow whatever questions I develop looking at old books; perhaps I appreciate the ease more since I remember heavy reference books and card catalogs…and being frustrated when the library didn’t have what I was looking for.  It’s very easy now to find an overwhelming amount of information.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Bald Eagle. As we were driving to put flowers on my mother-in-law’s grave (she died in 1990) on Thanksgiving morning, we drove by a historical manor house set well off the road with outbuildings. I noticed a white blotch near the top of one of the trees near the house. It was almost too far away to figure out what it was but when it moved, I realized it was a bald eagle. It turned further and took off as the light turned green and we moved in the other direction. What a great contribution from the natural world to add to our Thanksgiving!