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Review of Anna-Marie Ferguson's Malory Illustrations In the Process of doing research for my book, The Legends of King Arthur in Art (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1990; Rochester, NY: Boydell & Brewer, 1991; pbk 1995), I looked at every illustrated edition of Malory, both full text and adaptations, in the British Library, London and in other libraries in Britain, Canada and the United States. I can honestly say that I have never seen illustrations that are more aesthetically satisfying and more closely based on the literary text. The best illustrators generally choose a particular historical period and within that period aim at consistency of dress, architecture, arms and armour, furniture and ornament to creature a credible world that the viewer can enter. Ferguson's world is characterized by knights in chain mail, caparisoned horses and Romanesque architecture feature sturdy columns with carved capitals, arches, stone pavements and massive walls. Her forests are real English forests with magnificent oaks and sycamores, ferns, weeds and brambles that change with the seasons. Her wasteland is equally realistic, as anyone who has seen the Canadian Rockies will testify. Yet her use of water, mist, reflection, shadow, moonlight and otherworldly illumination creates the air of mystery that is an essential element in medieval romance. One cannot hurry over these illustrations, so subtle and inventive is their patterning, so cleverly do they balance the romantic dichotomy of castle and perilous forest. I have never seen Malorian illustrations that so dramatically convey the heights and depths of the settings - the vertical space. There are castled crags with minute human figures at their bases. Corbenic's massive walls rest on rocks that drop sheerly into the sea. The Round Table and empty chairs waiting for Arthur's wedding feast to begin are viewed from above and the four royal fays are spaced on a long winding staircase as the descend to view Lancelot in the castle's dungeon. Only Gustav Dore's illustrations for the folio editions of Tennyson's first four Idylls are comparable but their effect is limited by his medium, the steel engraving. The fact that Ms. Ferguson is the first woman to illustrate the complete text of the Morte gives her a unique perspective. It affects not only her choice of incidents to illustrate but also the emotional responses that she invites from her viewers. To give a few examples: no man has exploited the pathos of the drowned children episode or the unmerited suffering of Bragwaine. When D.G. Rossetti illustrates the dead Lady of Shalott for Tennyson's Poems (1857), the lady is shadowed and peripheral while the large-scale Lancelot demands attention. But Ferguson's Elaine, gowned in red (the colour of sacrifice), golden-haired, pale-faced with her lips forming a smile, laid out as if on her wedding bed, poignantly occupies virtually all the pictorial space. Both Aubrey Beardsley and William Russell Flint focus on women characters, the former satirically, the latter erotically in an exploitive way. Fergusons' great ladies, including the fays, with their jewellery and richly patterned gowns of sumptuous materials more humanly exude power, passion, defiance or frustration as the context requires. Even minor female characters have distinctive attributes that imply personality. Archetypal knights are also individualized as in the case of a jolly King Pellinore who makes us readjust our image of the Questing Beast's pursuer. This artist resembles Arthur Rackham in her penchant for adding witty details that, like Sir Dinadin in the text, function to relieve tension. She uses colours as did the Pre-Raphaelites, conscious of the hierarchic, moral and spiritual values that they convey to anyone familiar with medieval and Victorian colour symbolism. Only Flint comes close to the range of opulence of her palette. When reviewing Flint's Morte illustrations for the Burlington Magazine in 1912, Roger Fry wrote, "Nothing taxes the invention of an artist more than the illustration of a long and well-known theme, and the Morte Darthur is one of the worst worn; it is worn out." Now the wheel has come full circle and the popular enthusiasm for all things Arthurian has reached Victorian proportions. in these fine drawings and watercolours Anna-Marie Ferguson proves that Malory has still much to offer in the way of beauty and truth, not to mention wonder, surprise, pity, fear, exaltation and delight. Dr. Muriel A. Whitaker Book titles by Muriel A. Whitaker Articles by Muriel A. Whitaker |
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