SHAKESPEARE AND PERRAULT.*
Mn. Joing AUSTEN is, as the titles of these books tell us, a decorator. We are not quite sure what exactly a decorator of Mr. Austen's variety is, though we are familiar enough with the other kind—the kind, associated with builders, painters, and spring cleanings. But whatever a book decorator may be, he certainly is not—if we are to judge by Mr. Austen— an illustrator, because Mr. Austen illustrates neither Shake.. speare nor Perrault. It is difficult to write of the decorations to Hamlet' without prejudice, because their spirit is so violently antagonistic to the spirit of Shakespeare. With a high degree of careful finish and rich ornamentation Mr. Austen produces pictures which reek of Aubrey Beardsley with a dash of Mr. Austin Spare. The effect is, on the whole, irritating. We are tired, by this time, of the bloodless, sinister and diseased people in whom Beardsley, Ernest Dowson and the Oscar Wilde of Salome rejoiced. Anaemic vice as a fine art is no longer in fashion. When we turn to Perrault 2 the travesty is not so unbearable, and although the persons in Red Riding- Hood, The Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella become, with Mr. Austen, amazingly sophisticated, bewigged and furbe- lowed, the effect above or below the printed page of these brilliant and pretty little drawings in black-and-white, blue, green and scarlet, is extremely attractive. The large illustra- tion, covering two pages, on the other hand, is much less successful. It is thin, fussy and quite formless. It is difficult to guess in what direction Mr. Austen will develop, but we hope for his sake that it will be away from the Beardsley atmosphere, though there is much in Beardsley's technique which he might study with advantage. Meanwhile, he can be quite delightful in the minute and elegant, though his work contains little that will appeal to the mind of a child.
Perrault3 fares even worse at the hands of Mr. Harry Clarke, whose illustrations have much in common with Beardsley and Mr. Austen. Here we find elaboration, sophistication, and the same little twist of anaemic wickedness which was invented by Beardsley. Nothing could be less suitable for children. The coloured illustrations are a little less bizarre than the black-and-white, but many of these, too, are fantastic without being either beautiful or imaginative. In his simpler drawings Mr. Clarke shows some feeling for design, and at intervals a hint of imagination escapes through the over-sophistication, but these redeeming features emerge only too rarely. These resuscitations of an outworn jaded aestheticism are, we hope, no more than a passing phase.
Perrault is certainly having a time of it this year. He has been illustrated also by Miss Helen Sinclair.* The spirit of her pictures is, thank Heaven, simple ; they are full of bright colour and the kind of details which entertain children. Their people are gay and extraverted folk, entirely free from dyspepsia and that melancholy and wistful naughtiness so noticeable in the other books.
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