Book Review: Herbert Draper 1863-1920

In 1998, my wife and I honeymooned in England. One of the things we set out to do was to tour museums, my wife sharing my tastes in art (thank God). When one thinks museums in Europe, the mind wanders over to Paris, Italy in general, and maybe the Amsterdam or Madrid. This is because those have very famous central museums, all of which are quite good; any art history course you might take covers art found in venues in those places, including old churches and the like.

England is often left out, and that is largely because of the era in which I believe British art (and painting in general) thrived. The fin de sicle wind-down of the 1800s, which I've discussed before, is the era just as Impressionism and the modernist movement was getting started, coinciding with one of the most accomplished periods of academic painting, ever. As a result, England has a ton of fantastic art to see, but most of it is still relatively unknown, and only slowly shaking off over a century of subsequent critical ridicule. That change seemed to accelerate dramatically in the 90s, as Phaidon Books began publishing new editions of art by many of the finest artists of this period. As that coincided with my time in Art School, it was an awakening of sorts. By '98, I was bursting with the desire to see some of these paintings in person (I didn't know that the nearby Haggin Museum existed, and that it had a pretty good sampling of some of this era's French work). So off to England we went.

The Tate Museum was an early first stop, in London. I knew some images I wanted to see there already, chief among them Waterhouse's "Lady of Shallot," a stunning work much larger than I'd imagined it, and gorgeous. On our second trip to the Tate, 8 years later, I went to go see her again, and as we made our way (marvelling at Millais' Ophelia and many other pieces), we entered the hall it was in. I saw it out of the corner of my eye, but my gaze was torn away by this painting:

"The Lament for Icarus" was an equally large and hugely impressive painting, by an artist whose name I read but didn't at all remember after taking in so much art. Back during our honeymoon, we drove past Liverpool and out to Port Sunlight, to the Lady Lever Gallery, home to the Lever collection of art (as in the Lever family, of the soap). I knew that Lord Leighton has some monumental works hung there. On our way out, hung kinda high but large enough to see, was this painting:

I bought a postcard, but as there are so many of these good artists who don't have art books available yet, never committed the name to memory. Then, a few years ago while at San Diego Comic-Con, I was at Bud Plant's checking out art books and my eye fell upon this book, a collection of the work of Herbert Draper--a name I was no longer to forget. To my surprise, both the paintings mentioned were by this same guy. It was only recently that I received the book (thanks!), and though a little pricey, it's worth the price of admission.

This is a first foray into uncovering the career of this brilliant painter, one from the last generation of this worthy tradition. He himself studied under Leighton, and under Lefebvre in Paris at Academie Julian. Even the great Bouguereau would visit for weekly critiques. Sigh. He knew these other heroes of mine, and there is even evidence that the elder Waterhouse may have occasionally taken inspiration from him. While many of his works are as yet undiscovered and only mentioned, and a couple were destroyed in WW2, this is a great book for familiarizing yourself with the artist. At his best, he was every bit the equal of his contemporaries. Unfortunately, he wasn't anywhere as prolific as Alma-Tadema, for instance, and his penchant for lovely sirens and the like could sometimes stray into kitsch, for which he was called out on even in his day. But through a generous collection of color plates and a wealth of drawing reproductions, you do get a great snapshot of his life and work, and fantastic history and insight into the art world he lived in, and how quickly it was changing under his feet.