uwmspeccoll:Staff Pick of theWeekMy staff pick is TheLife and Death of Jason, a Metrical Romance by
uwmspeccoll:Staff Pick of theWeekMy staff pick is TheLife and Death of Jason, a Metrical Romance by William Morriswith decorations by Maxwell Armfield.This edition was published by Dodd, Meadand Company in New York in 1917. WilliamMorris was born on March 24, 1834 in Walthamstow, near London, England. He wasknown for being a being a leader in the Arts & Craftsmovement, a socialist activist, and for founding the KelmscottPress in 1891 which helped kick start the contemporary fine-pressmovement. Morris was also a poet and author, and his poem The Life and Death of Jason was firstpublished in 1867. It chronicles the exploits of the Greek mythologicalhero Jason, leader of theArgonauts, and his quest for the Golden Fleece. Morris was a follower ofthe Pre-RaphaeliteBrotherhood, and worked closely with the artist Edward Burne-Joneswho illustrated several Kelmscott Press books, including the 1895 edition of TheLife and Death of Jason.I chose this1917 edition of The Life and Death ofJason, printed 21 years after the death of William Morris in 1896, becauseof Maxwell Armfield’s wonderful illustrations. Maxwell Armfield was a Britishartist and writer who was trained in Arts and Crafts principles. I first cameacross Armfield’s Jason early in my time at Special Collections when I worked asundergraduate assistant shelving books in the department. Now several yearslater and much wiser about William Morris’s lasting legacy, I really see theconnection of this book has with earlier editions even though it is aestheticallyvery different. This is made clear in Maxwell Armfield’s “Note on the Drawings”which precedes the text: “In the case of an epic, one feels, I think,that the important quality of the décorshould be unity not so much with the ideas of the text as with the book as book, and unity also within itself.This pointof view must consider the embellishment not so much as illustration proceeding fromthe text as a continuation of the binding and page purposing to present the text to the eye; or ascommentary on certain aspects of the matter not necessarily touched on at allby the author.”This holisticapproach to book design is very much in line with Morris’s principles, even ifthe illustrations are more modern in appearance than the Kelmscott Press’s medievalistaesthetic. For an evendeeper dive into Maxwell Armfield’s artistic interpretation of The Life and Death of Jason, I recommendthe article: IllustratingMorris:The Work of ]essie King and Maxwell Armfield by Rosie Milespublished for the Journal of WilliamMorris Studies in 2004.View moreposts about William Morris.–Sarah, Special Collections Graduate Intern -- source link
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