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Brett, Simon

bookplates by, [1] 57, 70; [2] 56; [3] 33; [4] 54; [5] 25; [9] 41; [32] 18

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20041201120254 Judith Jaidinger, The Three Mothers - Simon Brett on illustration, Slightly Foxed Issue 4

Hand and Mind Together

Simon Brett on illustration

Faced with a new book, an illustrator ponders. Should the illustrations decorate the page or interpret the text? Should they interpret it scene by scene or accompany it at a distance as a visual counterpoint? Will they be simple visualizations, getting the costumes, settings and characters as ‘anyone’ would wish to see them, or a more personal interpretation? Will they be chapter headings, full pages or vignettes? How many have been commissioned, how frequently will they occur? Will their even placing coincide with illustratable moments, or will favourite scenes have to be ditched and minor ones brought forward?
20060301142128 Simon Brett on the wood engravings of Gwen Raverat

Artist of Earth and Sky

Simon Brett on the wood engravings of Gwen Raverat

Despite the aspirations Gwen Raverat expressed in her classic childhood memoir Period Piece (‘O happy Mrs Bewick!’ she declares at one point) and all the drawings in the book, many of its enchanted readers have discovered with apparent surprise that its author was an artist of some importance. Yet this may not be so remarkable; little had been written about her later life until Frances Spalding’s full biography in 2001, though Gwen and her husband Jacques did feature in Paul Delaney’s The Neo-Pagans (1987) as central members of the Cambridge circle surrounding Rupert Brooke. My own journey was in the opposite direction from most people’s. I knew Gwen Raverat as an artist long before I discovered Period Piece.
20040301140646

From Chelsea to Belsize Park

Simon Brett on Denis Mackail, Greenery Street; Anna Gmeyner, Manja

One of the first books I was ever given was Sycamore Square. It was old for a toddler, but a pretty thing to grow into: light verse, which had mostly first appeared in Punch. Ernest Shepard’s drawings showed willowy, upper-middle-class young men and women of the sort my parents had aspired to be in their youth. I later discovered that its author, Jan Struther, was the creator of Mrs Miniver, while ‘Sycamore Square’ itself was just off the King’s Road. My grandmother lived around there. It was a rather grand world, brittle and tinkling, and its idea of art was light entertainment.
20111201163244 Simon Brett on Ian Smith, Slightly Foxed Issue 32

The Man Who Climbed the Matterhorn

Simon Brett on Edward Whymper, Scrambles amongst the Alps

I have known three mountaineers, but I feel funny standing on a chair to wind the clock if I have nothing to hold on to. Given my fear of heights, it may seem surprising that, as a teenager, I read mountaineering books. But we read, not least in youth, partly to find out who we are and who we are not. I read about what terrified me – Hunt on Everest, Herzog on Annapurna and, most memorably, bridging the gap from childhood, James Ramsey Ullman. Ullman was an adventure-story writer with an eye for film rights who for several decades was the objective but inspirational voice, in history and in fiction, of mountaineering literature, a field dominated by first-person memoirs. His Banner in the Sky (1954) told the Matterhorn story for children, while The White Tower (1950), a fine Second World War mountaineering novel, wonderfully evokes the space, the weather and the neck-craning heights.
20171018165647 Judith Jaidinger - The Three Mothers

The Three Mothers

Judith Jaidinger

‘One image of a veiled woman was all net and nose. Then, by laying down carefully pared pieces of onion-skin tissue-paper behind the place where the impression would be made, Brian brought out and made visible the expression of traumatized, envious sympathy the artist had engraved into the wood in her depiction of the woman’s face. It slowly came alive at his touch – though Brian would pass the credit back to the artist who created the picture. I suppose he is right; but his contribution is closer to that of a concert pianist interpreting a score than that of an engineer.’
20170531144937 Strawberries, Simon Brett

Strawberries

Simon Brett

‘Strawberries, and only strawberries, could now be thought or spoken of. “The best fruit in England — every body’s favourite — always wholesome. — These the finest beds and finest sorts. — Delightful to gather for one's self — the only way of really enjoying them — delicious fruit — only too rich to be eaten much of — inferior to cherries — currants more refreshing — only objection to gathering strawberries the stooping — glaring sun . . .“’

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