Thumbelina and the Butterfly.

 

Lotte Reiniger has the distinction of creating the very first feature animation, her enthralling The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926), an epic silhouette film featuring highly ornate shapes of exotic lands, gallant heroes, nefarious magic, and a rousing climax with a multi-headed beast. A German leftist in the age of fascism, after the war she moved to England, where she continued to build a visionary oeuvre totalling over fifty films, mostly shorts, many of them for BBC Children’s TV. She made her last film, The Rose and the Ring (1979), at the age of 80. In addition to their craft and charm, her films have two outstanding features: they are highly intricate, yet also opaque, inviting viewers to fill in details with their own imagination, thus creating a captivating aesthetic as commanding today as ever.

Portrait By Philip Wilson Steer,1860 - 1942.

Philip Wilson Steer 
English Artist (1860-1942) 
  Steer was among the leaders of British artists in his generation who looked to France for inspiration. One of the only few truly English Impressionist. He trained in Paris 1882-4 (around the time Sargent was reaching his height there) and revisiting France four times between 1887 and 1891.

Castro Alves Poem.

Ask for a mirror from Venice…
Gaze at your face…and you will see
One of the most beautiful paintings
Which — men would not know how to make,
Which — two alike God did not do.

In your beautiful mouth
You will see a pretty rose
Almost closed while smiling
And, like shining drops,
The pearls of your teeth
In the breast of the sparkling flower.
The Oriental perfume
— When you pray innocently —
One cradles in your lips.
And in your breast, one trembles,
You have the Poetry, one moans,
You have the harmony of the Heavens.
Do you want to see Paradise?
Reveal your lips…A laugh
Come show us Eden…
Sing!… And the sacred hymns
You will see in Heaven
Falling stars listen to you.
You have the night by the strings
Where the breeze in arguing themes
Howls… dies of slowness.
They are more than stars — shining
Your fascinating eyes,

"Where There's A Will" By ~ Edmund Blair Leighton ~ 1853 - 1922.

Edmund Blair Leighton, ROI (British, 1853-1922)

Where there's a will
signed and dated 'E.BLAIR LEIGHTON.1892

"The Sea Hath It's Pearls" By ~ William Henry Margetson ~ 1861 - 1940.

The cool monochrome of the location suggests an English coastal resort, though clearly Margetson had the Mediterranean in mind. His lovely fossicker is dressed to evoke the ancient classical past more than late Victorian England. Indeed, Margetson's rather dry application of pale pigment echoes Roman fresco technique. Like most of the lesser genre painters and portraitists of his day, he succumbed to the ever-virulent strain of Victorian classicism, being influenced by better-known contemporaries such as Leighton and Poynter. It goes without saying that the pearl of the title is a punning allusion to the maiden herself.

The Green Calash, By ~ Ellen Day Hale ~ 1855 - 1940.

Painter, etcher, and writer Ellen Day Hale, was one of the few women professional artists of her era, late 19th and early 20th centuries, to 'rise to the top' at a time when men ruled the domain of fine art.  Heavily credentialed in painting and printmaking by study at respected institutions, "she also played a major role as a mentor for a younger generation of aspiring women artists,

Young lady in a garden by Betty Maude Christian Fagan

"A Thorn Admidst Roses" By ~ James Sant ~ 1820 - 1916.

Portrait painter in oil. Born in Croydon. Studied art under John Varley and Sir Augustus Callcott, also at the R.A. Schools. Exhibited many works at the Royal Academy from 1840. Elected A.R.A. in 1861, R.A. in 1869, and retired from the R.A. in 1914. Appointed Principal Painter in Ordinary to Queen Victoria. He received many important portrait commissions, but also painted landscapes and genre. Lived in London and died on 12th July 1916.