The Year's at the Spring 1920

Harry Clarke made this vibrant and strange illustration, I imagine with watercolor and ink, and a whole lot of intense looking. The first thing that grabs me is that beast – part donkey, part nightmare. Those teeth! Clarke’s got a way of making the grotesque weirdly appealing, doesn't he? I picture him hunched over his desk, meticulously building up these layers of colour, one tiny stroke at a time. There’s this red sun, or is it a moon?, hanging in the background that throws the whole scene into high relief. And then, at the bottom, these little windows into other worlds, like illuminated manuscripts but dark and gothic. It’s like Clarke is saying, “Here’s spring, but don’t forget the shadows lurking just beneath the surface.” He reminds me of artists like Odilon Redon, who weren’t afraid to let their imaginations run wild. It’s all one big, beautiful, unsettling conversation.