The sweet and touching tale of Fleur and Blanchefleur 1922

Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale made 'The sweet and touching tale of Fleur and Blanchefleur' without any visible mark-making at all. It's all line and colour, like a stained-glass window, or a cartoon! I guess the sweetness is the key, here. The colours are bright and clear, primaries, secondaries, and everything is clearly delineated, a very specific and almost hard-edged use of line. I love how the pattern is deployed in areas like the King's robe, where it spills out into the background like an overflowing cup. It reminds me of Arthur Rackham, with that same illustrative, storytelling focus, but without any of the cross-hatching. I feel like the colour is doing all the work; the gestures of the hands, the slightly off-model faces, the theatricality. It's the colour which makes it all feel elevated, almost holy. The way the colour is applied reminds me of early Ukiyo-e prints.