The nightingale and the rose 1913

Charles Robinson created this illustration, ‘The nightingale and the rose’, using watercolour and ink. Both are incredibly fluid media, and that quality is plain to see. The colour washes have a delicacy that seems perfect for illustrating Oscar Wilde’s tragic fairy tale. Robinson’s fine lines in ink also allow him to capture the detail of the figure's ornamentation: the little roses, the strings of pearls, the jeweled wings. It’s worth remembering that Robinson was working as part of a tradition that was still strongly rooted in the Arts and Crafts movement. In this ideology, making images was just as important as creating well-made objects. The very act of using simple materials like watercolour and ink, allied to careful, handcrafted skill, was seen as a political statement. To work by hand was to resist the degradation of industrial culture. So, in a sense, the figure depicted in the image, even though it is mythical, stood for something quite real.