‘She hath a mark, like a violet, between her shoulders, and another like it on the instep of her left foot.’ 1912

Arthur Rackham made this illustration, ‘She hath a mark…’, with ink and watercolor, and the process is all about revealing and concealing. He’s using these thin washes of pigment, kind of like whispers of color, to build up the scene. Look at the way he renders the folds of the dresses—it’s all about the texture. The paint isn’t thick, but the cross hatching gives a visual sense of depth. You can almost feel the weight of the fabric and the smoothness of the wood, and he leads us to that detail of the bare foot, peeking out from beneath the dress, the only bit of raw humanity. All that ink line gives a real sense of grit, like these figures are standing in the real world. You know, Rackham reminds me a bit of Aubrey Beardsley, another master of ink. But where Beardsley is all about the sleek and stylized, Rackham’s got this earthy, almost folksy quality. Both are about storytelling, sure, but Rackham really makes you feel like you’re stepping into the pages of a book.