The Snake and the File, The Fox and the Crow 1908

Walter Crane made this illustration of Aesop's Fables with ink, sometime around 1900. The creamy paper makes a super delicate ground, doesn't it? And it gives these drawings such warmth. The palette is restrained, just two colors: a pale yellow and a darker sepia-brown. There’s this back-and-forth between the color and the line, pushing and pulling as a process. The lines define the forms, but they also have this graphic quality. The image on the left is particularly evocative; a snake entwined around the tool. It looks like a battle! The flat color gives it a sort of ancient quality like something you might find on a Grecian urn. Crane reminds me a little bit of William Morris, someone who shared a similar graphic sensibility. Both artists understood how to make images that are equally decorative and narrative, and both suggest the power of art to convey multiple readings at once.