Rackham S Color Illustrations For Wagner S Ring

This edition of Rackham's images, widely regarded as the greatest representations of Wagner's drama, comprises 64 full-page color illustrations and 9 vignettes from Siegfried, The Twilight of the Gods, The Rhinegold, and The Valkyrie.

By the time he created these images, Rackham was England's leading illustrator, famous throughout the world for his interpretations of fairy tales and myths. These illustrations from the original 1911 and 1912 editions, widely regarded as the greatest representations of Wagner's drama, constitute Rackham's masterworks. 64 full-page color images and 9 vignettes.Dover Original.

Rackham's Illustrations For Ring of the Nibelung [Color] is a reprint volume of the color illustrations Arthur Rackham made for Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung. 61 color illustrations.

One of the most renowned and best-loved illustrators of his day, English artist Arthur Rackham (1867–1939) brought countless stories and fairy tales to life though his vivid imagination and eye for telling details. Combining a sensitive use of line and subdued watercolors, he skillfully depicted forests of startling trees with claw-like roots, wholesome fairy maidens, monsters, and demons, and backgrounds filled with obscure figures. His inspired illustrations for the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm (1900) brought him his first great success, with a long and distinguished career to follow. This collection of 55 full-color plates, reproduced from rare early editions, contains a rich selection of Rackham's best fairy tale images: a giant terrorizing the inhabitants of an isolated village in English Fairy Tales, a wicked witch greeting two lost children on her doorstep in Hansel and Gretel, a young maiden beset by snarling wolves in Irish Fairy Tales, and many more, including illustrations from Snowdrop and Other Tales, Little Brother and Little Sister, and The Allies' Fairy Book.

Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods), is the last in Richard Wagner's cycle of four music dramas titled Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung, or The Ring Cycle or The Ring for short). It received its premiere at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 17 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of the whole work. The title is a translation into German of the Old Norse phrase Ragnarök, which in Norse mythology refers to a prophesied war among various beings and gods that ultimately results in the burning, immersion in water, and renewal of the world. As with the rest of the Ring, however, Wagner's account diverges significantly from these Old Norse sources. (wikipedia.org) About the author Wilhelm Richard Wagner (22 May 1813 - 13 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works in the romantic vein of Carl Maria von Weber and Giacomo Meyerbeer, Wagner revolutionised opera through his concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk ("total work of art"), by which he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama. He described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of the four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung). His compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for their complex textures, rich harmonies and orchestration, and the elaborate use of leitmotifs-musical phrases associated with individual characters, places, ideas, or plot elements. His advances in musical language, such as extreme chromaticism and quickly shifting tonal centres, greatly influenced the development of classical music. His Tristan und Isolde is sometimes described as marking the start of modern music.

This book forms part of a series, dedicated to the artwork of Arthur Rackham ­(1867 – 1939), one of the most celebrated artists of the British Golden Age of Illustration. Over his long and illustrious career, he contributed to over 150 books, magazines and periodicals, resulting in a vast array of original artworks. Whether producing whimsical children’s images or murkier, foreboding drawings for adults, Rackham’s unique style of illustration was (and still is) admired by countless collectors, critics and the general public. For the first time, this book brings together the entirety of Rackham’s stunning images, sourced from rare and original books, in order that the modern reader may fully appreciate his art. This first volume comprises of over 340 black and white and colour illustrations by Rackham from his works dating from 1896 – 1910, and includes images from The Zankiwank and the Bletherwitch (1896), Tales From Shakespeare (1899) Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1907), Grimm’s Tales (1909) and Wagner’s Ring Cycle (1910) – to name but a few. The book also contains a biography of Rackham’s personal, professional and artistic life, as well as an introduction to the fascinating ‘Golden Age’ period of illustration.

The great Rackham is at his most radiant in this beguiling collection of more than 80 otherworldly illustrations from magazines, periodicals, and novels such as Milton's Comus and Hawthorne's Wonder Book.

"In his vision Odin saw a ring, glittering and bright, a thing of great beauty and danger. And the face of a mortal man, stern and beautiful, his fair hair blowing in the wind of battle as the fire-edged sword in his hand rose and fell" So Odin, lord of the nine worlds, saw Sigurd Dragonslayer for the first time. He alone could recapture the ring of power from the cruel dragon Fafnir. In his effort to regain the ring, Odin ensnared Sigurd and the race of the Volsungs in his schemes * for if he failed, it would mean the beginning of Ragnarok, the end of all worlds Set in the savage, beautiful world of Norse legend, this is the epic quest of romance, enchantment, adventure and treachery from which Richard Wagner created his magnificent operatic cycle, The Ring of the Nibelung. William Morris said of the tale of Sigurd, "This is the great story of the North, which should be to all our race what the tale of Troy was to the Greeks."