Beatrix Potter was an English author, illustrator, natural scientist and conservationist best known for her imaginative children’s books featuring animals such as those in The Tale of Peter Rabbit which celebrated the British landscape and country life.
I've always enjoyed her writings and tales of Peter Rabbit. They were always my favorite to read to my children and granddaughter when they were young.
Born into a privileged Unitarian family, Potter, along with her younger brother, Walter Bertram (1872–1918), grew up with few friends outside her large, extended family. Her parents were artistic, interested in nature and enjoyed the countryside. As children, Beatrix and Bertram had numerous small animals as pets which they observed closely and drew endlessly. Summer holidays were spent away from London, in Scotland and in the English Lake District where Beatrix developed a love of the natural world which was the subject of her painting from an early age.
Potter’s artistic and literary interests were deeply influenced by fairies, fairy tales and fantasy. She was a student of the classic fairy tales of Western Europe. As well as stories from the Old Testament, John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress and Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, she grew up with Aesop’s Fables, the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies,[31] the folk tales and mythology of Scotland, the German Romantics, Shakespeare,[32] and the romances of Sir Walter Scott.[33] As a young child, before the age of eight, Edward Lear's Book of Nonsense, including the much loved The Owl and the Pussycat, and Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland had made their impression, although she later said of Alice that she was more interested in Tenniel's illustrations than what they were about.[34] The Brer Rabbit stories of Joel Chandler Harris had been family favourites and she later studied his Uncle Remus stories and illustrated them.[35] She studied book illustration from a young age and developed her own tastes, but the work of the picture book triumvirate Walter Crane, Kate Greenaway and Randolph Caldecott, the last an illustrator whose work was later collected by her father, was a great influence.[36] When she started to illustrate, she chose first the traditional rhymes and stories, "Cinderella", "Sleeping Beauty", "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves", "Puss-in-boots", and "Red Riding Hood".[37] But most often her illustrations were fantasies featuring her own pets: mice, rabbits, kittens, and guinea pigs.[38]
In her teenage years Potter was a regular visitor to the art galleries of London, particularly enjoying the summer and winter exhibitions at the Royal Academy in London.[39] Her Journal reveals her growing sophistication as a critic as well as the influence of her father’s friend the artist Sir John Everett Millais who recognised Beatrix’s talent of observation. Although Potter was aware of art and artistic trends, her drawing and her prose style were uniquely her own.[40]
As a way to earn a bit of money in the 1890s, Beatrix and her brother began to print Christmas cards of their own design, as well as cards for special occasions. Mice and rabbits were the most frequent subject of her fantasy paintings. In 1890 the firm of Hildesheimer and Faulkner bought several of her drawings of her rabbit, Benjamin Bunny, to illustrate verses by Frederic Weatherly titled A Happy Pair. In 1893 the same printer brought several more drawings for Weatherly’s Our Dear Relations, another book of rhymes, and the following year Potter successfully sold a series of frog illustrations and verses for Changing Pictures, a popular annual offered by the art publisher Ernest Nister. Potter was pleased by this success and determined to publish her own illustrated stories.[41]
Happy Birthday Beatrix Potter, your stories will always be my favorite.
Where ever this Sunday, July 28th leads you, enjoy and appreciate your surroundings.
Until next time.....
