Friday, March 5, 2010

Alice In Art! A Wonderland of Images



"Advice From A Caterpillar" by Krista Huot

To celebrate today's release of Tim Burton's film - "Alice in Wonderland", I thought a look at some related art would be timely and fun.
There have been many "Alice" theme art exhibits over the years which yielded magical and fantastic art. Something about this book inspires many artists to outdo themselves in creating beautiful imagery. Is it the imaginative plot we all remember from our childhoods? The drug references? Or the wonderful, pen and ink illustrations by John Tenniel? I think it may be a combination of the three, regardless - "Alice" continues to tweak and peak our interests.

Illustration by John Tenniel


Much adapted and re-illustrated over the years, the original book has never even been out of print. The author - Lewis Carroll,  is actually a pseudonym for Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. This pseudonym was a play on his real name; Lewis was the anglicised form of Ludovicus, which was the Latin for Lutwidge, and Carroll an Irish surname similar to the Latin name Carolus, from which the name Charles comes. A king of the genre of literary nonsense, Charles was also a mathematician, logician, deacon and a very accomplished photographer. It is believed that "Alice" is based on a friend's daughter. "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" was published in 1865 to overwhelming commercial success.
Hand picked for you- the best of what I found- in a few too many hours.


Concept art for The Red Queen, (Tim Burton film) by Michael Kutche


"Steam Punk Alice in Wonderland" by Sandra Chang-Adair

"Alice in Wonderland" by Kyoung Hwan Kim

"It's Always Tea Time" by Maggie Taylor

"Mary Ann" by Fernando Falcon

"Alice in Clockwork" by Jasmine Becket-Griffith

"Mad Hatter" by Kirk Quilaquil

"Alice in Wonderland" by Richard Biffle

"Alice's Adventures In Wonderland" by Nate Perry


"Alice" by Luke Mancini

"Mr. White Rabbit" by Emerson Tung

"Chesire Cat" by Collette Xavier

"Eat Me, Drink Me" by Alessandra Fusi

"Eat Me, Drink Me" by Benjamin Lacombe

"Alice and the Chesire Cat" by Natalie Shau

"Fetal Trapping in Northern California" by Mark Ryden


"Almost Alice" by Maggie Taylor


"House of Cards" by Arthur Rackham


Concept art from "American McGee's Alice" video game

"Wonderland" by Ralph Horsley


Whew! Had to cut myself off there... way too much good stuff! Think maybe this warrants more than one blog. Will follow up tomorrow featuring one of my favorite artists of all time. For now tho, that's all folks...


But wait, there's more! While trolling the web I came across some great sites that followed the same wonderland vein. Have listed a few for you, go ahead, lose a few more hours....
http://www.dodo.blog.br/tag/alice/
http://klubx.blogspot.com/2009/04/have-heart-alice-in-wonderland-art.html
http://lavie-en-beads.seesaa.net/archives/200701-1.html