Treasure Island dinner
A special dinner will be held on 18th June at 7.00 pm, at Clifton Hill House, Bristol, the former home of John Addington Symonds, a friend of Robert Louis Stevenson. I have been asked to say a few words about my father's illustrations for Treasure Island which were produced on Sark in the late 1940's, and my memories of posing for the character, Jim, from the novel.The other speaker at the dinner will be Nicholas Newton, son of Robert, renowned for his role as Long John Silver in the 1950 Walt Disney production of Treasure Island.
posted by Sebastian Peake at
6:48 pm
1 Comments:
This is a curious picture. I don't own Treasure Island with Mervyn Peake's illustrations, but I own a version with illustrations by the french artist Georges Roux, and although there are many differences between the two (most notably perhaps the depiction of John Silver), there is an 90% resemblance between the two versions of this scene. The only real difference is the background which looks less bleak and also more "natural", threedimensional in Georges Roux' version.
I'm not making any quality statements here (maybe I have a weakness for classical depictions of Islands), I just wonder how it came that these two pictures are so alike. Georges Roux lived from 1850 to 1929, according to Wikipedia, so my guess would be that either both geniuses of Georges Roux and Mervyn Peake captured the same vision in their minds' eyes, or it was an unconscious reproduction on younger Mervyn Peake's part.
Anyway, that's just a little thing I noticed. I'm afraid I couldn't find the picture for reference at the moment.
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