Walter crane wallpaper

Crane was a prolific illustrator of children's books and a painter, decorative designer and theorist on art and on society. He was a central figure in the aesthetic and the Arts and Crafts movements.

Walter crane illustrations

In the young Crane was apprenticed to the wood engraver W. Linton as a draughtsman and from began designing the Toy Books for Routledge that would do so much to improve the standard of Victorian children's book design. Japanese prints were a formative influence on Crane's bold book illustrations. Crane also began to work as a watercolour painter of poetic and romantic subjects.

With two exceptions his work was consistently rejected by the Royal Academy so he joined a coterie of like-minded artists exhibiting at the Dudley Gallery. They were united in their admiration for Burne-Jones and the critics dubbed them the 'poetry-without grammar-school'. In the s Crane began to paint in tempera and in oil and exhibited regularly at the Grosvenor Gallery and later at the New Gallery.

The Renaissance of Venus , shown at the first exhibition of the Grosvenor Gallery in , was bought by the painter G. Watts and is now in the Tate Gallery. This work, like most of Crane's mature paintings, reveals his admiration for fifteenth century Italian art. George Howard was also a friend and patron. Crane's Italian landscape paintings link him with the Etruscan school.

His first and most important visit to Italy was an extended honeymoon journey between and In his later years, theoretical writing became an important part of his output. He joined the Socialist League in and produced many designs for the working class movement.