Or Talking About Somebody ELSE’S Work for a Change
Occasionally I am given the opportunity to write a preface for a book of another artist’s work. It’s an exercise I thoroughly enjoy, an opportunity to pry up the cowling and peek in at the inner workings of another image-maker’s mind. (You just have to keep ypur hands clear of the gears.) When Paul Bonner asked if I’d be willing to do a few words for a volume of his collected work that was in preparation, I immediately agreed quicker than you can say “And about bloody time too!”. Paul’s work is simply amazing, and just knowing folks like him are out there in the wildwood of the mind in which all fantasy illustrators wander is a comfort and an encouragement.
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PREFACE
Paul Bonner is something of an enigma.
Therefore, everything that follows is pure speculation, it may all be wrong. As I said, Paul is something of an enigma.
I had the pleasure of meeting Paul only once. Picture three illustrators (Ciruelo Cabral was there also) sitting at a terrace café in a most extraordinary piazza (built inside the ruin of a Roman coliseum) in Lucca Italy, discussing plots to illustrate this theme and that, carefully distilling experiences and opinions, trading stories of skirmishes with games companies and publishers. It was a rare kind of encounter, conspiratorial and convivial, with the kind of eager bashfulness that strikes when chance brings you face to face with people whose work you admire.
(Come to think of it, what better place for three wayward illustrators to meet. An Argentinian settled in Spain, an Englishman domiciled in Denmark and a Canadian who calls Helvetia home; three expatriots who spend most of their time abroad anyway, wandering in the worlds built inside their own heads.)
Paul’s work is of course exquisite. It is a curious blending of the whimsical and the deadly serious. His mastery of space is well… masterful in every way. His horizons fade into powder blue or dusk, his shadows are obscure and mysterious. His landscapes are somehow familiar, the kind you see on hikes, or contemplate while sipping from a flask of tea and devouring a well-earned sandwich. The denizens of his landscapes, however, are the kind that you would not like to meet on a narrow trail or in the deep woods…
His compositions are always perfect and often sublime; witness “Eldsjal”, with the graphic slash of the (carefully detailed) waterfall. When Paul does night scenes, his firelight is so convincing it makes you look for stray sparks. Paintings like “Drakar och Demoner” or Eld och sot” are in a narrative and pictorial world class of their own.
Looking at Paul’s work, I think of John Bauer, for his love and understanding of dim northwoods walls of vertical tree trunks and horizontal November light. Looking at Paul’s work, Richard Dadd comes to mind, for the uncommon ability to indulge in lavish detail without ever losing sight of the whole image. There is something of Brian Froud in the profiles of his trolls, something of the folly of Frank Frazetta in his capacity to capture movement in mid-air, a few steroids from Simon Bisley in the biceps of his axe-toting warrior heroes, a hint of Arthur Rackham in the silhouettes he paints and atmospheres worthy of Gallen-Kallela or Vasnetzov.
But, to assume that Paul Bonner’s work is a conscientious patchwork of the best a century of illustration has to offer is totally wrong. Paul Bonner is entirely his own man, his universe is unique. He is in perfect equilibrium between detail and freedom. His pictures tell stories; they are all balanced on that crucial instant of “but-what-happens-next?” Nevertheless, the imagery is poised and centred; Paul is an arch tight-rope walker, managing the all-too-rare equilibrium between pictura and gnarus.
There is no contradiction between fantasy and functionality in his work. His costumes are colourful and his weapons and armour outrageous and original, but they work. Paul doesn’t just look at landscapes, he knows his history too. All his illustrations are a masterful distillation of anecdote and archetype.
Paul’s talent for observation is laser-sharp, with that precious distance that is the gift bestowed by circumstance the voluntary exile. Every stone, every tree or blade of grass in his work is as though observed for the first time, nothing is taken for granted.
All this combined lets us wander in one of those all-too-rare places: a landscape of the mind, a world of an artist, recognizable at a glance, unfathomable when you attempt to look deeper..
So, with all this, you might ask, well what DOESN’T he do well? I suppose there is a dearth of body-builder females clad in chain mail bikinis with a backdrop of dead saurians, suitable for posters and screensavers, but Paul has chosen substance over surface, interest over admiration; you’ll have to excuse him if he doesn’t cater to fashion, he’s busy building a universe.
And what’s more, he works in WATERCOLOURS (remember those? In tubes?). He uses a BRUSH (that’s a short stick with hairs affixed to the end) and works on PAPER (yes, it’s made of linen or cellulose). None of these are available from software companies. They aren’t updated regularly, you don’t have to buy a new version every 6 months. Didn’t I say he was an enigma?
John Howe
Neuchâtel, December 22, 2006
More on Paul’s book here:
Out of the Forests: The Art of Paul Bonner
Hardcover: 176 pages
Publisher: Titan Books Ltd (23 Nov 2007)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1845767055
ISBN-13: 978-1845767051
OF PAINTS & PIXELS: THE PERTINENT, THE PENITENT AND THE PERTINACIOUS
Here is a must-have for all readers who are curious to see what illustrators and artists have to say about the key issue of digital drawing and painting. NO, it’s not a catalogue of those who have gone to the dark side, as the saying goes in the business, it’s an alert, thinking person’s compendium of thoughts and reflections on a velvet revolution that seems to have happened unawares. We are so avid for acceleration and tempted by new tools that we rarely ask the whys of progress, simply rush out to order the newest version. (I hope I’m still around when historians ponder on all this, I’ll buy their books.) In the meantime, Paint or Pixel asks more than just a few pertinent questions and begs a myriad of crucial points. Buy it. (It’s printed on REAL paper and you don’t need Vista to read it.) I have a little text in there, which is now probably sadly out-of-date, and will brand me as a froward and obstreperous Luddite, given that my thoughts only steer a straight course when the moon is blue, and otherwise tack and veer like a ketch in a gale (with reefs). As my motto goes: Errabundi saepe, semper certi…
FORBIDDEN PLANET
I will be signing the FANTASY ART WORKSHOP (and whatever else is placed in front of me) at Forbidden Planet in London on November 17th from 12:30 to 2 pm.
Store address and information:
Forbidden Planet Megastore
179 Shaftesbury Ave
London
WC2H 8JR
http://www.forbiddenplanet.com
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AND, SPEAKING OF LONDON…
The Beowulf launch party in London was truly a treat, especially as we nearly missed it…
All packed and ready to hop in the car and head to the airport, and my passport is not to be found. We ransack the house, upend and shake every possible hiding spot (three times), but no passport. Hesitation between despondency and panic, until finally it is too late to make the flight and the former takes over. Once you KNOW there’s a missed plane, you start hoping the damn thing WON’T turn up. (It still hasn’t, along with my resident’s permit.) Phone calls to London, and then a speedy trip to the Canadian Embassy where the kind of staff you dream of meeting in an emergency sorts out a temporary passport over the lunch break and I race back home, gather up what remains of my wits and we make an evening flight. My toy passport, which is white (!) and reminds me of the ones they give to kids on long flights or these little booklets you get for stamps at gas stations, does raise a few eyebrows but gets us through customs at Gatwick, where my agent, who has abandoned her guests, is waiting to whisk us into town. We actually make the tail end of the Beowulf launch party, which is a relief. Follow two whirlwind days of meetings and such in London, with… seats for the Lord of the Rings Musical.
We were enchanted. I’m not a regular musical-goer (actually, I’m scarcely a regular anything-goer, but have been patiently and patently improving through enforced attendance, due to the conjugated civilizing efforts of my wife and son) so the first snippet of song was disconcerting, but from there on, it was a continuous succession of brilliantly conceived sequences and solid if necessarily abridged storytelling. I kept wondering “Now how are they going to pull (insert key scene here) off?” and each and every time it was honestly breathtaking. (The Balrog scene doesn’t pale in comparison to the movie sequence, the Black Riders are astonishing and eerie, Boromir has a lovely tragic Scottish brogue, Gollum is fabulous…) All in all, it really IS worth seeing, mainly because it doesn’t owe anything to anyone. In a time where interpretations of Tolkien are plentiful to say the least, plotting and holding an original course is an accomplishment in itself.
We even got a backstage tour. The logisitics and mechanics make it all the more impressive. Naturally, all that is ultimately moot, because you barely notice it, or rather you take it all in stride. Don’t miss the show if you can make it to Drury Lane, or you’ll have missed something truly quintessential.
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(Just to prove we were there.)
At any rate, after filling up our suitcases with books (my wife heaves a sigh of resignation when a bookshop hoves into view, but she knows she has a book junkie on her hands, and what’s worse, one who can’t get much of an English-language fix where we live, so these outings CAN mean an extra suitcase) we got to Gatwick in good time finally touched down in Geneva. After, of course, the required one-hour pause in the runway queue awaiting takeoff (WHY must one go 2 hours early to the airport to systematically leave one hour late?) we arrive after midnight, where the parking machine (in the lot half a mile away from the terminal – every level nearer was packed when we left) swallows my ticket, as if it was a sort of hors d’oeuvre, and requests another. Please insert ticket. But I DID you stupid malevolent machine. Fortunately the security uniform is a push of a button away and the problem is solved. I would, however like to say two words to the anonymous individual who obviously repainted and switched colours and level numbers on the whole three floors fo the parking arcade, leaving me to err half an hour pushing the remote button in the hopes one of the vehicles would respond…
BUT THEN AGAIN…
Here’s a little interview for the Fantasy Art Workskop, which will not only allow you to read further thoughts on the business of illustration, but will let you brush up on your Magyar too… Happy reading.
AND JUST IN CASE…
… you live in the UK, this month’s ImagineFX has a lovely article, and if you don’t want more of my babbling, buy it for the article on my friend and VERY talented colleague Justin Sweet.
