And the maids cried ‘good gracious, how very tenacious!’ 1911

Arthur Rackham made this drawing, “And the maids cried ‘good gracious, how very tenacious!’”, sometime around 1897 with ink and watercolor, probably for a book illustration. The lines are so delicate, like he was sketching in mid-air. The whole thing feels like a drawing, not a painting, with these pale washes of color. It's all about the line, the texture, and the energy. Look at the floorboards, they are more like gestures than actual wood. The dark lines make each plank vibrate with movement. That little cat in the corner is the best! It mirrors the flurry of activity and panic among the maids, like a little echo in the composition. Rackham reminds me a little of Aubrey Beardsley, especially in the way he captures theatrical gestures. But where Beardsley is all about artifice, Rackham is somehow warmer, more human. It's like he’s inviting us into a world of imagination and storytelling, where even the smallest details have a life of their own.