Page:Arthur Racham (1922).djvu/22

 into such a vividly real fairy-land as Peter Pan’s playground. When he exercises his alchemy upon such winning material, or on the joys of the apple harvest, the pranks of Robin Goodfellow, the festivals of Spring and above all upon the legends which are told over a glass of nut-brown ale around a blazing Christmas log, Rackham’s art, mingled with his wholesome English humour, becomes irresistible.

The old charge that his palette was too subdued was at one time quite fair, but it should be remembered that the salient characteristic of Rackham’s art is its Gothic spirit. Had he lived five centuries earlier, he would have been animating the borders of parchment missals, with demons, mythical unicorns, necromancers and floral forms, or carving gargoyles, intricate traceries and lace-like arabesques in stone and wood like those to be seen at Albi or St. Bertrand de Comminges. There is a peculiar fitness and charm about his tender tone relations. He swathes his drawings in modulations of grey, blue, green and brown,—colours which remind one of moss on crumbling Gothic sculpture. It is a very reticent scheme, but certainly Rackham’s own. His subject matter demanded this narrow gamut, but a retrospective