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Description: | RH inscr. in pencil b.r. "B" CRE WHISTLER, Beatrix; (English; 1857-1896) 'De kleine Johannes' trilogy ('Little Johannes') by Dutch writer and doctor Frederik van Eeden (1860-1932) was published in Holland 1885-1906. Using a fairy-tale structure, van Eeden puts forward his ideas about the industrial age and our relationship to the natural world. The first book tells the story of little Johannes, who runs away from home with the supernatural Windekind. As he learns more about the life of birds, animals, insects and wood sprites, he is encouraged to forget about humans, who, it seems, only want to destroy nature. But as Johannes obsessively tries to find the one book which explains why everything is as it is, he questions Windekind too much. He is thrust back into the human, industrial world. He is now guided by Plinzer (the Spoiler), who shows him poverty, death and the obliteration of nature by the industrial town. Johannes is reunited with his father on his deathbed. The book ends with Johannes walking towards the sunset. He meets a Jesus, who says he has always been with him, and that he must no longer follow false light, but go to the 'shadowy East' and return to the town and experience the misery of human life.
Whistler's publisher, William Heinemann, published a translation of part one of 'Little Johannes' by Clara Bell in 1894/5. He asked Beatrix Whistler to illustrate this edition in 1891, but her illustrations were not used. There are woodblocks for some of her illustrations in the Library of Congress, Washington D.C.
When Johannes has been abandoned by his Windekind, he goes to a pond every morning to wait for his friend Robinetta. He is surrounded by weeds and newts and 'a forest of water plants', but he has forgotten the stories Windekind told him. The paragraph describing this is marked in pencil in the typescript copy of 'Little Johannes' that belonged to the Whistlers (now in Glasgow University Library, Special Collections). There are woodcuts of this subject in the Library of Congress, Washington D.C. For image see GLAHA 50214.
Birnie Philip Bequest, 1958 | License: | http://www.hmag.gla.ac.uk/spirit/rights/ | Publisher: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Rights holder: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Subjects: | FISH : ILLUSTRATION : FIGURE : FEMALE ARTIST : | Source: | Hunterian Museum | Creator: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Identifier: | http://www.huntsearch.gla.ac.uk/cgi-bin/... | Language: | en-GB | Go to resource |
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