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Lot Essay
Discussing his approach to the illustration of literature, N.C. Wyeth wrote that it is the illustrator's purpose to "be engaged as a potent addition to an author's works and not merely a collection of pictures starring for themselves, bent on dividing the reader's attention and further depleting the splendid illusions created by the text. Consequently his initial demand of the illustrator is to strike at the very heart of a story; to paint in livid colors and masses, bold statements of the important characters." ("A Suggestion and a Comment on Illustrating Fiction," New York Times, October 13, 1912) Perhaps no better statement describes Wyeth's iconic 1920 Robinson Crusoe illustrations, including the present work.
Using a vivid tonal palette applied with his characteristically pragmatic yet painterly brushstroke, Wyeth illustrated Daniel Defoe's classic adventure tale with a vigor that parallels and compliments the drama of the story's shipwrecked hero. He writes in his "Illustrator's Preface" to the book that the "outstanding appeal of this fascinating romance to me personally is the remarkably sustained sensation one enjoys of Crusoe's contact with the elements—the sea and the sun, the night and the storms. In few books can the reader breathe, live and move with his hero so intensely, so easily and so consistently throughout the narrative. In Robinson Crusoe we have it; here is a story that becomes history, history living and moving, carrying with it irresistibly the compelling motive of a lone man's conquest over what seems to be inexorable Fate." (Robinson Crusoe, New York, 1920, n.p.)
The present work illustrates the moment that the castaway protagonist discovers a footprint on the island he believes to be stranded alone on. "It happened one day, about noon, going towards my boat, I was exceedingly surprised with the print of a man's naked foot on the shore, which was very plain to be seen on the sand. I stood like one thunderstruck, or as if I had seen an apparition. I listened, I looked round me, but I could hear nothing nor see anything; I went up to a rising ground, to look farther; I went up the shore, and down the shore, but it was all one: I could see no other impression but that one." (Ibid.)
Using a vivid tonal palette applied with his characteristically pragmatic yet painterly brushstroke, Wyeth illustrated Daniel Defoe's classic adventure tale with a vigor that parallels and compliments the drama of the story's shipwrecked hero. He writes in his "Illustrator's Preface" to the book that the "outstanding appeal of this fascinating romance to me personally is the remarkably sustained sensation one enjoys of Crusoe's contact with the elements—the sea and the sun, the night and the storms. In few books can the reader breathe, live and move with his hero so intensely, so easily and so consistently throughout the narrative. In Robinson Crusoe we have it; here is a story that becomes history, history living and moving, carrying with it irresistibly the compelling motive of a lone man's conquest over what seems to be inexorable Fate." (Robinson Crusoe, New York, 1920, n.p.)
The present work illustrates the moment that the castaway protagonist discovers a footprint on the island he believes to be stranded alone on. "It happened one day, about noon, going towards my boat, I was exceedingly surprised with the print of a man's naked foot on the shore, which was very plain to be seen on the sand. I stood like one thunderstruck, or as if I had seen an apparition. I listened, I looked round me, but I could hear nothing nor see anything; I went up to a rising ground, to look farther; I went up the shore, and down the shore, but it was all one: I could see no other impression but that one." (Ibid.)