Saint Francis, the Caucus-Race and the Long Tale

I have an interesting project. Next year Dennis Hall at Inky Parrot Press is producing a celebratory edition of Alice in Wonderland to mark the one-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the book’s publishing date. Each chapter is to be decorated by a different artist, and I’ve accepted A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale. The requirement is for either two full-page illustrations or a double page spread, and I’ve elected to go for the latter. This came my way because Dennis found an online image of my Saint Francis painting, The Congregation of Birds (2009), and he thought I’d be a good match for the chapter because he liked the way I painted the birds.

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My research has shown that artists have frequently expressed the chapter in terms of quite similar visual ideas. The dodo is regularly the focus of their images… dodos being lovely to draw… as is the mouse whose ‘tale’ forms half of the chapter’s title. There are also a good many circular-based compositional devices, the Caucus being described by the Dodo as a race frequently, though not invariably, run on a circular course.

Here are a small selection of past images made of the scene.

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Below: Meg Hunt

Vera Berdich (I like this a lot! It has an Edward Lear vibe.)

Eunyoung Seo

From the 1951 Disney animated film

Arthur Rackham

Tenniel

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It’s my way to subvert what might be expected of me by finding my own way into any subject. I particularly like the moment toward the end of the chapter when the Mouse, having got into rather an ill-humour with Alice, stumps off despite her entreaties for it to remain:

 

   “I wish I had our Dinah here, I know I do!” said Alice aloud, addressing nobody in particular. “She’d soon fetch it back!”

   “And who is Dinah, if I might venture to ask the question?” said the Lory.”

  Alice replied eagerly, for she was always ready to talk about her pet: “Dinah’s our cat. And she’s such a capital one for catching mice, you can’t think! And oh, I wish you could see her after the birds! Why she’ll eat a little bird as soon as look at it!”

  This speech caused a remarkable sensation among the party. Some of the birds hurried off at once: one old Magpie began wrapping itself up very carefully, remarking ‘I really must be getting home: the night-air doesn’t suit my throat!” And a Canary called out in a trembling voice, to its children, “Come away, my dears! It’s high time you were all in bed!” On various pretexts they all moved off, and Alice was soon left alone.

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So my idea right now is not to show the Caucus-Race as described or the Long Tale as recounted, but rather to embody the anxieties of the animals about Dinah-the-bird-catching-cat.

I want Dinah to be the significant character of the composition, because I love the description of the Canary herding her brood away from Alice’s account of her cat’s predatory nature, and the Magpie ‘wrapping itself up’ in discomfort at the very thought of Dinah arriving on the scene!

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Above: in the bottom left corner of the spread the Canary shields and guides her chicks with her wings as she herds them away from danger while glancing back over her shoulder. Above her the Magpie checks behind as it makes good its escape.

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Below: in the full spread I’ve added the Mouse at the top of the left page… sandwiched between the Magpie’s outstretched wing and trailing tail… and a small bird in flight scarily close to Dinah’s jaws. I’m aiming for strong dynamics in the image, a sense of movement and drama. And of course for me there must always be the emphasis on positive and negative shape.

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Below: trying out an alternative position for Dinah.

So… a start has been made!

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In Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, Carroll doesn’t describe Dinah save in terms of her character. In real life Alice Liddell had a tabby cat, which is how I’ve chosen to draw Dinah. (Right now she looks like a Devon Rex, which is no surprise as I have a great affection for a couple of Devon Rex cats known to me.)

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