Friday, December 28, 2007

Illustration for "Lost Hearts"

Douglas Walters excels at scratchboard, which is a medium that can defeat artists (like me) who are less gifted. This masterful illustration for "Lost Hearts"--by M. R. James--appeared in Ghosts and Scholars number 19, 1995. The central figure in this particular illustration radiates extreme emotional energy; the emotional radiation is transmitted to the firelight and the smoke and the shadows. The emotive force of this image is the outward expression of the emotional power of the artist. So many images created by Douglas Walters can be likened to seismographic renderings of extreme states of mind. Depictions that are deeply felt affect the viewer in a more intense way than illustrations that are merely "visually pleasing."

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