В 1911 году книжное издательство Скрибнеров заказало у Ньюэлла Конверса Уайета (анг. Newell Convers Wyeth; 1882-1945) иллюстрации к "Острову сокровищ" Роберта Стивенсона. Вскоре художник представил семнадцать полотен - лучшее, что он когда-либо делал до этого. "Отличные картины", - телеграфировали Скрибнеры Уайету, увидев его работы - и с этого момента "Скрибнеровская иллюстрированная классика" (Scribner’s Illustrated Classics for Young Readers) стала музеем художника, его галереей, его завещанием.
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Illustrated by N.C.WYETH
New York
Charles Scribner's Sons
1911
"Pictures great," Scribners wired when they saw the "Treasure Island" paintings, and from that point on, the Scribners Illustrated Classics became Wyeth's museum, his gallery, his testament: "The Boy's King Arthur," "The Black Arrow," "The Last of the Mohicans," "The Mysterious Island," "The Deerslayer," "Westward Ho!"—more than 350,000 copies of Wyeth's editions were sold by 1930.
Newell Convers Wyeth (1882-1945) was one of the greatest illustrators and painters of the twentieth century. He studied under Howard Pyle between 1902 and 1904 and assimilated the teacher’s philosophy to capture natural aspects and meanings through "mental projection." The artist created 3,000 paintings and illustrated 112 books. The paintings created by the maestro are really mental: they live, sound, and are remembered; you definitely want to return to them. Dynamism and complexity of composition; excellent color and skillful distribution of light contrasting with deeply cast shadow; and something transcendental, radiating a vibrant emotionality that is immediately transmitted to the viewer, forcing him to intensely empathize with the characters in the story—this is the visual style of Newell Convers Wyeth. Wyeth himself called his philosophy of illustration a polysemantic term—"sight seen," which I would translate as the ability to look and convey what is seen to the viewer from the position of a single observer—the artist himself. That is, this is a form of presenting material in which the utmost accuracy of realities and carefully thought-out fantasies are not simply the artist's goal to convince the viewer of something but to present the event as a self-evident fact, which the viewer knew about and with which he has always agreed. Wyeth's gaze is the gaze of a child—from bottom to top, the enthusiastic gaze of a boy; it is the artist's memory of the experiences, dreams, and fantasies of childhood and youth; of the bright sun and of large trees casting long afternoon shadows; of a multi-colored, contrasting world full of movement, mysteries, and discoveries—these are our feelings awakened by the artist.
Иллюстрации даны по изданию 1911 года, хранимому в Нью-йорской публичной библиотеке (New York Public Library), дополнены иллюстрациями по сентябрьскому изданию 1911 года из фондов Университетских калифорнийских библиотек (University of California Libraries), находящиеся в оцифрованном виде на сайте "Архив Интернета" (archive.org)