Arthur Hughes

Hughes, Arthur (1823–1915), British illustrator and artist, associated with Lewis Carroll, George MacDonald, and the Pre‐Raphaelite Brotherhood. Heeding the call of Dante Gabriel Rossetti to create art which could be reproduced for the mass media, Hughes was one of the artists who produced pictures for wood engravings for the growing serial publications of Victorian England. He illustrated Tom Brown's Schooldays (1869 edition) and Christina Rossetti's Sing‐Song (1872) and Speaking Likenesses (1874). His most realized work was with MacDonald, including his fairy stories, such as ‘The Light Princess’ and The Princess and the Goblin (1871), which first appeared in the magazine Good Words for the Young with illustrations by Hughes. Following the conventions of Victorian wood engraving, Hughes's pictures were printed in sharp black and white, using a thin outline with texture provided with heavy crosshatching, often with light streaming in from a window or fireplace. His drawings were often engraved by the illustrious Dalziel Brothers firm. Wood engraving, which Hughes used skilfully throughout his career, allowed a sharper line than the more cumbersome woodblock and was most popular before common inexpensive use of colour and photographic reproduction. Hughes's dark and brooding pictures for fairy tales treat the stories seriously, often emphasizing their frightening nature. Because many of his illustrations first appeared in magazines with two columns, they often appear in half‐page width. Hughes's paintings were less famous since his output was small, but Lewis Carroll is known to have owned one. His printed work has influenced the 20th‐century American artist Maurice Sendak.