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Beardsley, Dulac and their Contemporaries 1890-1930 A telegraph.co.uk Slide Show
(Watercolor by Edmund Dulac, from Cinderella in The Sleeping Beauty and other Tales, 1910)

In Nov. of 2007, the Dulwich Picture Gallery exhibited a survey of the Golden Age of Book Illustration. THE AGE OF ENCHANTMENT is also a gorgeous book by the curator of this exhibition, Rodney Engen. Beginning with work of Aubrey Beardsley, it includes 165 color illustrations by Beardsley, Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac, Kay Nielsen, and the Detmold Twins, to name just a few. Examining a time when the "beautiful decadence" of Beardsley "softened to delight rather than to shock," Mr. Engen supplies the details. He describes a time when trade with Japan and China influenced Western artists, and he provides a context for understanding a cultural shift of spirit and style.

This is the kind of luxurious book that should be read slowly. The historical perspective can be sampled a little at a time. (The biographical information is fascinating and often sad.) And the pictures, without any words at all, can pull you into their fantastic stories.

Years ago, I purchased a National Parks "Passport" on a family vacation to one of our nation's splendid national parks. I vowed to always have it at hand, just in case I stumbled over a national monument or memorial. I then promptly forgot it on the trip we took to Yellowstone a few years later so I bought another one.

Hoorah! I actually remembered to pack both of them for the DC trip and it became one of my goals for the week to locate the official stamp at the monuments and memorials we visited and ink the passports with the date of our visit .

I will say that this activity is more interesting to me than my children who still chide me about my detour to the location of the Golden Spike ceremony just so I could get my passport stamped. Hey, we were in "the neighborhood" and what were the chances we would ever be this close again? Imagine them joining those two railroads out there in the middle of NOWHERE. Amazing.

I don't remember exactly how many miles away from the interstate it was or how long it took to get there. I do remember it looked closer on the map and that is all I have to say.

By the way, the stamps for the Lincoln Memorial, The Mall, The Vietnam War Memorial, and the Korean War Memorial are ALL in the bookstore at the Lincoln Memorial which is, imperceptibly, squirreled away in the far corner of the statue level, NOT down in the exhibit area. Believe me, I just saved you forty-five minutes of hunting for it.

This also gives one the excuse to enter ALL the visitor centers/gift stores on the pretense of looking for the stamp. What an amazing selection of history books, cds, dvds. Most of them had a nice selection of children's books that related to the person or subject too.