Читать книгу Art of the New Naturalists: A Complete History - Peter Marren - Страница 16

The dust jacket of Butterflies must be one of the best-known images in the world of natural history publishing – so familiar in fact that it is hard to recapture how unusual it must have seemed when the book was first put on sale in November 1945. For those used to more conventional book jackets, this design, in which the caterpillar is so much more prominent than the adult butterfly, both conveyed in terms of form and colour rather than strict scientific fidelity, must have raised a few eyebrows. C&RE’s first jacket design certainly helped to underline the ‘new’ in New Naturalist.

The prototype of the Butterflies jacket was a painting of September 1944. Twice the size of the printed jacket, the artists used gouache and watercolour paint on thick, rough-surfaced watercolour paper. At this stage the Ellises probably did not know that they would be restricted to four colours (including black).

Later the design was redrawn to the same size as the printed jacket in response to recommended printing requirements. Completed by January 1945, C&RE made a number of modifications, bringing the butterflies closer and making more of the distant trees and windmill. The blue was deepened to enable the title lettering to show more clearly. Perhaps few readers would have spotted that the orange colour enclosing the book’s number is the caterpillar’s defensive organ, known as an osmeterium.

William Collins had ‘asked a great many people about this jacket. He likes the original rough and the smaller redrawing of it’, Ruth Atkinson went on, ‘but has received a good deal of criticism at your using a Swallow-Tail which is a very rare butterfly in England I am told. He would like you to do the design again, using another butterfly – possibly the Dark Green Fretillary [sic]. Mr Collins hates to ask you to begin all over again but as we are quite definitely not using the design you finally submitted, I think it might be easier to suggest a third alternative for this title’ (RA to CE, 8.2.45).

The first submitted design for Butterflies with hand lettering on watercolour paper by C&RE, 1944. It is drawn half as large again as the printed jacket (37.2 x 31 cm).

Later jackets of Butterflies were printed using a screen to deepen the colours.

For the published jacket the Ellises made the butterflies and distant scene more prominent and redesigned the spine and colophon.

It seems, then, that there were three versions of the jacket design for the first New Naturalist, the original rough, the modified design drawn at jacket size, and a third version with the fritillary that C&RE produced and sent to Collins by February 1945. By then, however, Billy Collins had changed his mind and decided to stick with the Swallowtail design after all. He was now ‘absolutely happy’ about the jacket, and commented that he had personally ‘always liked the Swallow-Tail, and I hope you will do this. I do not think that the criticism of its being rather rare matters,’ he added, ‘and I do not think one could get anything more lovely’ (wc to CE, 16.2.45). ‘We are rather keen to get this design as soon as possible’, he went on, ‘as it is ahead of the other MSS in production’. Four days later, Ruth Atkinson was thanking Clifford for ‘the finished design for Butterflies … I like it very much and am delighted to have it so quickly and am sending it off to Mr Griffits today’ (RA to CE, 20.2.45).

The modified design was in four colours, blue, yellow, orange and black, with shades of green produced by overlaps. White was let in by leaving the appropriate areas blank. Clifford was disappointed by the proof: the blue was not deep enough for the white title lettering to stand out distinctly, the greys and greens were insufficiently distinct, and the yellow had come out too orange. Not all these faults were overcome on the printed jacket. Nonetheless, Ruth expressed herself ‘extremely pleased’ by it, and Billy Collins felt ‘more pleased than ever with the wrapper now I see it on a book’ (wc to CE, 5.6.45).

The Butterflies jacket was, in effect, a trial run. The initial problems with the printing were never fully overcome, and the effect is somewhat tentative and wishy-washy. In 1962, the printers decided to deepen the colours, especially the blue of the title band, by using a screening process, but the result was to cast a greyish smog over the whole design, making the jacket look rather grubby. But what mattered far more was the impact of the design: the first Ellis jacket proclaimed that these books were different: serious, modern, grown-up, challenging, new. For that message the last thing anyone wanted was another pretty butterfly on another pretty flower.

Richard Lewington, the wildlife illustrator, writes: ‘For the jacket of a book about British butterflies the Swallowtail is a prime candidate as a subject. It’s large, rare and most people would recognise it, even if they had never seen one patrolling the Norfolk Broads. Its bold markings make it the butterfly equivalent of the avocet or the giant panda. The graphic image on the jacket of Butterflies is, however, surprising in that it is the equally striking caterpillar that takes centre stage, with the two butterflies in flight confined to the middle distance. To add colour and drama, the caterpillar’s orange osmeterium, used to scare predators, is inflated. I like the balance of the design, which also gives a hint of the butterfly’s habitat with the windmill in the distance, but feel the spine lets it down. It is too abstract and gives no clue as to the subject matter of the book.’