Inspiration ~ Jesse Willcox Smith

 My blog friend, artist Kasie Sallee on her blog, The Art of Life, posted a little challenge to share our inspirations.  Today she shared another of hers, Norman Rockwell, who is also one of my 'big three'.

One of my other inspirations is Jesse Willcox Smith, a prolific illustrator who specialized in children and families, though she never had either herself.

Jessie Willcox Smithwas born in Philadelphia in 1863. She originally studied to be a kindergarten teacher and actually served in that capacity before accidentally discovering a propensity for drawing. Amazingly, she was probably around 20 before she took up a pencil.  She studied under Howard Pyle, and slowly gained notoriety.

It was on the covers of Good Housekeeping that most people became familiar with her art. For over 15 years, from 1917 - 1933, she painted the covers for one of America's most popular magazines. She painted the universal child, but the dresses and playsuits they wore helped shape the dressing habits of a generation of children.

For me, it is the simple, sweet faces, everyday poses, and admittedly idealized depiction of childhood that capture my heart and my interest.  I'm also attracted to the heavy outlining.  And as I research her images, I am also captivated by how many of the scenes capture a moment in time, now history, that tells us a little something about how people lived in the early years of last century.  This is true for Norman Rockwell as well.  And what struck me, looking at so many illustrations, was how frequent depictions of praying were.  And these were for national magazine covers, not religious books.  I wonder what life in America must have been like when saying grace in a restaurant was the rule rather than the exception, and when prayer was still welcome in schools.  I suppose I'll never know, but it reminds me how much our culture has changed.  And that brings me back to where I am now, wanting desperately to share the wisdom of the Bible with a generation that literally has never cracked it's cover, and is no longer even clear on Adam and Eve and Noah.