摘 要

对西西莉·玛丽·巴克来说，“花仙子”不是一个仅存在于传说中的抽象概念，而是实实在在存在于人类身边、有血有肉的生灵，她心目中的仙子世界既美丽又天真，有着人类世界无法比拟的纯净。为此，她用双眼去观察，用心灵去感受，用双手去创作。最终在她的笔下，诗画两种艺术形式得以完美融合，共同呈现出一个有声有色、至纯至美的仙子世界。本文旨在通过分析巴克的创作来源和诗画技巧的运用，揭示诗画结合下的精灵世界的纯洁和天真。本文分为五个部分，第一部分介绍作品的内容和创作背景；第二部分分析她创作的灵感，探究她发现花仙子世界的心路历程；第三部分从色彩、线条和构图分析巴克的插画，探索充满诗意的画中世界，又从用措辞、修辞和意象分析巴克的仙子诗歌，发掘诗歌中蕴藏着的画面美感；第四部分从仙子世界区别于世俗世界的特性着手，探索仙子世界的纯真境界；最后一部分是总结。诗画两种艺术形式的结合，带来更加直接的审美感受，也使虚幻的仙子世界更加生动、真实。

关键词：西西莉·玛丽·巴克；花仙子；诗画

Abstract

For Cicely Mary Barker, “fairy” is not an abstract and vague conception which only exists in tales, but a group of creatures who have human-like bodies and live around human beings. The fairyland in her mind is beautiful and innocent, with pure features that human world can never have. Thus, she observes things around with her eyes, feels them with her heart, and recreates with her hands. Finally with Barker’s proficient skills, two different art forms, painting and poetry, combine with each other perfectly, showing a picturesque fairyland with purest beauty. The paper aims to discover the purity and innocence of the fairyland by analyzing the inspiration of Barker’s creating and applications of painting and poetic techniques. It is divided into five parts. The first part is introduction to the background information of Barker’s works; the following part analyzes the sources of inspiration, investigating on the whole creating process. The third part analyzes fairy illustrations in terms of the use of colors, lines and composition of pictures, exploring the fairy world in paintings, which is full of poetic enchantment; it also analyzes fairy poetry in terms of diction, rhetoric and images, discovering the visual aesthetics underlying the poetry. The fourth part focuses on the different features of fairyland from human world, disclosing the realm of innocence in fairyland. The last part is the conclusion. The composite of painting and poetry brings about a kind of aesthetic feeling that is much more direct and intuitive, and at the same time makes the fanciful fairy world more vivid and authentic.

Key words: Cicely Mary Barker; flower fairies; painting and poetry

Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 World in a Grain of Sand 3

2.1 Extrasensory Perception 3

2.2 Observation and Imagination 4

3 Fairyland: Heaven in a Wild Flower 6

3.1 Word Painting 6

3.2 Visual Poetry 10

4 Infinity in the Palm, Eternity in an Hour 15

4.1 Finite Beings and Infinite Fantasy 15

4.2 Pure Land in Secular World 15

5 Conclusion 18

References 19

Acknowledgements 20

Poetic Microcosm of Flower Fairies

1 Introduction

As an illustrator bestowed with artistic talent and superior creativity, Cicely Mary Barker has long been famous for the fantastic fairyland she created with her painting brush. She was born in a moderately well-off family in West Croydon, Surrey in 1895. Due to physical frailty, she was well protected and lived a happy and secure life during her childhood, which contributes to the cultivation of her childlike characteristics. Those characteristics, including curiosity and imagination, had all become parts of the source of her inspiration. Also during her childhood, Barker spent much time reading painting books and she quite appreciated Kate Greenaway and Randolph Caldecott, whose works later had great influence on her painting style. Besides, she was greatly influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites, especially in choosing subjects for depicting and the creation concept of “truth to nature”.

Encouraged by her father, who was also an accomplished artist, Barker was sent to take correspondence courses in art when she was thirteen years old. When she was sixteen, she had her first work published as a set of postcards. The first book of Flower Fairies, Flower Fairies of the Spring, was published in 1923. Her delicate works featuring extraordinary fantasy and innocent beauty were well accepted and soon became popular among the war-weary public.