christian

A genuinely magical illustration from the 1940 John C. Winston Co.’s publication of the Oscar Wilde classic The Happy Prince and Other Tales. This watercolor on board is a colorful and evocative rendering of the climactic scene from Wilde’s emotionally complex parable of Christian love. The illustration depicts the selfish giant gazing upon the boy who warmed his heart, as the boy bleeds from stigmata-like wounds. Everett Shinn was the youngest of a loosely associated group of New York-based social realist illustrators who were termed, by their critics, the Ashcan school, for their gritty style, often ugly depictions of humanity, and fixation on urban scenes. Shinn’s illustrators today are revered for the manner in which these themes are juxtaposed with gentle beauty.