News & Event

Dr. Robert J. Wickenheiser’s Commentary for the Elephant Folio

The Robert J. Wickenheiser Collection of the seventeenth-century English poet John Milton (1608-1674) brought to the Thomas Cooper Library of the University of South Carolina its first major seventeenth-century research collection, to join the earlier acquisition of major collections from subsequent periods. It was acquired for Thomas Cooper Library in 2006 with leading support from William L. Richter and The William L. Richter Family Foundation.

The Wickenheiser Collection, built up over a thirty-five year period, has more than 6,000 volumes. It includes more than sixty first and other seventeenth-century editions of Milton’s own writings, and significant holdings also of 17th century Miltoniana. Its special focus on illustrated editions make it perhapsthe most comprehensive collection ever of Milton illustration.

Synopsis and Illustrations in

Folio Edition by

Terrance Lindall of

Paradise Lost by John Milton

 

 Commentary by Robert J. Wickenheiser, Ph. D.

 

Without a doubt, Terrance Lindall is the foremost illustrator of Paradise Lost in our age, comparable to other great illustrators through the ages, and someone who has achieved a place of high stature for all time.

Throughout almost four centuries of illustrating Milton’s Paradise Lost, no one has devoted his or her life, artistic talents and skills and the keenness of the illustrator’s eye more fully and few as completely as Terrance Lindall has done in bringing to life Milton’s great epic.  He has also devoted his brilliant mind to studying Milton, his philosophy, and his theology in order to know as fully as possible the great poet to whom he has devoted his adult life and to whose great epic he has devoted the keenness of his artistic eye in order to bring that great epic alive in new ways in a new age and for newer ages still to come.

From virtually the outset Milton has been appreciated as the poet of poets.  It was John Dryden who said it first and best about Milton shortly after Milton died in 1674:

 

Three Poets in three distant Ages born ––

Greece, Italy and England did adorn.

The First in loftiness of thought Surpass’d;

The Next in Majesty: in both the Last.

The force of Nature could no further goe;

To make a Third she joyn’d the Former two.

 

Milton’s use of unrhymed iambic pentameter verse in a manner never used before raises the lofty goals of his epic to a level never before achieved in the English language.  Moreover, the poet who said at age 10 that he intended to write an epic which will do for England what Homer had done for Greece and Virgil for Rome, accomplished masterfully the goal he set himself and more than has ever been achieved before or since.

This is by no means to say that there are no great poets who have achieved high goals after Milton, and in doing so have joined Milton and even rivaled him.   But Milton is the giant who stands at the door to English poetry urging all who would enter to master their art, to write with the highest respect for language and a passionate recognition of what language is capable of achieving.

In Milton’s Paradise Lost we see, too, that in great poetry there is always great passion, clarity of voice in support of the purpose at hand, and at its best, with the prophetic and the visionary joined to compel the reader to rise to new heights in what is read and seen through the poet-prophet.

Milton’s Paradise Lost challenges everyone to achieve goals beyond any they might have dreamed possible before, and to take from his own great epic, goals which help define all that is worthy of sustaining while providing English poetry with what it did not yet have.  To declare at age 10 that he would become the greatest English poet is one thing, and a quite spectacular thing at that, but to go on then and fulfill this goal shows not only the great vision Milton had as a poet, but also his tremendous confidence in becoming that great poet.

Milton sings with the voice of the visionary poet and so he becomes the poet for those who see in him clarity of voice and of vision; poets like William Blake who, in the early 19th century thought he was Milton (stretching the point a bit as Blake was wont to do) and who therefore relied very much on Milton and even wrote a poem entitled “Milton” designed and hand-colored as with other of Blake’s great works.  While Blake openly admired Milton, William Wordsworth, a few decades later, was calling out for Milton in an age that had need of him, proclaiming: “Milton!  Thou should’st be living at this hour.”

As the visionary poet Milton was, he had acute interest in such monumental issues as the relationship between God and man, free will and its vital importance to all of mankind along with the responsibility that goes with it, the relationship between man and woman, divorce and the need for acceptance of it, definition of “monarchy” along with important issues related thereto, and a great deal more.  Milton defined many issues at a time when England was engaged in a Civil War precisely because of those very significant issues, issues which Milton helped not only to define but also to defend.

His life spared after the Civil War and his reputation as a poet and writer of important treaties reasserted, Milton retired to the country, to Chalfont St. Chiles, where he dedicated himself to completing Paradise Lost, and ultimately, Paradise Regain’d and Samson Agonistes.  What a profound loss it would have been had Milton not been allowed to write his greatest poetical works!

Yet how did the poet write his monumental works, especially given the loss of his eyesight while writing significant treatises both before and during the Civil War?  Here we have the blind poet dictating to an amanuensis (his daughters, as many preferred to believe for a long time, but in reality his nephew), whole passages defining important relationships and memorable scenes which are themselves of epic proportion: the creation of man in Adam and of woman in Eve; Eve seeing herself in the pond for the first time and likewise our seeing Eve at the same time she sees herself; Adam seeing Eve for the first time; the moving depiction of the “bower of bliss” and then of the creation; the war in heaven; the depiction of Satan and hell, with Satan rallying his troops in passages that take poetry to new heights; the temptation of Eve and then Adam, in equally powerful scenes, and the departure of Adam and Eve from Eden.

Surely Milton deserves not only our gratitude for the prose treatises he wrote, but also for the poetry, much of it written under the most dire of circumstances (some thought he might be put to death for his part in the Civil War and his service to Cromwell, and also more specifically because of his treatise in defense of “beheading a King”).

Here is a poet to be reckoned with: for standing up in defense of eternal values, something Milton not only did himself, but something he expected his readers to do as well; and then to appreciate his poems, his epic verse and organ voice, his epic vision, and his bringing to life, despite (or perhaps because of) his blindness, something so unique that Dryden and others long after him have recognized in Milton the genius that “Surpass’d” Homer and Virgil before him.

As Milton left his supreme poetic gifts for mankind to appreciate in reading his great works during the centuries following him, so, too, he used his blindness to bring to life visions befitting the dynamic scope and epic dimensions of his great epic; visions undertaken in the first, and still one of the greatest illustrated editions of Paradise Lost published not long after Milton died, in a folio format in 1688.  Medina’s illustrations, primarily, are those which appear in the 1688 folio edition of Paradise Lost, but aside from the significance of what his stature brought to this publishing venture, the 1688 folio remains a highly sought after book today because it is England’s first grand publication and therefore holds its own place for the first time with books printed on the Continent where books had long been praised for their publishing distinction and artistic design and success.

Through the centuries John Milton’s Paradise Lost has continued to inspire artists, which tells us much about Milton and about his great epic, a poem which readily lends itself to the eye of the artist, and in this, affords all of us a visual perspective, a visual capturing of the poet’s vision, which words alone can seldom achieve.  Commentary and criticism certainly have their place, but seldom does the written word adequately capture the poet’s vision or replace the illustration or illustrations of the artist’s view of a poem and his capturing that view on a canvas.  The aspirations of each, however, critic and artist/illustrator, need not be pitted against one another; indeed should not.  Rather, they should be welcomed for the manner in which each complements a view or views of a poem thereby bringing together two significant disciplines: that of the writer/poet together with that of the artist/illustrator.

Poets who aspire to lofty goals lend themselves most readily to being illustrated, providing us with the opportunity of looking at how a poem or group of poems is seen by the eye of an artist.  Instead of learning about the themes and poetry of a given age or period as seen only through the eyes of writers and critics, we are privileged to have the views of the artist to help us see and appreciate the poetic vision of the poet, sometimes in great variation from one period to the next or as viewed by one generation to the next.

Obviously, given the monumental issues in Paradise Lost as well as Milton’s portrayal of them, it should be no surprise to say that Paradise Lost may well be the most illustrated of poems and epics.  I intend no controversy by saying this, but wish simply to call attention to how epic scenes have been brought to life for viewers by master artists capable of depicting grand visions within grand poems; by artists capable of capturing with visionary view what words alone can never do.  The painter/illustrator, in capturing moments which might otherwise have been given less recognition than they deserve, provides a vital service in bringing to life scenes or moments, images or views depicted in poetic form by the poet, thereby enabling the viewer to appreciate all the more what the poet has achieved and how he has achieved it.

Lindall has himself said about Milton’s epic: “With Paradise Lost, the written word in its greatest form, Milton was able to evoke. . .immense space and project spectacular landscapes of both heaven and hell, and create also the monumentally tragic character of Satan, courageous yet debased, blinded by jealousy and ambition, heroic nonetheless.  The blind poet brings powerful visionary life to one of the world’s greatest stories, id est, the Western legend of man’s creation and fall, a story encompassing philosophical concepts of free will, good and evil, justice and mercy, all presented with the greatest artistry to which the written word can aspire.”

Lindall also believes “that insight into Milton and the aesthetic and intellectual pleasures of Paradise Lost can elevate every individual’s experience in education, thought, and human endeavor. . .through the inspiration of the written word.”

It is this cherished belief, which has compelled Lindall to want to bring Paradise Lost alive to others, to urge all to see in Milton, as he does, the power of the word and image, and to want to illustrate Milton’s epic for others to see in relation to the eternal truths and values captured by Milton and conveyed in his great epic poem.

Lindall has synopsized the story of Paradise Lost with genuine care in order to bring Milton’s great epic alive to young and old.  His synopsis is poetic in its own beauty, with each word carefully chosen to be true to Milton while maintaining integrity with his great epic and the rendering of it into a readily understandable format.  Lindall’s synopsis maintains the spirit of Milton’s epic while revealing the genius of the poet in telling “Of Man’s first disobedience and the fruit / Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste / Brought death into the world and all our woe, / With loss of Eden, till one grater Man / Restore us and regain the blissful seat, / Sing heav/nly Muse. . .”

Terrance Lindall has spent decades perfecting his painting skill and illustrating technique in order to capture all that is best and visionary about Milton, providing illustrations of Milton’s great epic, early on, e.g., along with his synopsis in a fold-out brochure in order to bring Milton’s epic alive to students in schools.  Lindall’s first edition of his synopsized version of Paradise Lost along with his illustrations (1983) were designed to encourage young readers to look into the brilliance and eloquence of Milton’s visionary poetic landscape and his great organ voice.

More recently he has gone beyond illustrating Paradise Lost by capturing the essence of Milton’s epic and its meaning down through the centuries and beyond in a “Gold Illuminated Paradise Lost Scroll” (size with border 17” x 50”), with nine panels to be read from right to left, as with Hebrew; the Scroll is Lindall’s “tribute to his love [of] and sincere gratitude for Milton’s great contribution to humanity.”  He finished the “Gold Illuminated Paradise Lost Scroll” in 2010.

He has also brought Milton’s epic alive in a very large “Altar Piece,” called “The Paradise Lost Altar Piece” (oil on wood), consisting of two large panels, each 24” x 40”.  When opened, the panels might be seen as pages from an illuminated manuscript of the Renaissance.  One panel shows the gates to the “Garden of Eden.”  The second panel shows the “Gates to Hell.”  In both panels, pages from the epic poem Paradise Lost lie revealed in the foreground at the center of the illustration.  “The Paradise Lost Altar Piece” was completed in 2009.

Lindall’s passion for Milton and his desire to bring the poet and his great epic alive to modern readers reveal themselves over nearly four decades.  During this same period, from the late 1970s to 2012, Lindall’s “love of Paradise Lost” and his “sincere gratitude for Milton’s great contribution to humanity” grew enormously.

To get a sense of this as well as of Lindall’s broader artistic background and its influence on his illustrations of Paradise Lost, there is his large cover illustration of the comic book Creepy (now considered a classic – both the comic book and Lindall’s “creepy” cover illustration of “Visions Of Hell (6/79).”  Likewise his cover to Creepy (#116, May 1980), entitled “The End of Man” (again, the comic book and Lindall’s cover illustration now considered classic).

About this same time some of Lindall’s earliest illustrations for Paradise Lost in the late 1970s appeared in comic book form, Heavy Metal Magazine (1980).  Appearance in Heavy Metal enabled Lindall’s illustrations to reach a very large audience.  That issue in 1980 of Heavy Metal Magazine became an acquisition proudly reported by the Bodleian Library in 2010 (with one of Lindall’s paintings, Visianry Foal, appearing at the top of the acquisitions page), alongside such other acquisition listings at the same time as Philip Neve’s A Narrative of the Disinterment of Milton’s Coffin. . .Wednesday, 4th of August, 1790 (1790) and Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy (1995-2000), a rewriting of PL by “a modern master,” among others.  The oil painting by Lindall from the Nii Foundation collection was used by the Oxford University major exhibit “Citizen Milton” at the Bodleian Library in its celebration of the 400th anniversary of Milton’s birth in 2008, thereby recognizing Lindall’s contribution to the continuing Miltonian artistic legacy.

Joseph Wittreich, esteemed Milton scholar and friend of both Lindall and me, has kindly given a copy of the 1980 issue of Heavy Metal Magazine to the Huntington Library.  My own collection has several copies along with the other acquisitions listed above by the Bodleian Library in 2010.

Shortly after the appearance of a portion of Terrance Lindall’s illustrations of Paradise Lost in Heavy Metal Magazine (1980), there appeared in 1983 his synopsis of Paradise Lost along with his illustrations of Milton’s epic, privately published together in a small book (5 ½” x 8 ¼”) in a limited number of copies, entitled: John Milton’s Paradise Lost synopsized and with illustrations by Terrance Lindall.  The color print illustrations, inspiration now taking real form and mature character, were tipped in across from the printed synopsis of the illustrated lines of Milton being illustrated.

The whole was a wonderful success and Lindall’s reputation as an artist and as someone committed to illustrating Milton’s great epic were growing in stature, while his illustrations were gaining recognition for the artistic achievement they represented.  The surrealist provocateur was moving in a direction that suited his own goals as an artist and a scholar, an illustrator of Paradise Lost and someone even more strongly committed to continuing his illustrating of the poet’s great epic.  The World Wide Web has long since given access to Lindall’s paintings by millions, making Lindall’s illustrations among the best known of Paradise Lost.

Lindall’s attention to Milton’s epic and to details in the epic, ever from the eye of the dedicated and committed artist/illustrator, grew beyond his early attention to detail.  From a small-size private publication with tipped-in cards measuring 3 ½” x 4 ¼” or sometimes 4 ½”, Lindall moved to a quarto-sized publication in 2009, again done in a very limited number of copies (this time 20) and with each illustration measuring 5 ¾” x 7 5/8” and signed and dated by the artist.

The quarto edition has been followed by his massive and richly triumphant elephant folio illustrating Paradise Lost (No. 1 completed in 2011 and No. 2 in 2012), the remarkable edition we celebrate here.  All concepts that were growing in meaning and stature during the nearly forty years before now were drawing themselves into place for this ultimate expression of Lindall’s interpretation of Paradise Lost in this one final work, his Elephant Folio.  Like his other works before him, this large edition is also being done in a very limited number of copies (10), all by hand, a vast expansion in size and scope over his quarto edition, with 64 pages, each page measuring 13” x 19”, illustrations mostly measuring 9” x 12”, title page measuring 11” x 11”.  The binding of each folio is intended to be leather bound by the renowned binder Herb Weitz, hand tooled & gilt-decorated, unique, and each personally dedicated to the owner.  The covers will be identified by different motifs, such as the “The Archangel Michael Folio” or “The Lucifer Folio,” etc.  Each copy will have one original conceptual drawing at the front.

I use “being done” in describing both instances, the quarto and the folio editions, because both editions have been (and will continue to be) “done” by hand, with loving care, and with each illustration printed on the highest quality paper stock available anywhere and signed and dated by the artist.  Both the quarto and the folio editions have been, and will be, done as “originals, as signed prints,” and in the case of the Elephant Folio, as prints with original paintings surrounding them.

In itself, the quarto edition is superb, truly one of a kind, and distinctive now and for years to come.  “The Paradise Lost Elephant Folio,” however, is amazing and goes far beyond the quarto edition in untold ways; it is the culmination of Terrance Lindall’s life’s devotion to Milton, to Paradise Lost, and to all that Milton represents and his great epic means.  Because of Lindall’s supreme dedication and artistic achievements, Milton will live in yet another new age, brought to life in refreshingly new ways, made “relevant” in remarkably profound ways.  Because of Terrance Lindall, great new numbers of readers will be attracted to Milton and his profound epic than would otherwise, most assuredly, have been the case.

“The Paradise Lost Elephant Folio,” in particular, is a hand-embellished and gold illuminated 13 x 19 inch book containing 14 full-page color 1000 dpi prints with 23.75 carat gold leaf edging on Crane archival paper.  Each illustration is signed by Terrance Lindall, some pages with hand-painted illustrated or decorated borders and large, carefully embellished head- or tail-piece illustrations, others with historiated initials with 23.75 carat gold leaf embellishments.  All add to the depth and meaning of a given illustration of Lindall’s synopsized Paradise Lost(1983) appearing across from an illustration.  For the Elephant Folio, Terrance Lindall is also providing a final painting, The Celestial Orbit, as a frontispiece.  It is Lindall’s “ultimate statement” as an artist’s interpretation of Milton’s great epic.  This painting will only be produced as a print for the Elephant Folio and will not be reproduced for collectors as a signed print in any other format.

And while Lindall may now think that he has finished his work with Milton, he hasn’t, because Milton lives within Lindall in a special way, as surely as Lindall remains dedicated to bringing Milton alive to new generations in fresh and vibrant new ways, doing the same for countless generations in centuries to come.

In his folio edition and the illustrations in it, Terrance Lindall shows the influence by certain great master illustrators of Paradise Lost through the centuries before him, especially with the inclusion of richly illustrated margins for each color illustration, the margins colored in 23.75 carat gilt and consisting of brightly colored details drawn from the epic in order to advance the meaning of the given illustration.  Moreover, again in the tradition of certain great master illustrators of Milton‘s Paradise Lost through the centuries, historiated initials, in imitation of the initial letter in an illuminated manuscript, each in rich gilt and bright colors, are used as the first initial of a section and decorated with designs representing scenes from the text, in order to heighten the intensity of the cumulatively related details in each component part: illustration, border, and historiated initial.

The illustrated borders in the elephant folio are complete paintings in themselves.  Although the border art focuses principally on elements of design, they also sometimes tell stories or make commentary about what is illustrated in the featured central painting.  The borders likewise pay tribute to both humanity’s great achievements, such as music, dance and architecture, as well as tribute to those individuals and institutions and friends who have had important influences on Lindall’s ideas, or who have shown substantial support or affinity.   For example, the Filipino surrealist artist Bienvenido “Bones” Banez, Jr., discovered Lindall’s repertoire during the world renowned “Brave Destiny” exhibit in 2003, an exhibit to which Bienvenido had been invited to display one of his works.  Thereafter, a friendship and mutual admiration between the two great artists grew, to the benefit of each.

Bienvenido communicated to Lindall the idea of how “Satan brings color to the world.”  Lindall thought the idea to be an insightful and original “affinity,” and so in the elephant folio plate, “Pandemonium,” which is a tribute to art, architecture, construction, sculpture, painting, and the like, he especially honors the Filipino surrealist artist by placing Bienvenido’s name on the artist’s palette at the very top of the border, the palette in flaming colors.

Like the great illustrators of Milton‘s Paradise Lost before him, Lindall uses many and various techniques and styles to bring Milton’s great epic alive.  As with Medina, e.g., in the first illustrated edition of Paradise Lost in 1688, Lindall has mastered how to use the synopsized scenic effect to focus our attention on an important moment in the epic while capturing all around it other significant moments or scenes in the epic related to that important central one.

As with the illustrators James Thornhill and Louis Chéron in the 1720 edition by Jacob Tonson and edited by Thomas Tickell, Terrance Lindall draws upon the use by Thornihill and Chéron of the historiated or illustrated initial along with their use of head- and tail-piece illustrations or vignettes – this latter translated to the marginal illustrations or vignettes in Lindall, all to underscore the main theme of the central illustration of a given Book.  As the manner of illustration has changed dramatically in the 18th century from that of the 1688 illustrated edition, so too has the manner of the great contemporary artist changed in his illustrations of Paradise Lost from those in the several centuries before him.

On through other 18th-century greats, Francis Hayman, whose illustrations seem almost marvelous embellishments for the first variorum edition of Paradise Lost in 1749, which focuses attention primarily on the copious notes of that great edition, although Hayman’s illustrations became the most repeated illustrations in reduced form in editions of Paradise Lost for the next 40 or more decades, through to Francis Burney at the end of the century, in whose illustrations can be seen most powerfully the influence of the classics upon artistic interpretation of significant moments, scenes or figures, as with Satan appearing as an Achilles figure in Book I as he rallies his troops.

At the end of the 18th century, too, artists like Henry Richter began to shed the trappings of the 18th century in his 1794 illustrations of Milton’s great epic, and his illustrations give a look that bodes seriously of things to come.

With John Martin, Terrance Lindall has much in common: Martin presents his illustrations of Paradise Lost in various sizes, from his rare folio parts, to his even rarer elephant folio, to his large quarto and also his octavo editions, both in two versions, with “proof plates” and without, including sale of individual illustration plates along the way, between 1825 (when the parts began to be distributed) on through to the quarto and octavo editions, published in 1826.  But not only did Martin and Lindall share a sense of entrepreneurship in passing along their perceptions of key moments and scenes in Paradise Lost, but they shared a sense of searching for a new style in bringing Milton to life anew: Martin via the mezzotint, and Lindall as surrealist provocateur; Martin with a brilliant effect of black and white in each of his illustrations, Lindall with the use of brilliant colors which bring vibrancy and life to his illustrations.  Each in his own way moved Milton and the understanding of Milton light years ahead from where they were in their time.

So, too, William Blake, whose perception of poignant and meaningful moments in Paradise Lost is not only uncanny, but unique, and not because he felt a kinship with Milton that no one else has ever emphasized having (he believed that he was Milton and even wrote a poem entitled Milton, designed and hand-colored as with other of Blake’s great works), but because he brought to life, as did Martin his near-contemporary, Milton’s epic in a new way for many generations to follow.  Certain artists, like Blake, worked painstakingly to make each illustration an original or as close to what the artist intended as possible; Lindall has been like that as well.

Gustave Doré, later in the century, followed in the footsteps of Martin and brought Milton’s epic alive for every generation after him, as did Blake; the two being among the most popular and most known of 19th century artists and illustrators of Paradise Lost.  Doré and Blake so dominated the scene that most illustrated editions of Paradise Lost or of Milton’s poems make use of their illustrations in one way or another.  Only later, when moving into the 20th century, did Martin become something of the same icon, with his illustrations of Paradise Lost used more regularly and more and more often with editions of Paradise Lost or of Milton’s poems.

Along that great continuum of highly regarded and well-known artists who have illustrated Paradise Lost, belongs the remarkable Terrance Lindall, taking second place to no one in his love and knowledge of, or devotion to Milton, or in his capacity to bring alive in remarkably vibrant new ways and in a new age, the poet for all ages, whose epic stands next to and even above that of Homer and Vergil.

His illustrations incorporate “the artist’s [Lindall’s] concepts. . .the best since Blake and Doré” (Nancy Charlton), with, in my view, John Martin hovering strongly in the background, especially in certain of Lindall’s illustrations where space and dimension allow the conjuring up of landscapes, colors, sensations, and artistic visions without confining them.  If nothing else, although there is more, so very much more, Martin and Doré, along with Lindall now, show us that the use of space helps to accomplish all of the above and more, seen in the brilliant colors and breadth of vision in Lindall and in Blake before him.

 

“Eerie, magical, dreamlike, devastating, jarring. . .Lindall’s illustrative style is magnificent!,” declared Julie Simmons, Heavy Metal Editor in Chief, 1980.

“Lindall’s striking and unique visionary fantasy art is breaking new ground in the field, ” exclaimed David Hartwell, Pocket Books Senior Editor, 1980.

“Lindall’s use of color & detail to achieve effect, his dramatic compositions, but most of all his totally unique vision make him a new wave artist to be reckoned with,” according to Louise Jones (now Louise Simonson), Warren Communications Senior Editor, 1980.

 

Such early rave reviews continue today, as Lindall continues to assert his stature as illustrator and singular visionary illustrator of Milton’s Paradise Lost.

 

“My reward for the purchase of a Lindall masterwork has been a cover that draws raves.  It is a very valuable addition to my collection of fine art,” claims Stuart David Schiff, winner of the Hugo Award, twice winner of the World Fantasy Award, editor of the acclaimed Whispersanthologies.

 

Lindall’s art is also in the collections of both Stephen Schwartz, the famous lyricist for Broadway and films and winner of three Academy Awards, and Michael Karp, whose music is perhaps the most performed on television.

Mark Daniel Cohen, critic for Review Magazine and NY Arts Magazine, states that “Clearly avoiding the view that Pop imagery is inherently a sign of trauma, Terry Lindall employs the cartoon elements of style with a charming and often unnerving directness and simplicity, frequently aimed at causing a trauma all his own.  This is particularly the case with his illustrations of Milton’s Paradise Lost, with which he reaches a hyper-intensified and nearly hysterical verve.”

“I love these!  There is a wonderful Bosch-meets-Blake quality combined with something wholly modern. . .,” Professor Michael E. Bryson, Associate Professor of English, California State University, Northridge, proclaimed recently in open admiration of Lindall’s illustrations.

In using one of Lindall’s paintings from the Nii Foundation collection for the major exhibit “Citizen Milton” at the Bodleian Library, honoring Milton’s 400th birthday in 2008, Oxford University recognized Lindall’s contribution to the continuing Miltonian artistic legacy.  And indeed Lindall’s contribution is great and virtually immeasurable!

Those contributions and Lindall’s monumental illustration have inspired Peter Dizozza to prepare “Incidental music to Milton’s Paradise Lost” in 2008, “Composed for Terrance Lindall,” honoring Milton, first and foremost, but thereby honoring Lindall as well.

A short time later, famed Lutheran hymn writer Amanda Husberg composed a requiem mass for Terrance Lindall in recognition of his contributions to the understanding of and earthly resurrection of John Milton’s “glorious” Paradise Lost.  Noted Lutheran hymn text writer and poet Richard Leach wrote a new text for the requiem mass.  The Requiem in honor of Lindall was published by Concordia Publishing House in 2010, receiving high praise from David Johnson, Head of the Publishing House, as being “totally enthralling, engaging the heart, the mind, and the spirit with absolute beauty, balance and integrity.  About his Requiem, Lindall commented, “It will be the final act of my Paradise Lostproject and acknowledgement of my own resurrection.  The ‘two handed engine of truth and justice’ will prevail in resurrecting the spirit of John Milton!”

Lindall’s illustrations have been called “surrealistic” in the manner of André Masson, Salvador Dali, and Max Ernst, but he takes his art to another level as “surrealist provocateur. “  He is highly regarded for the powerful effect his illustrations have and will continue to have by the juxtaposition of images within the context of a given illustration, for the lasting achievement of an artist who combines surrealism with his interpretation of how that best applies to Milton, allowing him to bring together richly woven tapestries of illustrations which capture poignant moments in Milton’s powerful epic.

Lindall’s art speaks to us freely, openly, and sometimes loudly; it does so in magnificence of design and depth of vision; it sometimes uses brilliant, other times subtle, colors to heighten key elements in important scenes.

Such is the case in “The Infernal Serpent,” chosen as the central illustration in the recent publication of the important Modern Library Edition of The Complete Poetry And Essential Prose of John Milton (2007).  “Lindall’s image appears on the covers of Random House’s 2008 Essential Milton (2007)” as well.

For William Kerrigan, renowned Milton scholar and one of the editors of the these editions, “the new cover is WONDERFUL. . . .The black/white division captures the dividing of light from dark at the beginning of Creation, which underlies the entire universe (just as it underlies the entire cover) as Milton understood it and, through his blindness, experienced it.  Lindall’s image is, of course, the star.  It seems to me at once unmistakably modern and yet just as unmistakably archaic: exactly the doubleness I was hoping for on our cover.”

Holt Rinehart & Winston used another of Lindall’s illustrations of Paradise Lost in a 2009 high school textbook, which was purported to have a first run of 370,000.

Professor Karen Karbiener of New York University, one of the first to use Lindall’s art as an educational tool to interest students in Paradise Lost, says, “Radical artist and nonconformist Terrance Lindall has channeled Milton’s spirit into a modern context, in a provocative series of illustrations to Paradise Lost.  His visual celebration of Milton reveals his remarkable affinity for the radical English poet, and his ability to create a fitting tribute to Milton’s enduring influence in the arts” (June 2007).

Terrance Lindall’s artistic accomplishments as illustrator of Paradise Lost, along with his burning desire as foremost Milton aficionado of our or perhaps any day, is second to none in his great enthusiasm for the poet and his lifelong goal of bringing Milton alive in vibrant and new ways to generations for many of whom the classics and the liberal arts and Milton himself have been passed over as no longer “relevant,” useful, or important.

Lindall has had the dual task of bringing to life key scenes and moments in the greatest English epic and one of the greatest epics ever written to whole generations who not only have never read Paradise Lost, but haven’t cared about it or about epics, unless that means “epic” as in “epic dimension” and “epic colossal” on the big screen: Thor & Iron Man, for example.  Unlike illustrators before him, Lindall has had to work against tremendously difficult odds, but that has only meant that he has worked harder to win over his audience, to bring his illustrations of Paradise Lost to generations used to the visual and the dramatic and the “epic” in the broadest sense of each of these terms.

Lindall’s illustrations are all of this and more, and those excited by movies like Thor, Iron Man, and Real Steel will feel a kinship with Lindall because of the excitement, remarkable movement, inspired use of color, and sometimes haunting grandeur he brings to his illustrations and they in turn to Milton’s epic.

Lindall opens up whole scenes for us to see in fresh and exciting new ways; his illustrations compel us to read Milton’s epic, or at least key scenes and moments in the epic, in bold new ways.  They bring to life, as only an artist-illustrator can, and indeed as only this surrealist provocateur can, the quality of poetry, visual effect, poetic vibrancy, and so much more, that are captured on each page, in each Book, and in each line of Paradise Lost.

What does it matter that the epic begins in medias res (“in the middle of things”) – not unlike many movies and programs today that begin with a captivating scene and then exert: “six hours earlier” or “three weeks before,” and the like.

Now, in the grandeur and size of Lindall’s elephant folio, as with the 1688 first illustrated folio, the elephant folio of John Martin, and the folio editions of William Blake and Gustav Doré, all choosing this size before him, Lindall has taken his illustrations, as did they, to new heights of splendor and achievement.  Their size demands attention anew to the elements, figures, and depth of the image or scene illustrated, because with increased size comes grandeur of color and focus of the artist’s eye.  Largeness of size also clearly demonstrates how genuinely fresh, remarkable, and stunning his illustrations are, brilliant and often very bold in their interpretations.  Likewise, the occasional head- and tail-piece illustrations and the margins which have been added for the first time here, along with the historiated initials which capture the central theme or image of the illustration and are intended to embellish the page while complementing the illustration.

As a collector of John Milton for 40 years, my focus has been on illustrated editions particularly illustrated editions of Paradise Lost and original illustrations whenever and wherever I might find them, there is no doubt in my mind that our age is fortunate, very fortunate indeed, to have one of the all-time great illustrators of John Milton’s Paradise Lost.

In Terrance Lindall we are also most fortunate to have someone who has dedicated his life to celebrating Milton’s Paradise Lost and all that this great poet represents, believed, and stood for, through illustrations and synopsis intended to help students discover Milton’s great epic, through the vehicle of Heavy Metal magazine designed to bring Milton’s epic to a much larger audience on their terms, to various forms and formats of illustrating Milton’s Paradise Lost for generations now and in the future, in events so noteworthy in size and scope that they bring Milton to life in full celebration of the great poet that he was, such as the 2008 “Grand Paradise Lost Costume Ball and Exhibition,” organized by Lindall to celebrate John Milton’s 400th birthday and acclaimed around the world for its enormous achievement and success, culminating in his elephant folio edition of Paradise Lost with illustrations in size and artistic design and use of illustrated borders and historiated initials that ensure that this magnificent edition will “stand the test of time,” as Samuel Johnson said is true of any great work.  And great work indeed is Terrance Lindall’s Paradise Lost Elephant Folio.

When Terrance Lindall completed the first Paradise Lost Elephant Folio and presented it to Yuko Nii for the Nii Foundation, he said to me in words that were perhaps intended to be private, but which demand sharing with the world: “I have to say that I think it is the greatest illustrated book ever done [for many reasons, but especially] for all the imagination, thought, and work I have put into Paradise Lost all my life that is summed up in this folio.  This is my supreme work.  There is nothing else I need to achieve.  Everything was moving toward this object all my life, but I did not know it.  The folio is everything I had hoped and imagined it could be.”

A short while later in a hand-written note to me, he reiterated sentiments I share, that “I know now that the Elephant Folio will be one of the greatest printed and embellished books ever produced!”

Lindall’s elephant folio with the grandeur of size given each illustration, accompanied by clarity of text through his own synopsis of Paradise Lost, affords Milton’s great epic the quality of scope and epic design it deserves and brings Paradise Lost to life in exciting new ways that are as new to Milton’s epic as Milton’s epic itself must have been to his own generation and others that followed.  With the publication of his illustrated Paradise Lost Elephant Folio, Lindall claims a stature as illustrator par excellence of Milton’s Paradise Lost for our age and for all ages to come.  His illustrations stand second to none and rank among the best-known paintings for Milton’s epic, and as the epic will live on because of its intrinsic and unique celebration of the state of man, so will the illustrations of it by Lindall, enabling everyone in every age to recognize and appreciate what makes Milton’s epic so timeless and for all ages.  Milton’s epic together with Lindall’s illustrations, have become intertwined for every age and for all ages to come.

 

 

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From being a Benedictine monk in ND in the mid-1960s, the state in which he grew up, Robert J. Wickenheiser went on to earn his MA and PhD from the University of Minnesota in 1969 &1970.  He then moved on to teaching Milton on the faculty in the English Department of Princeton University.  At the age of 34 he became the 21st

president of Mount St. Mary’s University (MD), where he served for 16 years from 1977 to early 1993 and is recognized as President Emeritus; very shortly later he became the 19th president of St. Bonaventure University (NY) and first lay president, where he served from 1994 to 2003, rounding out 25 years of service as a university president.  During all this time he maintained his passion for collecting the poets John Milton and George Herbert, from the 17th to the 21st centuries.

Wickenheiser has written for a number of scholarly journals and spoken widely to various audiences, scholarly and other; he edited a two-issue edition of The Princeton University Library Chronicle in 1977 devoted to the 50th anniversary of highly regarded collector, Robert H. Taylor, and his renowned collection of English Literature in the Robert H. Taylor Collection at Princeton University, providing a key introduction and overview of the collector and his collection.

After his retirement in 2003, Wickenheiser devoted himself to writing and his recent publication in 2008 of his book on his Milton collection, The Robert J. Wickenheiser Collection of John Milton at the University of South Carolina By Robert J. Wickenheiser (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2008), a collection of over 6,000 editions and related books and items from the 17th to the 21st century, now bearing his name and permanently housed at the Thomas Cooper Library of the University of South Carolina, is much heralded and praised for its content and book design.  The collection is considered one of the great Milton collections in the world.

He is presently completing his book on his extensive collection of the 17th-century poet, George Herbert, ranging, as with Milton, from the 17thto the 21st century.

 

 

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The following are comments on Wickenheiser’s Milton book and Milton collection.

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Wickenheiser’s Milton book is much heralded as a “grand collecting and cataloguing achievement,” with “devotion to purpose. . .[and] attention to bibliographical detail.  Future Miltonists will be forever obliged to [him] for all phases of [his] extremely rewarding work” (Arthur Freeman, former Harvard faculty member, now residing and writing in London after being with Quaritch Antiquarian Booksellers for many years).

Others have said about the book:

“What a wonderful book, both in content and in book production!  There are a great many items here –– particularly some of the illustrative materials –– that I have never seen before.  The reproductions of art work and other materials are outstandingly fine.  Anyone who looks at the catalogue has to be pleased and astounded at the presentations and important information that every page offers.  It is a great contribution to Milton studies, to bibliography, and to art history –– the Fuselis and Martins are especially magnificent” (John Shawcross, renowned Miltonist, immediately upon the publication of the book).

Shawcross had earlier said of the collection itself: Wickenheiser’s collection is one of the major collections of materials related to John Milton, editions and studies and artworks, in the world, indicating the breath and nature of Milton’s position in the literary, political, religious, and sociological world over the nearly three and a half centuries since his death.”

Noted Miltonist Al Labriola wrote of the collection and book: “A sumptuous catalogue of the Wickenheiser Collection at the Thomas Cooper Library of the University of South Carolina, superb down to the last detail with illustrations which are breathtaking.  The book is a milestone in Milton studies, and the Wickenheiser Collection is a treasure trove for archival research.”

 

 

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