WOTTA PICTURE, WOTTA PHOTOGRAPH...

Now this is what I call Art...

You'll remember me telling you about the 'photogravure' illustrated Bible my mother bought me back around 1971, and how the 17 pictures seemed, to my eyes, to have a photographic quality to them.  When I acquired a later edition replacement (containing only 15 of the paintings) some years down the line (the original having disappeared in the intervening period), the illos didn't appear quite so photographic, and I wondered whether mention (absent from the replacement) of the photogravure printing process in my original edition had influenced my perception somewhat.

A little while back, I managed to get a different edition containing all 17 illustrations (and I've since managed to obtain yet another edition, this time the exact same as my 1971 copy), and I realised that it hadn't just been the power of suggestion which made me think the pictures looked like photos.  Not all of them did, at least not completely, though there were aspects of each illustration which did, indeed, have a photographic quality to them.

The top picture is just one such example, and it leads me to believe that the artist, Jack Hayes, must have used live models (or photographic reference)  for at least some of them.  The shadows on the boy's face and arm in particular, and also on the material of his clothes looks like a photo to me, though the man's face and hair is perhaps less persuasive in that aspect, though still superbly painted.  Comparing the first picture with the one above from my second edition, the later printing doesn't seem to quite capture the photo-like quality to the same degree.  What do you think?  I've reproduced the two of them side-by-side, below, to help you compare.

Remember the name - Jack Hayes.  A stunning artist to be sure.  I wonder if he ever illustrated any comic strips?  I know he contributed to Look & Learn, but can you imagine what he'd have done with The Trigan Empire?  That would've been well-worth seeing.