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Artistic Influences

Burnett's illustrations recall those of the 19th century fin-de-siècle illustrators and the different ways they looked to instigate a conversation with the text. His work simultaneously challenges the reader to bridge the gap between image and text – and reality and fantasy – and recalls the history of illustration in a self-conscious conceptualization of the relationship between man and his arts. Burnett’s immediate stylistic predecessors include those artists, such as Walter Crane and Aubrey Beardsley, born out of the middle 19th- and early 20th-century European graphic arts movements. These artists derived their detailed and fantastical style from the Medieval and early Renaissance graphic arts, most emphatically advocated by the Pre-Raphaelites in a response to the growing materialism of the era. 

Two late 19th- and early 20th-century artists whose influence is evident in Burnett’s style are Aubrey Beardsley and Harry Clarke. Beardsley’s and Clarke’s illustrations challenge the viewer to suspend reality and reimagine the relationship between author and illustrator. Beardsley’s style in his illustrations for Le More D’Arthur transforms the decorative approach of craftsman like William Morris into a personal and satirical interaction with medieval texts. Harry Clarke’s elongated figures and grotesque configurations mirror Burnett’s distortions of the human form. Consider these two examples of their work and compare them to your understanding of Burnett’s illustration technique and content.