March 1, 2009
Rackham’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”
This classic image, from the Golden Age of Children’s Illustration, is taken from a limited edition (1 of 550) 1907 copy of Rackham’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” Its complex, beautiful, and sinuous execution gives it a worthy place on this blog, but it is also quite apropos to post a work that is a fair metaphor of our current economy. The past decade has truly been a period Alice-in-Wonderland accounting and regulation. It is interesting to note that Rackham only seriously pursued an artistic career after working as a statistician in an insurance company – a 19th century ‘financial engineer’. Perhaps that can be a small inspiration for the newly unemployed looking for a career change. One small difference, of course, was that Rackham never racked up huge bonuses in the insurance business during his employment but had to be settle for a “meager income.”
