Elihu Vedder was a prominent Symbolist whose greatest claim to fame was a gorgeous, lushly detailed and graceful artist's rendering of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, one of the all-time classics of Middle Eastern poetry. His powerful, almost sorceress-like, female figures form an excellent complement to those of his great contemporary Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and are obvious older sisters to the women of Alphonse Mucha, not just in their power but in the flowing drapery of their peculiarly Aesthetic clothing. His use of light is dynamic verging on flashiness, but as I'm fond of flashiness, that's hardly a problem. In fact, his classical, neatly delineated and deeply Symbolist murals and mosaics in the Library of Congress, with their crisp colors and simple, strong light and shadow, are my favorite of his work. I'd love to go to the Library of Congress someday, not the least of reasons being to take in his images firsthand.
Artist: Elihu Vedder
Type of art: Symbolism, illustration, murals
Media: Painting on canvas, painted murals, sculpture, pen, pencil, etc.
Time period: 1800s
Country of origin: United States
Motifs: Powerful, flowing female figures, symbolic layout, bold colors and cleanly defined, high-contrast shadows, esoteric subject matter
Smithsonian Institution page featuring Vedder's entire illustrated book of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
On Wikipedia
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