The Christmas Soldier

"Scrooge Studies" is a blog about one of my projects, a series of illustrations for Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol.  I hope to eventually produce a printed version of the book.  But that's a long way off.  So I thought it might be worthwhile to set up a blog to introduce the drawings and my research behind them.  This way, people can view the drawings as they progress, and hopefully I can gain some support for the project.  You can see these and other drawings at flickr.com (flickr : V.A. Kenyon - Dickens's A Christmas Carol) and on facebook (facebook : V.A. Kenyon - Dickens's A Christmas Carol).  And please submit comments on the images here (or on flickr or facebook).

This blog will show the illustrations in no particular order.  As I continue to make images, I will set up a second blog, which will be the full story of A Christmas Carol, in serial format - not unlike the way many novels used to be published in the nineteenth century.  This will have the added benefit of making the work available free of charge, whether or not I can publish a print edition.  To that end, I will also be setting up a crowdfunding project.  At this time (May - June 2016), I am still working on the specifics for that.

The opening image for this blog features Scrooge's nephew, Fred.  I haven't done a background for him yet.  It will likely feature some wood paneling, which I've used in another drawing as an appropriately conservative material for the interior of Scrooge's office.  On the other hand, I may leave the background blank.  It might be interesting to play with text layout around his portrait.  Tell me what you think.

Fred is modeled after the Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz.  For my source, I have used his portrait by Karl Wilhelm Wach, which is on Wikipedia here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_von_Clausewitz .  Wikipedia is a great tool for this type of project, and I've used it as a starting point for the research on a number of my images.  I want to get historical accuracy in the the details, such as clothing, architecture, and technology, and I also want my images to be stylistically familiar to people in the early 1840s.  As I am learning about early Victorian London, I hope my audience will forgive me if I get a few details wrong.  I hope that my illustrations will do justice to Dickens and Scrooge, and give some enjoyment to a wide range of people.  I'm gaining an appreciation of and fascination for the City of London, and I especially hope that the Citizens of London will approve of my drawings.  I also hope that all the Wikipedia editors who donate their time will like what I've done with their efforts.

But why Clausewitz?  Well, Fred is clearly at "war" with Scrooge, and thinks he'll never get through to him.  But he doesn't lose his optimism and faith in humanity's basic goodness, or Scrooge's potential to change.  Clausewitz, for his part, saw some serious brutality over the course of his life - but look at Wach's portrait.  He's got a kind of Mona Lisa smile, in spite of everything he's seen.  And so I thought, "Well!  He looks like Scrooge's nephew!"

Fred's wife, of course, will be modeled after Clausewitz's wife, the brilliant Countess Marie von Brühl.  You can see the article about her at : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_von_Brühl .

Do let me know what you think, and I am open to ideas for images for this project.