Robert Gibbings, Artist, Book Illustrator; Llewelyn Powys; Glory of Life

Short film on Robert Gibbings, 1945 (YouTube)

Robert Gibbings' 14 wood engravings illustrated Llewelyn Powys "Glory of Life", published in a limited edition by The Golden Cockerel Press in 1934.

The book "was written in a cornfield on the Dorset Downs under a cloudless sky and in full view of the English Channel" (Note, Village Press, 1975 edition).

https://www.maggs.com/glory-of-life_227158.htm

"We must jog to the grave as best we may"

"The natural worship is the detached worship of animal life, of bird life, of fish life...it is the worship of the lubberly chub, proud of being a chub at the bottom of the river Yeo. It belongs to the glory of life, to the unuttered sense of glory in the chance of existence, in the chance that called us up out of the dead dust to mirror for a period with glassy retinas the mysteries of matter".

"What is evil? Evil is cruelty. There is no other evil. All the commandments devised by man for the regulation of society do not concern us. Cruelty only is wickedness. To cause suffering, physical or mental, with witty intent, is the only unpardonable sin".

Llewelyn Powys.

On Life and Death