The covers of the old Life magazine weren't always comical, humorous, or satirical. Sometimes, as in those shown below, done by Indiana illustrator Franklin Booth, they were serious, adventurous, and romantic. Born on a farm in Indiana, Booth (1874-1948) seems to have been an artist with his head in the clouds, and he often drew and painted clouds--great, mountainous, billowing clouds, like landscapes in the air. Whether he was drawing works of Nature, such as towering trees like columns in a cathedral, or of man, such as skyscrapers or great spires and domes, all also reached for the clouds, or as every artist attempts, to heaven.
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| Life, an adventure issue, from October 20, 1921, with a cover by the unmatchable Franklin Booth. |
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| Life, subtitled "Air Castles," from January 12, 1922, again with a cover by Booth, and including an element not always seen in his work: a human form. |
Text copyright 2018, 2024 Terence E. Hanley
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