After my former blog posts on Roger Dean and Brian Froud, it’s becoming a tradition for me to write a review every year on one of the illustration books sitting at my Christmas tree. Along with Patrick Woodroffe, they are the modern illustrators who provoked a deepest impact on my life and career.

“Hallelujah Anyway”, “Mythopoeikon”, “The Dorbott of Vacuo”… Just like I said in the About page of this web site: “these books changed my life! They gave me a completely new scope and opened me up to a wonderful universe of possibilities to share my inner world“.

Just so you have an idea about how bad I was hooked on Patrick Woodroffe’s work let me tell you that I once drove my van from Spain to a remote corner in Cornwall, England, to meet the man. But that’s another story which happened many years ago and I will probably share it with you some other time, if you want me to…

Today, I just want to talk about “Benign Icons”: one of the best publications from Patrick Woodroffe’s entire career. Let me tell you right from the start that I never judge a book by it’s weight but… Oh boy! When you have “Benign Icons” in your hands you know that you have acquired a ton of good stuff. This is the result of a magnificent edition that compiles 200+ pages of quality heavy paper with full color illustrations. The book has been published by Fantasmus Art. They’re in Denmark and they have has also other great stuff such as two volumes of “Dreamscapes”, a wonderful collection of fantasy art books.

In my humble opinion, “Benign Icons” is one of the finest pieces of illustration and imaginative art in modern times. It compiles the versatile and prolific productions of Woodroffe throughout the years, including fantasy books, film and theater projects, sculpture, art exhibitions, and many others. I’m talking about hundreds of paintings, sketches and all sort of material never seen before. I mean, enough stuff to look yourself into a room and keep your jaws dropped for a whole month!

Honestly, there’s nothing like Patrick Woodroffe’s today when it comes to inventing surrealistic and impossible worlds. His art is a contemporary portrait of the paradigm of our times: a new concept and understanding of the universe where all is intertwined and everything is possible. He is without a doubt one of the most prolifically imaginative and surprising talents of our time. This is one of the reasons why, for the last decades, his unique style has been rarely tried to be copied by other artists. Mutating fractal landscapes, unconceivable icons, impossible creatures and hidden icons are some of the omnipresent elements in his works. But first and foremost: an uncanny sense of humor.

One of the peculiarities of Patrick Woodroffe’s art is the curious combination of influences and aesthetics: the mystery of Flemish art from Hieronymus Bosh and Van Der Weyden; the classical beauty of Italian Renaissance portraits from Crivelli and Boticelli; the detailed nature and bright skies of British landscapes by Pre-Raphaelite painters like Holman Hunt; the mastery of British engraving illustration such as John Tenniel; the early 20′s surrealist imagery; and even a colorfull touch of pop art from the 60′s. If you dig any of this, you’ll simply love this book!

Apart from the feast of eye-candy, I have enjoyed very much the way Patrick shares his experience with the readers. It’s wonderful to to read the words from such humble and sensitive artist who talks openly about his own world and can connect so sincerely with other artists and fans. As Patrick says in the book, the publishers wanted to title this book “The World of Patrick Woodroffe” but he thought it sounded a little pretentious. So he suggested “Benign Icons”, as a way to put the essence of his work into words. I truely believe that Patrick Woodroffe’s art is benign for the times that we are living today. It’s just good for the exciting events to happen in this mysterious and evolving universe that we share.