The witch Sycorax
Arthur Rackham brings Shakespeare's most fearsome off-stage character to life in this eerie illustration of Sycorax, the wicked witch from The Tempest. Hunched over in a tattered, striped shawl, she looms over a writhing pile of centipedes, lizards, and other creepy crawlies, gesturing dramatically against a backdrop of jagged, misty mountains. Rackham, a master of the Golden Age of Illustration with roots in Art Nouveau, uses delicate ink lines and washes of watercolor to create a sense of ancient, gnarled magic. Even though Sycorax is dead before the play begins, her dark legacy haunts the island, and Rackham's haunting vision perfectly embodies her terrifying power.
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