‘Read between the lines of Pater and look between the lines of Alastair’s figures’: Walter Pater and Alastair’s Sebastian van Storck

This article addresses an underexplored aspect of British writer, essayist and critic Walter Pater’s (1839–94) legacy. It focuses on the illustrated edition of Pater’s Sebastian van Storck , one of the ‘portraits’ in Pater’s Imaginary Portraits (1887), illustrated by German artist Alastair. By analysing five illustrations alongside Pater’s text, I will show how Alastair’s approach extends the meaning of Pater’s Sebastian van Storck in allowing readers to fill in between what is said versus what is shown. As will become clear, text and image are weaved together not through straightforward alignment, but through ongoing negotiation. This weaving together of image and narrative demonstrates that meaning is not fixed in either text or image alone but constructed in the movement between them. The fact that Pater’s own prose is highly visual in itself, makes Alastair’s interpretation through actual illustrations all the more compelling. Alastair chose not to depict these vividly descriptive passages in the way Pater described them, but to follow his own interpretive path that enhances the narrative by highlighting both Sebastian’s and the other characters’ emotional depth.