Henrique Alvim Corrêa's Martian Tripod — War of the Worlds 1906

What makes this illustration startling for 1906 is its complete absence of human figures — the Martian war machine looms distant and ghostly through a desolate woodland, making the invasion feel more inevitable than dramatic. Corrêa's extraordinary charcoal-and-wash technique renders the tripod as an eerie, luminous presence glowing through bare trees above a muddy country path, evoking profound desolation. This Belgian-born artist's illustrations for H.G. Wells' 'War of the Worlds' are widely considered the finest ever produced for that novel.