Modern Illustration Part 6

[Ill.u.s.tration: BY RANDOLPH CALDECOTT. FROM "BRACEBRIDGE HALL"

(MACMILLAN, 1877).]

While the magazines I have mentioned were being published, the "Graphic"

was started in 1870, taking on its staff most of the foremost artists of the day, Fildes, Holl, Gregory, Houghton, Linton, Herkomer, Pinwell, Green, Woods, S. P. Hall; and about the same date Walter Crane made his far too little known designs for children's books--"King Luckieboy's Party," the "Baby's Opera," the "Baby's Bouquet," and the many others--which have been not half enough appreciated. In a measure, the same may be said of Randolph Caldecott's books for children,--the "House that Jack Built," the "Mad Dog," the "John Gilpin," which, though they contain his cleverest drawings, are usually given secondary rank to his "Bracebridge Hall" and "Old Christmas," of far less artistic importance.

Miss Kate Greenaway has been more fortunate: her "Under the Window," and the long series that followed, have set the fashion for children, and have enjoyed a popularity of which they are not by any means unworthy.

A trifle mannered and affected, perhaps, her ill.u.s.trations are full of refined drawing, charming colour, and pleasing sentiment. These artists, in conjunction with Mr. Edmund Evans, gave colour-printing for book ill.u.s.tration a standing in England, while every one of their books is stamped with a decided English character. A Frenchman, too, Ernest Griset, living here, made some notable drawings about this time.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BY E. GRISET. FROM HOOD'S "COMIC ANNUAL" (1878).]

When I commenced this book I have no hesitation in admitting that my knowledge of the really great period of English Ill.u.s.tration was of the vaguest possible description.

I knew of "Good Words," "Once a Week," and the "Shilling Magazine,"

"Dalziel's Bible Gallery," and a few other books, but I had never seen and never even heard of the great ma.s.s of work produced during those ten years; even now, I am only slowly beginning to learn about and see something of it.

But a day is coming when the books issued between 1860 and 1870, in this country, will be sought for and treasured up, when the few original drawings that are still in existence will be striven for by collectors, as they struggle for Rembrandt's etchings to-day.

The source from which the English ill.u.s.trators of 1860 got their inspiration was Adolph Menzel's books; pre-Raphaelites and all came under the influence of this great artist. The change from the style of Harvey, Cruikshank, Kenny Meadows, Leech and S. Read, to Rossetti, Sandys, Houghton, Pinwell, Walker, Millais, was almost as great as from the characterless steel engraving of the beginning of the century to the vital work of Bewick. The first English book to appear after Menzel's work became known, was William Allingham's "The Music Master," 1855, ill.u.s.trated by Arthur Hughes, Rossetti and Millais; the first book of that period which still lives is Moxon's edition of Tennyson published in 1857, containing Rossetti's drawings for "The Palace of Art" and "Sir Galahad"; Millais' "St. Agnes' Eve," and Holman Hunt's "Lady of Shalott." These drawings and a few others have given to the book a fame, among ill.u.s.trated volumes, which it has no right or claim to.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BY SIR J. E. MILLAIS, BART. WOOD-ENGRAVING BY DALZIEL.

FROM "GOOD WORDS" (ISBISTER AND CO.).]

Far more important and more complete is Sir John Gilbert's edition of Shakespeare published by Routledge in three volumes, 1858 to 1860. This edition of Shakespeare has yet, as a whole, to be surpa.s.sed.

In 1859 "Once a Week" was started by Bradbury and Evans, and the first volume contained ill.u.s.trations by H. K. Browne ("Phiz"), G. H. Bennett, W. Harvey, Charles Keene, W. J. Lawless, John Leech, Sir J. E. Millais, Sir John Tenniel, J. Wolf; this is the veritable connecting link between the work of the past as exemplified by Harvey, and of the present by Keene. The next year, 1860, the "Cornhill" appeared, for the first number of which Thackeray, more or less worked over by ghosts, and engravers, did the ill.u.s.trations to "Lovel the Widower," but Millais was called in for the second or third number, and then George Sala.

Frederick Sandys ill.u.s.trated "The Legend of the Portent," and the volume ends with Millais' splendid design "Was it not a lie?" to "Framley Parsonage." It is curious to note that either Thackeray or the publishers refuse to mention the names of the artists in any way, only that Millais and Sala are allowed to sign their designs with their monograms. Leighton, I imagine, contributed the "Great G.o.d Pan" to the second volume, and d.i.c.ky Doyle began his "Bird's Eye Views of Society"

in the third, but it is not until one is more than half way through this volume that the initials F. W. appear on what are supposed to be Thackeray's drawings--or, rather, it is not until then that the great author acknowledged his failure as an ill.u.s.trator; though, in the "Roundabout Papers," he admitted his indebtedness to Walker.

The first drawing signed by Walker faces p. 556, "Nurse and Doctor," and ill.u.s.trates Thackeray's "Adventures of Philip;" this is in May, 1861.

"Good Words" was also started in 1860; in it in 1863 Millais' "Parables"

were printed, as well as work by Holman Hunt, Keene and Walker, while A.

Boyd Houghton, Frederick Sandys, Pinwell, North, Pettie, Armstead, Graham, and many others began to come to the front in this magazine and "Once a Week." About 1865 nearly as many good ill.u.s.trated magazines must have been issued as there are to-day; not only were the three I have mentioned continued, but "The Argosy," "The Sunday Magazine," and "The Shilling Magazine," among others, printed fine work by all these artists.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BY SIR J. E. MILLAIS, BART. WOOD-ENGRAVING BY DALZIEL.

FROM "GOOD WORDS" (ISBISTER AND CO.).]

The ill.u.s.tration was done in a curious, but very interesting sort of way. The entire ill.u.s.tration began to be undertaken by two firms, Messrs. Dalziel and Swain--and I believe in the case of "Good Words" the same system is still carried on by Mr. Edward Whymper. These firms commissioned the drawings from the artists, and then engraved them. The method seems to have been so successful that the engravers, notably the Dalziels, began not only to employ artists to draw for them, and to engrave their designs, but they became printers as well, and produced that set of books which are now the admiration and despair of the intelligent and artistic collector. When they were printed, they were sold to a publisher, who merely put his imprint on them. To this day they are known as Dalziel's Ill.u.s.trated Editions. The first important book of this series that I have seen is Birket Foster's "Pictures of English Landscape," 1863 (Routledge), printed by Dalziel; with "Pictures in Words," by Tom Taylor, though this was preceded by a horrid tinted affair by the same artist, called "Odes and Sonnets." The binding is vile; the paper is spotting and losing colour, but the drawings must have been exquisite, and here and there the ink is spreading and giving a lovely tone, like an etching, to the prints on the page.

In 1864 Messrs. Dalziel, who had already engraved for "Good Words" in the previous year Millais' "Parables of Our Lord," published them through Routledge. This book, in an atrocious binding described as elaborate, and it truly is, bound up so badly that it has broken all to pieces printed with some text in red and black, contains much of the finest work Millais ever did. Nothing could exceed in dramatic power, in effect of light and shade, "The Enemy sowing Tares," to mention one block among so many that are good. But the whole book is excellent, and excessively rare in its first edition.

But 1865 is the most notable year of all; in this "Dalziel's Ill.u.s.trated Arabian Nights' Entertainments" came out; originally published in parts, I believe, and later in two volumes, text and pictures within horrid borders. In this book A. Boyd Houghton first showed what a really great man he was. He clearly proves himself the English master of technique, as well as of imagination, although in this volume, issued by Ward and Lock, he has as fellow ill.u.s.trators Sir J. E. Millais, J. D.

Watson, Sir John Tenniel, G. J. Pinwell, and Thomas Dalziel--the latter of whom is a very big man, and for this, and some of the subsequent books, he made most remarkable drawings. But Houghton towers above them all, and Mr. Laurence Housman in an able article on him in "Bibliographica" well says:

"Among artists and those who care at all deeply for the great things of art, he cannot be forgotten: for them his work is too much an influence and a problem. And though officially the Academy shuts its mouth at him ... certain of its leading lights have been heard unofficially to declare that he was the greatest artist" who has appeared in England in black and white. In '65, also, his "Home Thoughts and Home Scenes" was published, much less imaginative than his later work, but containing more beauty; and after this, for ten years, he worked prodigiously, and yet excellently. His edition of "Don Quixote" (F. Warne and Co.), must be sought for in the most out-of-the-way places; easier to find are his "Kuloff's Fables," '69 (Strahan), and best known of all, the drawings in the early numbers of the "Graphic,"--the American series--which were not all published, I think, before he died. If some of these are grotesque, even almost caricature, they are amazingly powerful--and being the largest engraved works left, show him fortunately at his best.

His original drawings scarce exist at all. I happen to have one of the most beautiful, "Tom the Piper's Son," from Novello's "National Nursery Rhymes," 1871. I have not pretended to give a list of Houghton's drawings, it would be nearly impossible; but those books and magazines I have mentioned contain many of the most important. In '65 Pinwell did a "Goldsmith" for Ward and Lock, which revealed his surprising powers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BY A. BOYD HOUGHTON. FROM DALZIEL'S "ARABIAN NIGHTS"

(WARD, LOCK AND CO., 1865).]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BY A. BOYD HOUGHTON. FROM DALZIEL'S "ARABIAN NIGHTS"

(WARD, LOCK AND CO.), 1865.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BY G. J. PINWELL. FOR "GOLDSMITH'S WORKS" (WARD, LOCK AND CO.). PROCESS BLOCK FROM THE ORIGINAL DRAWING ON THE WOOD IN SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM.]

Ca.s.sells may have been the originators of this sort of ill.u.s.trated book, or only the followers of a style which became immensely popular. They issued many works by Dore about the same time or later, and a "Gulliver," by T. Morten, among others, but as this volume is not dated, I am unable to say when it appeared--still to this day they keep up the system of publishing ill.u.s.trated books in parts at a low rate. But soon expensive gift books, ill.u.s.trated by Houghton, Pinwell, North, and Walker, began to appear, perfectly new unpublished works: in 1866 "A Round of Days" was issued by Routledge; Walker, North, Pinwell, and T.

Dalziel, come off best in this gorgeous morocco covered volume, especially the last, who contributes a notable nocturne, the beauty of night, discovered by Whistler, being appreciated by artists, even while Ruskin was busy reviling or ignoring these ill.u.s.trators. Houghton's edition of "Don Quixote" also belongs to this year. How these men accomplished all this masterly work in such a short time, I do not pretend to understand.

In 1867, "Wayside Posies," and "Jean Ingelow's Poems" were published by Routledge and Longmans. These two books reach the high-water mark of English ill.u.s.tration, North and Pinwell surpa.s.s themselves, the one in landscape and the other in figures. T. Dalziel also did some amazing studies of mist, rain, and night, which I imagine were absolutely unnoticed by the critics. The drawings, however, must have been popular, for Smith and Elder reprinted the Walkers and Millais', among others, from the "Cornhill" in a "Gallery" (this also included Leightons and, I think, one Sandys), and Strahan the Millais drawings in another portfolio. The "Cornhill Gallery," printed, it is said, from the original blocks, came out in 1864, possibly as an atonement for the shabby way in which the artists were treated in the magazine originally.

In 1868, "The North Coast," by Robert Buchanan, was issued by Routledge; it has much good work by Houghton hidden away in it. In the next year the "Graphic" started, and these books virtually ceased to appear--why, I know not. There were some spasmodic efforts, most notable of which were Whymper's magnificent "Scrambles amongst the Alps," 1871, containing T. Mahoney's best drawings and Whymper's best engraving; and "Historical and Legendary Ballads," Chatto and Windus, 1876; in this book, made up from the early numbers of the magazines, one will find Whistler's and Sandys' rare drawings; it is almost the only volume which contains these men's work, although the drawings were not done originally for it, as the editor would like one to believe.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BY G. J. PINWELL. FOR "GOLDSMITH'S WORKS" (WARD, LOCK AND CO.). PROCESS BLOCK FROM THE ORIGINAL DRAWING ON THE WOOD IN SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BY CHARLES GREEN.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BY FRED. WALKER. PROCESS BLOCK FROM AN ORIGINAL STUDY IN THE POSSESSION OF THE AUTHOR.]

Whistler, it is true, ill.u.s.trated a "Catalogue of Blue and White Nankin Porcelain," published by Ellis and White, 1878, a very interesting work, mainly in colours. But Sandys' drawings must be looked for in the magazines alone. I know of no book that he ever ill.u.s.trated, a few volumes contain one or two, that is all; his drawings are separate distinct works of art, every print from them worthy of the portfolio of the collector. Dalziels issued at least two books later on, magnificent India proofs of "English Rustic Pictures," printed from the original blocks by Pinwell and Walker, done for the books I have mentioned, this volume is undated; and their Bible Gallery in 1881 (the drawings were made long before), to which all the best-known artists contributed, though the result was not altogether an artistic success; but most notable drawings by Ford Madox-Brown, Leighton, Sandys, Poynter, Burne-Jones, S. Solomon, Houghton, and T. Dalziel, are included in it.

This is the last great book ill.u.s.trated by a band of artists and engravers working together in this country; whether the results are satisfactory or not, the fact remains that the engravers were most enthusiastic, and encouraged the artists as no one has done since in the making of books; and the artists were the most distinguished that have ever appeared in England. Possibly, I should also have referred to the "British Workman," which was probably the first penny paper to publish good work of a large size. And I may have treated Mr. Arthur Hughes in a rather summary fashion. But I know his original drawings far better than the books in which they were printed; the only book which I really am acquainted with is "Tom Brown's School Days;" yet I know that he has made a very large number of ill.u.s.trations, especially for Norman MacLeod's books among others. After twenty-five years ill.u.s.tration is again reviving in England, and one looks forward hopefully to the future of this branch of art.

Ten years later than the "Graphic" came the introduction of process, and process was employed in England mainly for one reason only: cheapness.

Bad cheap process--which by the way is very little worse than cheap wood-engraving--has been responsible in this country for more vile work than in all the rest of the world put together. The development of process has brought with it not only truth of reproduction, which is its aim, but evils which its inventors did not antic.i.p.ate.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BY F. SANDYS. FROM THORNBURY'S "LEGENDARY BALLADS"

(CHATTO AND WINDOS).]

Too many process-engravers encourage the most commonplace, because it is the easiest, work. They know perfectly well that mechanical engraving will reproduce almost any drawings at the present moment, but then, good reproduction demands time and trouble and artistic intelligence. But it is no wonder that process-engravers are indifferent, when we remember the lamentable ignorance displayed by some editors, whose knowledge of art--in fact, of all art work--is simply _nil_. They may have piles of taste, but all of it is bad. They know exactly what the public wants, for they themselves are the public they consider. The slightest attempt at the artistic rendering of a drawing, or the appearance of a new man with a new style, is enough to put them in a rage, because they cannot understand the one or the other. And the selection of "cuts which embellish"--I believe is the expression--their pages, is left to the process man, the photographer, and the _cliche_ agent, who of course pick out the easiest they can supply. Their other duty is to edit their contributors, that is, if s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g and jewing an artist, and taking all life and soul for work out of him, can be described as editing. Lately has sprung up a species of ill.u.s.trator who licks the boots of these editors and grovels before the process man. He turns out as much work as he can in the shortest s.p.a.ce of time, knowing that he must make as many drawings as possible before some miserable creature, more contemptible than himself, comes along with an offer to do the work at half the price which he is paid.

I am happy to say that this state of affairs is by no means universal in England; but I regret that there seems to be a tendency in some quarters to prefer bad work because it is usually cheap. On the other hand, there are many notable exceptions: intelligent publishers, editors, artists, and process-engravers, who strive to do good work and expect to pay, or be paid, for it. But this state of things has produced three cla.s.ses of artists. First, the men who loudly declare they care nothing about their work, and who may therefore be dismissed with that contempt which they court. Second, those who rush absolutely to the other extreme, saying that all modern work is bad, and that there is nothing to do but to follow in the track of the fifteenth-century craftsman, not knowing, or more probably not wanting to know, that these same ill.u.s.trators and engravers of the fifteenth century were, according to their time, as modern and up-to-date and _fin-de-siecle_ as possible. Finally, there is a saving remnant, increasing as fast as good workmen do increase--and that is very slowly--who are going on, endeavouring to perfect themselves to the best of their ability, believing rightly that it is the business of engravers and printers to follow the artist, and not the artist's duty to become a slave to a mere mechanic, no matter how intelligent. The second of these cla.s.ses has always existed in almost every profession in England; the cla.s.s, in short, which is convinced that society and the world generally needs reforming, and that it is their little fad which is going to bring about this reformation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BY FREDERICK SHIELDS. FROM DEFOE'S "HISTORY OF THE PLAGUE" (LONGMANS, 1863).]

Now I do not hold for a moment that the man who is generally accepted as the leader of the pre-Raphaelite movement, Rossetti, had any desire to reform anybody, or improve anything. A certain form of art interested him, and he succeeded in reviving it for himself, though he put himself and his century into his drawings. It is the same with Sir Edward Burne-Jones, and Mr. William Morris, and Mr. Walter Crane. But the praise which has been duly bestowed upon them has been unjustly lavished upon a set of people--or else, they, as they never weary of doing, have exploited themselves--who have neither the power to design nor the intelligence to appreciate a drawing when it is made, nor any technical understanding of how it was made. They will tell you, both by their work and in print, that there is nothing worth bothering about save the drawings of the Little Masters, and, to prove their appreciation of these drawings, they proceed at once not to copy the drawings, but the primitive woodcuts which were made out of them, not by the Masters at all. They will proceed to imitate painfully with pen and ink a woodcut, have it reproduced by a cheap process man, who, of course, is delighted to have work which gives him no trouble, entrust it to a printer buried in cellars into which the light of improvement has never made its way, that he may print it upon handmade paper, which the old men never would have used had they had anything better; and thus they succeed in perpetuating all the old faults and defects, adding to them absurdity of design which triumphs in the provinces, is the delight of Boston and the Western States of America, and the beloved of the Vicarage. Or, again, the young person, reeking with the School of Science and Art at South Kensington, will have none of process, and, painfully (for he usually cuts his finger), and simply (otherwise he should waste his time), endeavours, with halting execution but with perfect belief in his powers, to cut his design upon the wood-block, not knowing that the master woodcutter, whom he essays to worship, spent almost as many years in learning his trade, as this person has spent minutes in knocking off a little ill.u.s.tration as a change from designing a stained-gla.s.s window, or writing a sonnet. This is the sort of work that exhausts first editions, is remembered for a few months, and produces leaders in the advanced organs of opinion. It is unfortunately true that the leaders have little influence, and that, later on, the first editions may be bought as old paper.

Ignorance of printing and of the improvements in that art is really in this country too awful to contemplate. The average critic will blame a competent artist for the imperfections of a process and the ignorance of a printer. It never occurs to this critic that he knows nothing practically about the subject. No attempt is made to surmount mechanical difficulties; no attempt is made to study improvements; one is simply told to work down to the lowest level and to copy the fads of an obsolete past.

Quaintness and eccentricity, too, have their followers, and though both are dangerous games to play, still they imply, if good, such an amount of research, study, and invention, whether original or not, that from them good work may often come. Still I no longer dare to prophesy. I know not what a man will do or will not. There is possibility in every one.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BY J. MAHONEY. FROM THE "SUNDAY MAGAZINE."]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BY J. F. SULLIVAN. FROM HOOD'S "COMIC ANNUAL."]

As for the other men who calmly go on doing their work in their own way, showing the process-engraver what is wanted, instructing the printer on the subject of effects and colour, and dealing satisfactorily with intelligent publishers and editors, or even, as some do, ignoring all these factors, which they should not, their work is around us and delights us.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BY LINLEY SAMBOURNE. FROM KINGSLEY'S "WATER BABIES"

(MACMILLAN).]

Of the older men, though Whistler has long ceased to ill.u.s.trate, Du Maurier, Sidney Hall and William Small are still with us, producing characteristic designs. Charles Green carries on the excellent method which he developed in his ill.u.s.trations to d.i.c.kens. Though J. Mahoney is dead, the present re-issue of Whymper's "Scrambles amongst the Alps"

testifies marvellously to his powers. The late A. Boyd Houghton's abilities, too, are beginning to be appreciated, and his designs for the "Arabian Nights" are now being sought for as they never were during his lifetime. The success of Messrs. Macmillan's re-issue of the "Tennyson"