Modern Illustration Part 9

[Ill.u.s.tration: BY HEYWOOD SUMNER. FROM "THE FITZROY PICTURES" SERIES (BELL).]

CHAPTER VII.

CONCLUSION.

I have tried to show the methods of modern ill.u.s.tration, and to give a sketch of its present conditions. It would be absurd to prophesy its future, though I believe it will have a very brilliant one. Much of the work that is being turned out to-day is beneath contempt; much of it is done by young men who are absolutely uneducated, and an ill.u.s.trator requires education as much as an author; much of it is done by people who are too careless, or too stupid, to read or to understand the MSS.

which they ill.u.s.trate. Thus, in looking through late numbers of a magazine, I learn that all the policemen in New York wear patent leather shoes; while from another I find that when people are very poor in France, they rock their babies in log cabin cradles, cook their meals on American stoves and sit upon Chippendale chairs.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BY A. J. GASKIN. FROM "OLD FAIRY TALES" (METHUEN AND CO.).]

But it is a pleasure to turn from budding geniuses of this sort and photographic hacks; from the gentlemen who copy the imperfections of the woodcut of the Middle Ages; from the people who enlarge the borders of their magazines with decorations that neither belong to our own time, nor are good examples of any other; from those who have succeeded in making a certain portion of the world believe that clumsy eccentricity is a cloak for all the sins in the artistic calendar, to ill.u.s.trators who are calmly and quietly pursuing their profession, and producing work which may even drag other portions of the magazine or book, to which they contribute, to an unmerited immortality.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BY LAURENCE HOUSMAN. FROM "A FARM IN FAIRYLAND" (KEGAN PAUL).]

I do not pretend to foretell what the ultimate form of the book of the future, or of the magazine either, may be. But I do believe that ill.u.s.tration is as important as any other branch of art, will live as long as there is any love for art, long after the claims of the working cla.s.ses have been forgotten, and the statues of the statesmen, who are the newspaper heroes of to-day, have crumbled into dust, unless preserved because a sculptor of distinction produced them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BY COTMAN. FROM AN ETCHING IN "ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES OF NORMANDY."]

Ill.u.s.tration is an important, vital, living branch of the fine arts, and it will flourish for ever.