The Art of Illustration Part 9

[Ill.u.s.tration: No. x.x.xII.

(_A Photograph from life, engraved on wood._)]

This influence and this movement is so strong--and vital to the artist--that it cannot be emphasised too much. The photographer is ever in our midst, correcting our drawing with facts and details which no human eye can see, and no one mind can take in at once.

On the obligations of artists to photographers a book might be written.

The benefits are not, as a rule, unacknowledged; nor are the bad influences of photography always noticed. That is to say, that before the days of photography, the artist made himself acquainted with many things necessary to his art, for which he now depends upon the photographic lens; in short, he uses his powers of observation less than he did a few years ago. That the photographer leads him astray sometimes is another thing to remember.

The future of the ill.u.s.trator being uppermost in our thoughts, let us consider further the influences with which he is surrounded. As to photography, Mr. William Small, the well-known ill.u.s.trator (who always draws for wood engraving), says:--"it will never take good work out of a good artist's hands." He speaks as an artist who has taken to ill.u.s.tration seriously and most successfully, having devoted the best years of his life to its development. The moral of it is, that in whatever material or style newspaper ill.u.s.trations are done, to hold their own they must be of the best. Let them be as slight as you please, if they be original and good. In line work (the best and surest for the processes) photography can only be the servant of the artist, not the compet.i.tor--and in this direction there is much employment to be looked for. At present the influence is very much the other way; we are casting off--ungratefully it would seem--the experience of the lifetime of the wood engraver, and are setting in its place an art half developed, half studied, full of crudities and discords. The ill.u.s.trations which succeed in books and newspapers, succeed for the most part from sheer ability on the part of the artist; _they are full of ability_, but, as a rule, are bad examples for students to copy. "Time is money" with these brilliant executants; they have no time to study the value of a line, nor the requirements of the processes, and so a number of drawings are handed to the photo-engravers--which are often quite unfitted for mechanical reproduction--to be produced literally in a few hours. It is an age of vivacity, daring originality, and reckless achievement in ill.u.s.tration.

"Take it up, look at it, and throw it down," is the order of the day.

There is no reason but an economic one why the work done "to look at"

should not be as good as the artist can afford to make it. The manufacturer of paperhangings or printed cottons will produce only a limited quant.i.ty of one design, no matter how beautiful, and then go on to another. So much the better for the designer, who would not keep employment if he did not do his best, no matter whether his work was to last for a day or for a year. The life of a single number of an ill.u.s.trated newspaper is a week, and of an ill.u.s.trated book about a year.

The young ill.u.s.trators on the _Daily Graphic_--notably Mr. Reginald Cleaver--obtain the maximum of effect with the minimum of lines. Thus Caldecott worked, spending hours sometimes studying the art of leaving out. Charles Keene's example may well be followed, making drawing after drawing, no matter how trivial the subject, until he was satisfied that it was right. "Either right or wrong," he used to say; "'right enough'

will not do for me."

[Ill.u.s.tration: No. x.x.xIII.

"PROUD MAIRIE." (LANCELOT SPEED.)

(_From "The Blue Poetry Book." London: Longmans._)

Pen-and-ink drawing by line process.]

Another influence on modern ill.u.s.tration--for good or bad--is the electric light. It enables the photographic operator to be independent of dark and foggy days, and to put a search-light upon objects which otherwise could not be utilised. So far good. To the ill.u.s.trator this aid is often a doubtful advantage. The late Charles Keene (with whom I have had many conversations on this subject) predicted a general deterioration in the quality of ill.u.s.trations from what he called "unnatural and impossible effects," and he made one or two ill.u.s.trations in _Punch_ of figures seen under the then--(10 or 15 years ago)--novel conditions of electric street lighting, one of which represented a man who has been "dining" returning home through a street lighted up by electric lamps, tucking up his trowsers to cross a black shadow which he takes for a stream. Charles Keene's predictions have come true, we see the glare of the magnesium light on many a page, and the unthinking public is dazzled every week in the ill.u.s.trated sheets with these "unnatural and impossible effects."

Thus it has come about that what was looked upon by Charles Keene as garish, exaggerated, and untrue in effect, is accepted to-day by the majority of people as a lively and legitimate method of ill.u.s.tration.

DANIEL VIERGE.

One of the influences on the modern ill.u.s.trator--a decidedly adverse influence on the unlearned--is the prominence which has lately been given to the art of Daniel Vierge.

There is probably no ill.u.s.trator of to-day who has more originality, style, and versatility--in short more genius--than Vierge, and none whose work, for practical reasons, is more misleading to students.

As to his ill.u.s.trations, from the purely literary and imaginative side, they are as attractive to the scholar as drawings by Holbein or Menzell are to the artist. Let us turn to the ill.u.s.tration on the next page, from the _Pablo de Segovia_ by Quevedo; an example selected by the editor, or publisher, of the book as a specimen page.

First, as to the art of it. Nothing in its own way could be more fascinating in humour, vivacity, and character than this grotesque duel with long ladles at the entrance to an old Spanish posada. The sparkle and vivacity of the scene are inimitable; the bounding figure haunts the memory with its diaphanous grace, touched in by a master of expression in line. In short, we are in the presence of genius.

[Ill.u.s.tration: No. x.x.xIV.

Example of DANIEL VIERGE'S ill.u.s.trations to _Pablo de Segovia_, the Spanish Sharper, by Francisco de Quevedo-Villegas, first published in Paris, in 1882; afterwards translated into English (with an Essay on Quevedo, by H. E. Watts, and comments on Vierge's work by Joseph Pennell), and published by Mr. T. Fisher Unwin, in 1892.

Vierge was born in 1851, and educated in Madrid, where he spent the early years of his life. Since 1869 he has lived in Paris, and produced numerous ill.u.s.trations for _Le Monde Ill.u.s.tre_ and _La Vie Moderne_, and other works. His fame was made in 1882 by Quevedo's _Pablo de Segovia_, the ill.u.s.trations to which he was unable to complete owing to illness and paralysis. About twenty of these ill.u.s.trations were drawn with the left hand, owing to paralysis of the right side. His career, full of romantic interest, suggests the future ill.u.s.trator of _Don Quixote_.

These drawings were made upon white paper--Bristol board or drawing paper--with a pen and Indian ink; but Vierge now uses a gla.s.s pen, like an old stylus. The drawings were then given to Gillot, the photo-engraver of Paris, who, by means of photography and _handwork_, produced metal blocks to be printed with the type.]

But the whole effect is obviously untrue to nature, and the tricks--of black spots, of exaggerated shadows on the ground, of scratchings (and of carelessness, which might be excused in a hasty sketch for _La Vie Moderne_)--are only too apparent.

In nearly every ill.u.s.tration in the _Pablo de Segovia_ (of which there are upwards of one hundred), the artist has relied for brilliancy and effect on patches of black (sometimes ludicrously exaggerated) and other mannerisms, which we accept from a genius, but which the student had better not attempt to imitate. To quote a criticism from the _Spectator_, "There is almost no light and shade in Vierge. There is an ingenious effect of dazzle, but there is no approach attempted to truth of tone, shadows being quite capriciously used for decoration and supplied to figures that tell as light objects against the sky which throws the shadows." And yet in these handsome pages there are gems of draughtsmans.h.i.+p and extraordinary _tours de force_ in ill.u.s.tration.

In the reproduction of these drawings, I think the maker of the blocks, M. Gillot, of Paris, would seem to have had a difficult task to perform.

The fact is, that Vierge's wonderful line drawings are sometimes as difficult to reproduce for the type press as those of Holbein or Menzell, and could only be done satisfactorily by one of the intaglio processes, such as that employed by the Autotype Company in _editions de luxe_. That Vierge's drawings were worthy of this anyone who saw the originals when exhibited at Barnard's Inn would, I think, agree.

It is the duty of any writer or instructor in ill.u.s.tration, to point out these things, once for all. That Vierge could adapt himself to almost any process if he pleased, is demonstrated repeatedly in the _Pablo de Segovia_, where (as on pages 63 and 67 of that book) the brilliancy and "colour" of pure line by process has hardly ever been equalled. That some of his ill.u.s.trations are impossible to reproduce well, and have been degraded in the process is also demonstrated on page 199 of the same book, where a mechanical grain has been used to help out the drawing, and the lines have had to be cut up and "rouletted" on the block to make them possible to print.

Of the clever band of ill.u.s.trators of to-day who owe much of their inspiration (and some of their tricks of method) to Vierge, it is not necessary to speak here; we are in an atmosphere of genius in this chapter, and geniuses are seldom safe guides to students of art.

Speaking generally (and these remarks refer to editors and publishers as well as draughtsmen), the art of ill.u.s.tration as practised in England is far from satisfactory; we are too much given to imitating the tricks and prettinesses of other nations, and it is quite the exception to find either originality or individuality on the pages which are hurled from the modern printing press; individuality as seen in the work of Adolphe Menzell, and, in a different spirit, in that of Gustave Dore and Vierge.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

FOOTNOTES:

[12] The heading to this chapter was drawn in line and reproduced by photo-zinc process. (See page 134.)

[13] The mechanical processes, neglected and despised by the majority of ill.u.s.trators for many years, have, by a sudden freak of fas.h.i.+on, apparently become so universal that, it is estimated, several thousand blocks are made in London alone every week.

[14] This excellent drawing was made on rough white paper with autographic chalk; the print being much reduced in size. It is seldom that such a good grey block can be obtained by this means.

[15] The young artist would be much better occupied in learning _drawing on stone_ direct, a branch of art which does not come into the scope of this book, as it is seldom used in book ill.u.s.tration, and cannot be printed at the type press. Drawing on stone is well worthy of study now, for the art is being revived in England on account of the greater facilities for printing than formerly.

[16] The evil of it is that _we are becoming used to black blots_ in the pages of books and newspapers, and take them as a matter of course; just as we submit to the deformity of the outward man in the matter of clothing.

[17] On the opposite page is an excellent reproduction of a painting from a photograph by the half-tone process.

[18] "_'Mongst Mines and Miners_," by J. C. Burrows and W. Thomas.

(London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co.)

[19] Both Mr. Cameron's and Mr. Mendelssohn's photographs have had to be slightly cut down to fit these pages. But as ill.u.s.trations they are, I think, remarkable examples of the photographer's and the photo-engraver's art.

[20] From the _Graphic_ newspaper, 28th October, 1893.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FROM "GRIMM'S HOUSEHOLD STORIES." (WALTER CRANE.)]

CHAPTER V.

WOOD ENGRAVINGS.

To turn to a more practical side of book ill.u.s.tration. The first principle of ill.u.s.tration is to _ill.u.s.trate_, and yet it is a fact that few ill.u.s.trations in books or magazines are to be found in their proper places in the text.

It is seldom that the ill.u.s.tration (so called) is in artistic harmony with the rest of the page, as it is found in old books. One of the great charms of Bewick's work is its individuality and expressive character.

Here the artist and engraver were one, and a system of ill.u.s.tration was founded in England a hundred years ago which we should do well not to forget.[21]