Part 10 (1/2)

We are fast losing sight of first principles and ai the eye and the public purse with a pretty page; and in doing this we are but ie to find a slavish, almost childish i, for instance, the plan of pictures turned over at the corners or overlapping each other with exaggerated black borders and other devices of the albuland in 1894 (with excellent wood engravers still), and the kind of art by which we shall be re of azine_, where wood engraving is still largely employed

Itthefor elaborate illustrations which, such as we see in Araved on copper or steel, are--(1) rapidity of production, and (2) the almost illimitable number of copies that can be produced from casts from wood blocks The broad distinction between the old and newis, that in early days the lines were drawn clearly on the wood block and the part not drawn cut away by the engraver, who endeavoured to make a perfect fac-simile of the artist's lines It is now a coraph from life on to the wood block (_see p 167_), also to draw on the ith a brush in tint, and even to photograph a water-colour drawing on to the wood, leaving the engraver to turn the tints into lines in his oay

In the very earliest days of book illustration, before movable type-letters were invented, the illustration and the letters of the text were all engraved on the wood together, and thus, of necessity (as in the old block books produced in Holland and Belgium in the fifteenth century), there was character and individuality in every page; the picture, rough as it often was, har with the text in an unmistakable manner From an artistic point of view, there was a better balance of parts and more harmony of effect than in the more elaborate illustrations of the present day The illustration was an illustration in the true sense of the word It interpreted so; and even when movable type was first introduced, the sis harmonised ith the letters There is a broad line of des (such, for instance, as the ”Ars Moriendi,”

purchased for the British Museuel collection at Leipsic, and recently reproduced by the Holbein Society) and the last developazines The y and _navete_ peculiar to the all nations in the beauty and quality of azine illustrations That they have succeeded in obtaining delicate effects, and what painters call colour, through the , is well known, and it is co, ”Have you seen the last nuazine_?” The fashi+on is to adlish publishers are easily found to devote tiazines (which coland free of duty), to the prejudice of native productions The reason for the excellence (which is freely ad is that, in the first place, raver is an artist in every sense of the word, and his education is not considered coraver is always _en rapport_ with the artist--an i often, as I have seen theazine_, and _Scribner's_ in New York, in the saland the artist, as a rule, does not have any direct coraver In Ae circulation for his works, is able to bring the culture of Europe and the capital of his own country to the aid of the wood-engraver, spending sometimes five or six hundred pounds on the illustrations of a single nuraver's success_ of a very remarkable kind

[Illustration: xxxV

_A Portrait_ engraved on wood at the Office of the CENTURY MAGAZINE

Exaazine_ It is interesting to note the achieve in England is under a cloud

This portrait was photographed froraved in New York

(_Photograph froazine_)]

A discussion of the , and of the differenton wood, such as that initiated by the late Frederick Walker, A R A; the styles of Mr William Small, E

A Abbey, Alfred Parsons, etc--does not come into the scope of this publication, but it will be useful to refer to one or two opinions on the American system

”Book illustration as an art,” as Mr Comyns Carr pointed out in his lectures at the Society of Arts ten years ago, ”is founded upon wood engraving, and it is to wood engraving that we must look if we are to have any revival of the kind of beauty which early-printed books possess In the mass of work now produced, there is very little trace of the principles upon which Holbein laboured Instead of proceeding by the simplest means, our modern artist seems rather by preference to take thehi, it is not unjust to say, has beco by its inferiority”

Mr Hubert Herkoraphic arts, says:--

”In ravers has been raised up who have brought the art of engraving on wood to such a degree of perfection, that the most modern work, especially that of the Araver_ rather than the art of the draughtsn of decadence

Take up any nuazines, and you will see that effect is the one aiet the artist Correct, or honest, drawing is no longer wanted This kind of illustration is most pernicious to the student, and _will not last_

”America is a child full of proreat master; so let us not imitate its youthful efforts or errors Americans were the first to foster this style of art, and they will be the first to correct it”

Mr W J Linton, the well-knoood engraver, expresses hily on the reat force from the other side of the Atlantic:--

”Talent is misapplied when it is spent on endeavours to rival steel-line engraving or etching, in following brush- to i who shall scratch the greatest nuht of whether suchto the expression of the picture or the beauty of the engraving How much of talent is here throay! How rowth is wasted in this slave's play for a prize not worth having--the faraver's art, and having for that neglected the study of the highest! For it is the lowest and the last thing about which an artist should concern himself, this excessive fineness and , as in other branches of art, _the first thing is drawing, the second drawing, the third drawing_”

This is the professional view, ably expressed, of a, if only to show the folly of ied by experts to be founded on false principles

But there is another view of the ht of Whatever the opinion of the American system of illustration may be, there is, on the other side of the Atlantic, an ay, enterprise, cultivation of hand and eye, delicacy of anised to provide a wide continent with a better art than anything yet attes, which the Ast the people, such, for instance, as the portraits (engraved froraphs from life) which have appeared in _Harper's_ and the _Century_ azines, only reach the cultivated few in Europe in expensive books It is worth considering what the ultimate art effect of this widespread distribution will be The ”prairie flower” holds in her hand a betterpublished in England at the same price; and a taste for delicate and refined illustration is being fostered ast a variety of people on the western continent, learned and unlearned That there is a want of sincerity in the s are not exactly what they seeht be done, may be admitted; but it will be well for our illustrators and art providers to re upon us with the power of capital and ever-increasing knowledge and cultivation In the _Century_ o, there was an article on ”The Pupils of Bewick,” with illustrations ads, by ”photo-engraving”

This is noteworthy, as showing that the knowledge of styles is disseminated everywhere in As by ”process,” and how _iht law on this subject_

Of the English wood engravers, and of the present state of the profession in England much has been written I believe the fact re is still relied on by many editors and publishers, as it prints with more ease and certainty than any of the process blocks

That there are those in England (like Mr Bisob Gardner and others, whose work I a still as a vital art, capable of the highest results, I a it is difficult to get many publishers to expend capital upon it for ordinary illustrations