Campbell Dodgson

“ Gilbert was before all things a draughtsman, and is likely to be remembered rather as an illustrator than as a painter. In water-colour his technique was largely determined by his practice in black-and-white. He would model his surfaces with the brush as if he were hatching with pen or pencil. Alike in water-colour and in oils he was a powerful colourist, with a special fondness for red; his shadows were often too black. ”

“ Miss Gribble and Miss Pilkington are among the other women artists who practise wood engraving with zeal and success, the former is now turning her attention to book illustration, in which English engravers of the modern school have hitherto achieved smaller results than their contemporaries in France.
All these artists alike, however diverse their vision, their taste or their accomplishment may be, use the wood block and the graver or knife in a strictly orthodox manner as the medium and tools with which to express themselves directly. They cut their lines or spaces as they go on ”

“ He took a very high view of the function of the artist, and had a deep and reverent love for the beauty of the world as a manifestation of the divine. His sincere and modest work, inspired by an aim so spiritual, did not show to advantage in a mixed exhibition, and failed to attract the attention it deserved, especially at the Academy; but his reputation with collectors and good judges of art stands high, and is certain to increase. ”

“ The streets of all the etchings of the sixties are filled with excited crowds or little groups of tall, unnatural looking people, and all kinds of curious monsters and allegorical figures hover in the sky or swoop in rapid flight across it. The Collège Henri IV (plate 29) in some of its states, has for background a sea with sails and whales and sea-gods, and the figures in the foreground are the most extraordinary that Meryon ever drew. ”

“ On leaving Oxford in 1890 he entered on a literary career in London, at first living at 20 Fitzroy Street with a little group of artists and men of letters. The publisher Charles Kegan Paul [q. v. Suppl. II] helped to start him in journalism, and he was soon hard at work reviewing for the 'Academy,' 'Anti-Jacobin,' 'National Observer,' 'Daily Chronicle,' and 'Pall Mall Gazette.' His ambition to become known as a poet was delayed by the necessity of earning money to free himself of debts contracted at Oxford by lavish expenditure on books and prints. ”

“ The British Museum collection is still arranged in Wedmore’s order, which has one practical advantage: it gives precedence to the important works, the etchings of Paris, and describes the other etchings as minor works after these. Thus the visitor, not an expert, who asks for Meryon’s etchings and receives the first volume, finds in it at once a number of the masterpieces. He can persevere, if he will, and see the minor works also; but, if he is more easily tired, he will at least have seen the Paris set while his eye is fresh, and will have spent none of his energy on the early experiments. ”

“ This general statement about nineteenth century engraving admits of certain exceptions. Originality breaks out now and again, whether in the humbler form of broadsides and advertisements and illustrations to chap-books, ballads, and children's story books, or in the work of those rare artists who chose to learn the craft of wood-engraving for themselves, and engrave their own designs without employing a professional hand as interpreter. ”

“ At an early age he was admitted a student at the Royal Academy, where he attracted the notice of Sir Thomas Lawrence, who bought some of his drawings. But the artist who influenced him most was Fuseli, whose pupil he became and whose peculiarities he copied and exaggerated. He sent his first picture to the Royal Academy in 1827, and continued to exhibit there and at the British Institution till the year of his death. ”

“ After two years spent at the city office his parents decided to let him follow his bent, and he devoted himself to learning every variety of technique which was likely to be of use to him : painting in oils, water-colours, and fresco, modelling, carving, drawing on paper, wood, and stone, engraving and etching. In all these arts he was mainly self-taught, for he frequented no school and had no regular instruction except some lessons in the use of colour from George Lance, the painter of fruit. ”

“ Brought up at first for business, he followed his brother George to London in 1839 and entered into a partnership with him as engraver, and afterwards as publisher and printer, which lasted till 1893. He is said to have taken the leading part in extending the operations of the firm, and is credited with the faculty of discerning and fostering a talent for illustration in artists hitherto untried. He himself studied, after coming to London, at the Clipstone Street life school, where he was a contemporary of Sir John Tenniel and of Charles Keene ”

“ Sydney Lee, belong to the Society of Wood Engravers which was founded in 1920, or to the group which, without being actually members of that Society, have contributed to the two annual exhibitions which it has already held at the Chenil Gallery. But the selection has by no means been confined to that group, nor is it by the desire, or the fault, of publisher or editor that certain artists who might naturally be expected to contribute, are not represented. ”

“ The outline drawing which Meryon made from the level of the shore, showing the towers very much lower, is reproduced in M. Delteil’s catalogue. L’Arche du Pont Notre-Dame (plate 8) , especially in the beautiful proofs on green paper, is one of the most charming of the whole series and free from any eccentricity. La Galerie Notre-Dame (plate 9) is a very beautiful rendering of Gothic architecture, and a most delicate study of effects of light, direct and reflected. The impressions vary much, some being rich in tone and rather veiled, others clean wiped and of a silvery clearness. ”

“ After serving apprenticeships to a house-painter at Edinburgh and a japanner at Wolverhampton he obtained employment with William Wales, a glass -painter at Newcastle, where he remained five years, attending the school of design under William Bell Scott [q. v.] . In 1853 he went to London, where he studied and taught in the Central School of Design at Marlborough House till, in 1855, he became master of the School of Art, then called the Mechanics' Institution, at Liverpool. ”