Henry Blackburn

“ How much of force that should have helped towards growth is wasted in this slave’s play for a prize not worth having—the fame of having well done the lowest thing in the engraver’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 minuteness of work.... In engraving, as in other branches of art, the first thing is drawing, the second drawing, the third drawing. ”

“ Thus, for style, for mastery of effect and management of line, we must go back to the old masters; to work produced generally in a reposeful life, to which the younger generation are strangers. But the mere copying of other men’s lines is of little avail without mastering the principles of the art of line drawing. The skilful copies, the fac-similes of engravings and etchings drawn in pen and ink, which are the admiration of the young artist’s friends, are of little or no value in deciding the aptitude of the student. ”

“ The best books that were ever produced, from an artistic point of view, were inspired and designed by students of art and letters, men removed from the commercial scramble of life, and to whom an advertisement was a thing unknown! The ordinary art education of a publisher, and the multitude of affairs requiring his attention, unfit him generally, for the task of deciding whether an illustration is good or bad, or how far—when he cheapens the production of his book by using photographic illustrations (“snap-shots” from nature) —he is justified in calling them “art.” ”

“ In painting we learn everything from the past—everything that it is best to know. In engraving also, we learn from the past the best way to interpret colour into line, but in drawing for the processes there is practically no “past” to refer to; at the same time the advance of the photographer into the domain of illustration renders it of vital importance to artists to put forth their best work in black and white, and it throws great responsibility upon art teachers to give a good groundwork of education to the illustrator of the future. ”

“ But the sketchy style of illustration seems to be a little overdone at present, and—being tolerable only when allied to great ability—remains consequently in the hands of a few. There is plenty of talent in this country which is wasted for want of control. It plays about us like summer lightning when we want the precision and accuracy of the telegraph.
The art of colour printing (whether it be by the intaglio processes, or by chromo-lithography, or on relief blocks) has arrived at such proficiency and has become such an important industry that it should be mentioned here. ”

“ Take up any number of the Century or Harper’s magazines, and you will see that effect is the one aim. You marvel at the handling of the engraver, and forget 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 promise in art—a child that is destined to be a great 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.” ”

“ It is not the fault of the masters in our schools of art that students are taught in most cases as if they were to become painters, when the only possible career for the majority is that of illustration, or design. The masters are, for the most part, well and worthily occupied in giving a good groundwork of knowledge to every student, as to drawing for the press. ”

“ I read in an art periodical the other day, a suggestion for the better understanding of the way to draw topical illustrations in pen and ink, viz.: that examples of the work of Daniel Vierge, Rico, Abbey, Raven Hill, and other noted pen draughtsmen, should be “set as an exercise to students;” of course with explanation by a lecturer or teacher. But this is a dangerous road for the average student to travel. Of all branches of art none leads so quickly to mannerism as line work, and a particular manner when thus acquired is difficult to shake off. ”

“ Let it not be said that the chariot-wheels of the press move too fast for us—that chemistry and the sun’s rays have been utilised too soon—that, in short, the processes of reproduction have been perfected before their time! I think not, and that an art—the art of pictorial expression—which has existed for ages and is now best understood by the Japanese, may be cultivated amongst us to a more practical end. ”

“ In line work (the best and surest for the processes) photography can only be the servant of the artist, not the competitor—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 time is coming fast when cheap editions of popular novels will be illustrated—and many in the following way. The artist, instead of being called upon to draw, will occupy himself in setting and composing pictures through the aid of models trained for the purpose, and the ever-ready photographer. The “process man” and the clever manipulator on the plates, will do the rest, producing pictures vignetted, if desired, as overleaf. Much more the makers of blocks can do—and will do—with the photographs now produced, for they are earnest, untiring, ready to make sacrifices of time and money. ”

“ Let me not be understood to disparage the work of photo-engravers and others engaged on these processes; on the contrary, the amount of patience, industry, activity, and anxious care bestowed upon the reproduction of drawings and paintings is astonishing, and deserves our gratitude.17 This work is a new industry of an important kind, in which art and craft are bound up together. The day has past when “process work” is to be looked down upon as only fit for the cheapest, most inferior, and inartistic results. ”

“ During the past few years so many processes have been put forward for producing drawings in relief, for printing with the type, that it has become a business in itself to test and understand them. The best known process is still wood engraving, at least it is the best for the fac-simile reproduction of drawings, as at present understood in England, whether they be drawn direct upon the wood or transmitted by photography. There is no process in relief which has the same certainty, which gives the same colour and brightness, and by which gradation of tone can be more truly rendered. ”

“ The reason for the excellence (which is freely admitted) of American wood-engraving and printing is that, in the first place, more capital is employed upon the work. The American wood-engraver is an artist in every sense of the word, and his education is not considered complete without years of foreign study. The American engraver is always en rapport with the artist—an important matter—working often, as I have seen them at Harper’s, the Century Magazine, and Scribner’s in New York, in the same studio, side by side. ”

“ In the illustration on the last page (I have chosen an example of fine-grain dots; those used in newspapers and common prints are much more unsightly, as everyone knows) , it is obvious that the artist’s sketch is injured by this treatment, that, in fact, the result is not artistic at all. Nothing but high pressure or incompetence on the part of the illustrator can excuse this mechanical addition to an incomplete drawing; and it must be remembered that these inartistic results are not the fault of the process, or of the “process man.” ”

“ The system of producing illustrations in direct fac-simile of an artist’s drawing, suitable for printing at a type press without the aid of the wood engraver, is of such value for cheap and simple forms of illustration, and is, moreover, in such constant use, that it seems wonderful at first sight that it should not be better understood in England. ”

“ It has often been suggested that the art of printing is, after all, but a questionable blessing on account of the error and the evil disseminated by it. Without going into that question, I think that we may find that the art of printing with movable type has led to some neglect of the art of expressing ourselves pictorially, and that the apparently inexorable necessity of running every word and thought into uniform lines, has cramped and limited our powers of expression, and of communicating ideas to each other. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The genuine outcome of mediæval thought and style—of patience and leisure—seems to be treated at the end of the nineteenth century as a fashion to be imitated in books, such as are to be seen under glass cases in the British Museum. It is to be feared that the twentieth-century reader, looking back, will see few traces worth preserving, either of originality or of individuality in the work of the present. ”

“ The art of expression in line, or of expressing the effect of a picture or a landscape from Nature in a few leading lines (not necessarily outline) is little understood in this country; and if such study, as the Athenæum pointed out, is important for the wood draughtsman, how much more so in drawing for reproduction by photo-mechanical means? A few artists have the gift of expressing themselves in line, but the majority are strangely ignorant of 47 the principles of this art and of the simple fac-simile processes by which drawing can now be reproduced. ”

“ Whatever the opinion of the American system of illustration may be, there is, on the other side of the Atlantic, an amount of energy, enterprise, cultivation of hand and eye, delicacy of manipulation, and individual industry, cleverly organised to provide a wide continent with a better art than anything yet attempted in any country. ”

“ It is seldom that the illustration (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 illustration was founded in England a hundred years ago which we should do well not to forget.21
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We are fast losing sight of first principles and aiming rather at catching the eye and the public purse with a pretty page; and in doing this we are but imitators. ”

“ Amongst the modern inventions for helping the hurried or feeble illustrator, is the system of laying on mechanical dots to give shadow and colour to a pure line drawing, by process. It is a practice always to be regretted; whether applied to a necessarily hasty newspaper sketch, or to one of Daniel Vierge’s elaborately printed illustrations in the Pablo de Segovia. One cannot condemn too strongly this system, so freely used in continental illustrated sheets, but which, in the most skilful hands, seems a degradation of the art of illustration. ”

“ William Small, the well-known illustrator (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 illustration seriously and most successfully, having devoted the 171 best years of his life to its development. The moral of it is, that in whatever material or style newspaper illustrations are done, to hold their own they must be of the best. ”

“ The illustrations 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. ”