Joseph Pennell

“ Mallows is an artist; to him a drawing is as important as the building it represents; he does everything he can from nature, and his drawings of old work, notably difficult studies in perspective, like the cloisters of Gloucester, have never been equalled by any of the Prout-Harding-Cotman set. He feels that architecture and the delineation of it are a part of the fine arts—and he makes others feel it too. And to do this is simply to be an artist. This fashion of architectural drawing has spread to America and Germany, but it has no support in France. ”

“ As for the people who would vulgarize art and literature, bringing everything down to their own low level, we have them always with us. And they and their hangers-on are the ones against whom the present puritans should level their attacks—not against men whose art they do not understand, even if they do object to their personality. Still here it will be always impossible to separate a man from his work; yet good art will live, and good illustration is good art. ”

“ The work of all court and portrait painters is but the recording, that is, the illustration, of human vanity; and the work of all subject painters is but the recording, that is, the illustration, of great and important events; while landscape painting, a modern invention, is only more or less glorified topography. ”

“ Though in all its component parts—drawing, engraving, and printing—illustration is more advanced in the United States than anywhere else; still to-day, despite the excellence of much of the work done there, remarkable results are being obtained in other countries. Yet this latter-day excellence is so marked in American work that in many ways it has overshadowed that of England, France, Germany, and Spain, from the artists and engravers of which countries we Americans have derived our inspiration. ”

“ With so broad a scope at its service in the hands of artists, wood-engraving is not in the slightest danger. With the added possibilities of making new experiments, such as printing from lowered blocks, reviving chiaroscuro, and an infinitude of other processes open to the artistic wood-engraver, there is no probability of its becoming a lost art. I have nothing but the highest praise for the work of men like Cole, Kingsley, Gamm, French Jüngling, Baude, Kreull, Florian, Hendriksen, Bork, Hooper, and Biscombe Gardner. ”

“ It is not at all curious that the artists, the men who practise the art of illustration, should be found almost unanimously on one side, while the critics, whose business it is to preach about an art of which they know nothing in practice, are ranged upon the other. There are a few critics of intelligence, who understand the requirements and limitations of both process and wood-engraving, just as there are hack and superior illustrators who neither know nor care anything about any form of reproduction. ”

“ Their other duty is to edit their contributors, that is, if screwing and jewing an artist, and taking all life and soul for work out of him, can be described as editing. Lately has sprung up a species of illustrator who licks the boots of these editors and grovels before the process man. He turns out as much work as he can in the shortest space of time, knowing that he must make as many drawings as possible before some miserable creature, more contemptible than himself, comes along with an offer to do the work at half the price which he is paid. ”

“ If the standard of illustration is daily falling in France, this fall is owing mainly to the incompetence of editors and the rapacity of publishers. To-day, if one wishes to see the best work of French draughtsmen and engravers, one looks abroad for it, to America first and then to England and Germany, where French artists are forced to publish their drawings in order to obtain adequate pay or decent printing. ”

“ Altogether the arts of illustration and reproduction, and the business of publishing, in Germany are apparently in a most healthy condition. It could scarcely be otherwise, however, when we consider that one of the greatest illustrators in the world is still alive and at work there, as well as the most curious mystics, the most amusing comic draughtsmen, and the most conscientious and clever realists. ”

“ Illustration is not only the oldest, but the only form of artistic expression which graphic artists have ever been able to employ. For that matter, every expression of the artist, whether conveyed by means of monochrome or colour, even the work of the plastic artist, is but an illustration.
For an illustration is the recording, by means of some artistic medium, either of something seen by the artist which he wishes to convey to—that is, illustrate for—others ”

“ But by the fifties, the artist either had become wholly indifferent to the way in which his work was engraved, or else he was absolutely under the thumb of the engravers. His entire style, all his individuality, was sacrificed for the benefit of the engraving shop, from which blocks after him were turned out. The head of the firm whose signature they bore may never have done a stroke of work on them. Even a man strong as Charles Keene was completely broken up by this system, though he may not have realized it. ”

“ It is true Steinlein rivals Gavarni, and Marold, engraved by Florian, equals in certain ways Meissonier, engraved by Orrinsmith;—but in the majority of cases politics sit on art, and the photograph glares from the pages of the édition de luxe.
To-day an attempt is also being made to revive wood-engraving in France, and almost all over the world, except in England—where nothing would be known of any revival, or improvement, until long years after the whole matter had been settled and pigeon-holed everywhere else—and in America, where every endeavour now is made to perfect process. ”

“ Naturally, the artists have taken a personal pride in the success of the magazines with which they have been connected; in certain cases, greater probably than the proprietors themselves ever realized. They have worked with engravers; they have mastered the mysteries of process and of printing; various engravers and printers have also worked with the artist, and in many cases there has been a truer system of genuine craftsmanship than existed in the everlastingly belauded guilds of the Middle Ages. ”

“ If an artist brought a drawing to him in which there were any signs of individuality, intelligence, or striving after untried effects, his endeavour was to use that drawing, at any rate as an experiment, and to encourage the artist to go on and make others ”

“ When he proposes to reproduce another man's designs, if he is really a great wood-engraver, he recognizes that his sole function is to render the original, faithfully giving as much of the artist's handiwork as possible, and as little of his own. ”

“ From the point of view of engraving, nothing is more hopelessly monotonous than process; for the aim of the process-man, as of some of the best wood-engravers, is to render the drawing in wash, or in colour, so well, that there should be no suggestion of the methods by which the results are obtained: to give the drawing itself, and this is exactly, in the majority of cases, what the artist wants. Naturally, he prefers an absolute reproduction [Pg 45] of his drawing, to somebody else's interpretation of it. He is not eager to have another person interpret his ideas for the public ”

“ One therefore turns with interest to some of the younger men—men who have made and are making illustration their profession. Among them, one looks first to that erratic genius, Phil May, who has produced work which not only will live, but which successfully runs the gamut of all wit and humour. Nothing in its way has been done in England to approach his designs for the "Parson and the Painter." ”

“ Among wood-engravers, Baude and Florian hold the foremost place as reproductive artists, while Lepère stands quite apart, a brilliant many-sided man, at once draughtsman, engraver, etcher, and painter, a true craftsman in the best sense. ”

“ I have tried to show the methods of modern illustration, 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 illustrator 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 illustrate. ”

“ Ignorance of printing and of the improvements in that art is really in this country too awful to contemplate. The average critic will blame a competent artist for the imperfections of a process and the ignorance of a printer. ”

“ They know exactly what the public wants, for they themselves are the public they consider. The slightest attempt at the artistic rendering of a drawing, or the appearance of a new man with a new style, is enough to put them in a rage, because they cannot understand the one or the other. And the selection of "cuts which embellish"—I believe is the expression—their pages, is left to the process man, the photographer, and the cliché agent, who of course pick out the easiest they can supply. ”

“ But I do believe that illustration 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 classes 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. ”

“ Now that illustration has arrived, and by its aid many of the biggest men in France have arrived too, there has come a period of commonplaceness and content. The Frenchman, who is even more insular in his views of art than the Englishman,—unless his art is brought to him, when he proves himself catholic enough,—knows that bad work is being turned out in his own country, but believes that the same thing must be happening the world over, though he has heard vaguely of the American magazine, the German paper, and the English book. ”

“ Therefore, it seems to me that the strictures which have been applied to process are far more applicable to wood-engraving. Now that wood-engraving has become a medium for the reproduction of any and every sort of design, it has stepped quite outside its proper province. Almost anything can be done with a block of wood and a graver, but it must be evident to people of average intelligence that a very great gulf separates those things which possibly can be done, from those which rationally should be attempted. ”

“ In fine reproductive work Henry Wolf, H. Davidson, Gamm, Miss C. A. Powell, J. Tinkey, F. S. King, J. P. Davis have shown that wood-engraving is an art which can be used in the hands of a clever man or woman in a hundred ways undreamt of twenty years ago. This list makes no pretension of being complete, for new magazines, new men and new methods are springing up all over the country every few weeks, and a mere list of the illustrators and engravers would make a catalogue as large as this volume. ”

“ I have said nothing of many interesting illustrators who have come to the front almost within a few months, illustrators are being made almost daily, one cannot keep track of them, good as their work is much of it is like journalism, bound to perish, only the best will live; but when one is right in the midst of it, difficult indeed is the task of picking out the good from the almost good, the clever from the distinguished. ”

“ But this does not come really within my subject, since the making of modern illustration, that is, the employment of great artists to produce great works of art to appear with letterpress in printed books, dates entirely from this century, and is due altogether to the genius of four men: Meissonier in France, Menzel in Germany, Goya in Spain, and Bewick in England. It is to these four that modern illustration is solely and entirely due; though a word—and a strong one—of praise should be given to the patrons and publishers who employed and encouraged them. ”

“ But the praise which has been duly bestowed upon them has been unjustly lavished upon a set of people—or else, they, as they never weary of doing, have exploited themselves—who have neither the power to design nor the intelligence to appreciate a drawing when it is made, nor any technical understanding of how it was made. ”

“ Too many process-engravers encourage the most commonplace, because it is the easiest, work. They know perfectly well that mechanical engraving will reproduce almost any drawings at the present moment, but then, good reproduction demands time and trouble and artistic intelligence. But it is no wonder that process-engravers are indifferent, when we remember the lamentable ignorance displayed by some editors, whose knowledge [Pg 97] of art—in fact, of all art work—is simply nil. ”

“ Only one who has gone through the drudgery of finding drawings or blocks, in magazine, book, museum, artist's studio, or collector's portfolio, and then of getting the permission of editor, publisher, curator, artist, or amateur, to use or reproduce them, knows what this means. ”

“ On the other hand, in the old Herbals are cuts of the artist making his drawing from nature, the draughtsman putting it on the block, and the wood-cutter cutting it. When we come to engraving on metal, we find that, though the wood-cutter need not have been an artist, he only having to follow lines given him, or to make certain mechanical ones to suit himself, the metal engraver was obliged to be an artist, because he had to be able to copy the picture or design entrusted to him. ”

“ Indeed, to have one's drawings rendered satisfactorily, by the half-tone process, requires such an enormous experience and knowledge of the improvements continuously being made in the many different methods used by the different process men, that the artist, if he kept posted in all the developments and modifications, would have very little time left to produce works of art of his own. ”