Pictograph

“ It is not believed that any considerable information of value in an historical point of view will be obtained directly from the interpretation of the pictographs in North America. The only pictures which can be of great antiquity are rock-carvings and those in shell or similar substances resisting the action of time, which have been or may be found in mounds. The greater part of those already known are simply peckings, etchings, or paintings delineating natural objects, very often animals, and illustrate the beginning of pictorial art. ”

“ Pictographs, when of bright colors and upon a light-colored surface, may readily be traced upon tracing linen, such as is employed by topographers. Should the rock be of a dark color, and the characters indistinct, a simple process is to first follow the pictographic characters in outline with colored crayons, red chalk, or dry colors mixed with water and applied with a brush, after which a piece of muslin is placed over the surface and pressed so as to receive sufficient coloring matter to indicate the general form and relative positions of the characters. ”

“ As petroglyphs are much more permanent than pictographs on more perishable materials, they are more likely to be preserved from ancient times, but it is probable that the latter were actually of more frequent occurrence.
There is no single system of pictography. Everywhere a figure of a man means a man, and that of a tree stands for a tree, and to this extent pictographs can be deciphered by any one. ”

“ The importance of the study of pictographs depends upon their examination as a phase in the evolution of human culture, or as containing valuable information to be ascertained by interpretation.
The invention of alphabetic writing being by general admission the great step marking the change from barbarism into civilization, the history of its earlier development must be valuable. ”

“ The next step was to a few compound pictograms which would naturally suggest themselves to primitive man: 旦 the sun just above the horizon = “dawn”; 林 trees side by side = “a forest”; 舌 a mouth with something solid coming out of it = “the tongue”; 言 a mouth with vapor or breath coming out of it = “words.”
But a purely pictographic script has its limitations. The more complex natural objects hardly come within its scope; still less the whole body of abstract ideas. ”

“ In the latter section the author suggests that the proper mode of interpretation of pictographs whose origin and significance are unknown is that they are to be primarily supposed to be objective representations, but may be, and often are, ideographic, and in a limited number of cases may have become symbolic, but that the strong presumption without extrinsic evidence is against the occult or esoteric symbolism often attributed to the markings under discussion. ”

“ The employment of pictographs to designate tribes, groups within tribes, and individual persons has been the most frequent of all the uses to which they have been applied. Indeed, the constant need that devices to represent the terms styled by grammarians proper names should be readily understood for identification has, more than any other cause, maintained and advanced pictography as an art, and in some parts of the world has evolved from it syllabaries and afterwards alphabets. ”

“ The impressionist painters adhere to a style of composition that apparently ignores all previous laws. They depict life in scraps and pigments, as it appears haphazard in the finder or on the ground glass of the camera. The mechanism of the camera is essentially the one medium which renders every interpretation impressionistic, and every photographic print, [Pg 164] whether sharp or blurred, is really an impression.
How did the impressionistic painters arrive at this new style of composition? Permit me two questions. When was impressionism introduced into painting? In the sixties. ”

“ For the production of a pictorial newspaper a large staff of draughtsmen and engravers is required, who must be ready at a moment’s notice to take up any subject, and, if necessary, work day and night until it is done. The artist who supplies the sketch has acquired by long practice a rapid method of working, and can, by a few strokes of his pencil, indicate a passing scene by a kind of pictorial shorthand, which is afterwards translated and extended in the finished drawing. ”

“ The Illustrator.—The employment of wood engravings in conjunction with literature created a new phase of artistic work. The task of the illustrator or designer is peculiar. He sketches out his design on the wood block, and then passes it on to the engraver. His drawing is not intended as a permanent form of pictorial art, but as a suggestive sketch, which, while perfectly intelligible to the engraver, will be free from such intricacies in its composition as might interfere with its effective interpretation. ”

“ In order to give the likeness and correct drawing, the face and bust and hands of portraits are taken by the lens, and then enlarged to the size of an ordinary water-colour sketch, which the artist colours and finishes off in the form of a vignette portrait, by a few free washes of the brush. It is almost impossible to tell these exquisite works of art from an ordinary water-colour, but that the drawing of the face and hands is beyond the human draughtsman’s power. ”

“ The advantages of this method of drawing are apparent. The artist, being able to work directly on the enlarged photograph of the object, obtains absolutely correct outlines and detail. The drawing, when finished, is sent to the gallery, where it is photographed to the required size of the plate. The [36] focus of the camera is carefully adjusted with the aid of a focusing glass, so that the negative resulting will be perfectly sharp. This must be carefully done, for unless the negative be sharp a perfect plate cannot be obtained by any process. ”

“ Photography has been a considerable aid to the pictorial side of book illustration, and has, on the other hand, been a great help to designers of decorative illustration, for by the use of photography the designer is enabled to have the work of his hand reproduced in facsimile, as in the process block method, which has been such a powerful rival and competitor to all kinds of engraving that it has now almost crushed them out of existence. ”

“ The rules of composition which may be found to apply in one of the pictorial arts must necessarily apply equally in the others, and so therefore to pictorial photography which at least aspires to be considered an art. If on a sheet of paper a rectangular space is given us wherein to draw the likeness of anything, the most natural course to pursue would be to draw that figure in the centre or thereabouts, and if then we are asked to add the likeness of two or three more objects we should naturally place these near the first object. ”

“ Quite so; and it is in just such a light that engraving is or ought to be regarded. A picture, whether illustrating [69] a story or recording an artistic impression, is never so great as when it enchants the imagination with an ideal presence. Absolute realism is not always desirable either in pictorial art or pictorial expression. No matter how realistic it may be, it is a doubtful gain to introduce into the composition of a picture a mass of detail which might only prove disconcerting, and distract attention from the main issues of the subject. ”

“ ENGRAVINGS, ETCHINGS, PRINTS When we visit an art gallery we find pictures in all mediums—oil, water color, pastel, charcoal, pencil, pen and ink; and then farther on we find photographs, etchings, engravings (steel, copper, and wood) , and lithographs.
It takes much careful study and practice before we can expect to recognize the medium or process used. Most of us recognize water color, oil, pencil, charcoal, and pastel work, but prints made from engravings, etchings, and photographic plates are more difficult to distinguish. ”

“ PICTORIAL initials were not greatly in favour during the golden age of printing, and there is much to be said against them on the score of appropriateness and good taste. If capital letters were all either round or oval, one great difficulty would be removed from the artist's path, for a decorative circle or oval, even if a tail or handle has to be added to it, makes no bad frame for a little picture. ”

“ It does not end until he has recorded that subject in some permanent form, such as a painting, a drawing, or a celluloid negative. In the recording, or treatment, the painter tries to improve the composition of his subject. He changes the curves of the vase and the flower somewhat in order to obtain a more definite unity. He softens the emphasis in one place and heightens it in another. He balances shape against shape. He swings into the picture a rhythm of line and tone which he hopes may express to some beholder the harmony which he, the artist, feels. ”

“ When photogenic drawings are finished in a perfect way, the designs then taken on the plate or paper are exceedingly beautiful and correct, 203 and will bear to be inspected with a considerable magnifying power, so that the most minute portions of the objects delineated may be distinctly perceived. We have seen portraits, finished in this way by a London artist, with an accuracy which the best miniature painter could never attempt—every feature being so distinct, as to bear being viewed with a deep magnifier. ”

“ A Light Sketch and a Silhouette a candle or some other light at such an angle that the shadow of the profile was thrown on a sheet of paper pinned on a wall; then by tracing the outline of the shadow with a soft pencil, or piece of charcoal, you secured an outline sketch. The size of the picture is its disadvantage. Who wants a life-sized outline of even their dearest and their best?
But in a sizeable, careful little outline drawing of a friend's features filled with black ink or paint we have an old-fashioned method of portraiture—the silhouette. ”

“ The aim. We wish from the first to make it clearly understood as to what is our object in comparing photography with the other pictorial arts. It is not to condemn any of the other arts as inadequate for artistic expression, for we hold that good art, as expressed even by a lead pencil, is better than bad art expressed on the largest of canvases, but our object is to inquire what position the technique of photography takes when regarded side by side with the methods and limits of each of the pictorial arts. ”

“ When a photo-lithograph like a pen and ink drawing is to be prepared from a coloured picture, or from a sepia or Indian ink wash drawing of a plastic object or a photograph from nature, or from an object not suitable for photographic reproduction an autotypic transfer is to be prepared, a proof of the desired object must be first prepared, and then from this the drawing is to be made. ”

“ It is a distinctly progressive process which possesses immense advantages and represents an effective and by no means inartistic aspect of the graphic arts. The lavish, and in many instances extravagant, employment of process engraving for purposes of pictorial illustration is a substantial proof of its popularity and illustrative value. It may not always reach a high standard of artistic realisation, but it is almost invariably realistic and attractive in its varied forms of representation. ”

“ In portrait engraving a mere likeness may easily be portrayed by a simple outline. Not so, however, with character. Considerable amplification will be necessary to show that; and this, perhaps, is the most difficult task of the engraver—to introduce a satisfactory amount of essential detail without detracting in any way from a pleasing general effect in the picture.
Composition.—In its broadest sense composition in graphic art refers to the putting together or combination of the various details into a pleasing and effective picture. It may comprise— (1) the choice of a subject ”

“ Four baths are used, each of different strengths, the strongest is used first, the weakest last. I quote from the catalogue of the Boston Art Museum, of the exhibition illustrating the technical methods of the Reproductive Arts and Photo-Mechanical Processes, held January 8, 1892: "Photo-aquatint (photogravure) for the production of half-tone intaglio plates from photographs from nature, paintings, etc. A dry aquatint ground is laid on a metal plate, and over this is mounted a gelatine negative film, made by the pigment printing process. ”

“ One spot or circumference there should be toward which through the suppression of other parts the eye is led at once. When there, even though the vision has passed far into the canvas, one is at the focal point only, the true goal of the pictorial intention. Any element which proves too attractive along this avenue of entrance is confusing to the sight and weakening to the impression. ”

“ Now a picture is a thing of paint upon a flat surface, and a drawing is a matter of certain marks upon a paper, and how to translate the intricacies of a visual or imagined impression to the prosaic terms of masses of coloured pigment or lines and tones is the business with which our technique is concerned. The ease, therefore, with which a painter will be able to remember an impression in a form from which he can work, will depend upon his power to analyse vision in this technical sense. ”