Picture book

“ To be shown through a picture-book is one of their highest gratifications; and as usual, their strong imitative tendency presently generates in them the ambition to make pictures themselves also. This effort to depict the striking things they see is a further instinctive exercise of the perceptions—a means whereby still greater accuracy and completeness of observation are induced. And alike by trying to interest us in their discoveries of the sensible properties of things, and by their endeavours to draw, they solicit from us just that kind of culture which they most need. ”

“ These two latter things are, indeed, the one absolutely necessary gift that we should claim of art. The picture-book is not, perhaps, absolutely necessary to man’s life, but it gives us such endless pleasure, and is so intimately connected with the other absolutely necessary art of imaginative literature that it must remain one of the very worthiest things toward the production of which reasonable men should strive.
AN ESSAY ON PRINTING, BY WILLIAM MORRIS AND EMERY WALKER, FROM ARTS AND CRAFTS ESSAYS BY MEMBERS OF THE ARTS AND CRAFTS EXHIBITION SOCIETY. ”

“ Picture book libraries Savage tribes in general have not progressed beyond the image stage of writing or at most beyond a sort of syllabic stage which corresponds to what we know as the rebus. This picture writing is the known origin however of all the oldest historical writing systems. As we all know, children too read their picture books long before they read print or writing. Picture writing and picture books have always survived among cultured nations and have a great vogue to-day, especially through the introduction of pictures into newspapers and through moving pictures. ”

“ In buying books for young children, therefore, care should be taken to select only those which have high artistic value, or which give accurate delineations of natural and familiar objects, rather than those cheap and nasty productions which in colour and design are second cousins to the mock valentines of our youth. It may be noted that, when a baby's interest in pictorial literature begins to abate, or to assume a destructive form, an old newspaper makes a most effective substitute for a picture-book. ”

“ In the last quarter of a century our decorative work has improved in the most striking manner; our illustrations, if judged merely for their pictorial qualities, have not advanced. In the eyes of artists the sketches for book-work now being produced in other countries are probably as good as our own. But an illustration is not merely a picture, it is a picture to be placed in a certain position in a printed book, and in due relation to the size of the page and the character of the type. ”

“ These Four Volumes contain about 450 pictures; each one being complete in itself, and bound in an attractive paper cover, in boards (also with coloured Illustrations, 2s.)
The Four Volumes bound together form the "Favourite Picture Book," bound in cloth, price 5s., or coloured Illustrations, gilt edges, 10s. 6d.
Australian Babes in the Wood (The) : a True Story told in Rhyme for the Young. Price 1s. boards, 1s. 6d. cloth, gilt edges. ”

“ Low racks for picture books and the magazines for children are convenient and attractive. A space for picture bulletins or illustrated reading lists is useful as a means of attracting attention to fresh interest in reading, to material on popular subjects, or to neglected classes of books. If framed pictures 55 can be afforded, there are good prints, lithographs and photographs which, if carefully chosen, can be both decorative and educational from the standpoint of art, as well as pleasing in themselves to the children. ”

“ Many pictures, particularly portraits, by bringing up reminiscences, are a great source of consolation. In millions of houses the most-loved and treasured possession is the photographic album containing the likenesses of dear absent or departed friends. ”

“ The young child's picture gallery is a wonderful room with clean, white walls waiting for the artist to take up the task of painting and hanging the pictures. This artist is young and inexperienced and easily influenced and guided by one older and more accurate.
The parents should realize that this gallery is going to be rapidly filled with pictures, and that the choice of these pictures can be almost entirely under their control. You can help your child's imagination paint clean, wholesome pictures that will result in helpful and constructive influence upon his life. ”

“ After the paper is dried to the glass, paste on each corner some small flower or rosebud to finish and cover the corner folds. Paste a hanger at the back of the picture and you are through with your work. You can [139] frame pictures for your own room this way and you can make dainty little gifts this way too. Save all the pretty pictures you find to use like this.
I won’t tell you any more today. I’m telling you a great deal because, you see, I want you and Henry and Katherine to enjoy the Magic Book as much as possible before train-time. ”

“ But pictures are not only a means of education, for they bring pleasure, comfort, and education combined. STEELE says:—"Beautiful pictures are the entertainment of pure minds." G. P. PUTMAN says:— "How many an eye and heart have been fascinated by an enchanting picture." CICERO says:—"The eyes are charmed by pictures, and the ears by music." JOHN GILBERT says:—"Pictures are consolers of loneliness; they are a sweet flattery to the soul, they are a relief to the jaded mind; they are windows to the imprisoned thought ”

“ On the press the printed pages of our book meet and make the acquaintance of the illustrated or picture pages with which they are henceforth to be so intimately associated. In the building of a book the artist's part must by no means be overlooked, for a well-illustrated book, especially if intended for youthful readers, like the one we are considering, is doubled in value by its pictures. ”

“ The young person who likes to draw will find the device illustrated of great assistance for outlining a portrait or a bit of scenery which can be filled in to make the picture. The camera consists of a box without a cover, about 12 in. ”

“ An Edition is also published mounted on cloth, price 12s.
"'The Picture Pleasure Book' is really the child's joy, for it gives him large folio pages full of woodcuts, executed in the best style of art, teaching him natural history, educating his eye to good drawing and graceful form, and telling stories in pictures. It is an admirable design, and no house that holds children should be without it."—Critic.
LONDON: ADDEY AND CO., 21. OLD BOND STREET.
Printed by Thomas Clark Shaw, of No. ”

“ Even in our own day, very young people and the uncultivated classes care little for any but figure-painting: children pass over the landscapes in their picture books, and fasten at once upon the man on horseback or the boy with a top. The first object they try to draw for themselves is a human face. ”

“ In the centre of the mantelpiece was a photograph, the photograph of a man a little older, perhaps, than this newly-arrived visitor, with rounder face, dressed in country tweeds, a flower in his buttonhole, the picture of a prosperous man, yet with a curious, almost disturbing likeness to the pale, over-nervous, loose-framed youth whose eye had been attracted by its presence, and who was gazing at it, spellbound. ”

“ Even when the sun shines brilliantly, it seldom touches the grand piano in the recess, or the folio music-books on the stand, or the book-shelves on the wall, or the unfinished picture of a blooming schoolgirl hanging over the chimneypiece; her flowing brown hair tied with a blue riband, and her beauty remarkable for a quite childish, almost babyish, touch of saucy discontent, comically conscious of itself. ”

“ In a camera obscura the butcher's cart and the figure of one of our own family amuse us. So a portrait of a well-known face gratifies us. Turn the eyes upside down, by looking at the landscape through your legs, and how agreeable is the picture, though you have seen it any time these twenty years! ”

“ Here, then, we have some of the types of picture-work: the picture and the story, the parable in its various forms, and the word-picture—whether of things or actions; illustrations or side-lights, the "likes" with which a skilful teacher illumines his teaching, and the objects, models, maps, and sketches on pad or blackboard, with which he re-enforces the lagging imaginations of his hearers.
What, then, is a picture? A picture is anything that helps us to see more clearly, feel more heartily, and act upon more faithfully the truth which is not or cannot be immediately present to our senses. ”

“ An intelligent lad who has a definite motive like this can learn a great deal by placing iracing-paper over the photograph of a good composition, and outlining in pencil the strongest lines. I am confident that ingenious mothers and teachers can make a great deal of picture-posing or tableaux to show the children how much better the effect is when the figures are properly related. ”

“ The children will delight in this game of ‘picture-painting’ all the more if the mother introduce it by describing some great picture-gallery she has seen—pictures of mountains, of moors, of stormy seas, of ploughed fields, of little children at play, of an old woman knitting,—and goes on to say, that though she does not paint her pictures on canvas and have them put in frames, she carries about with her just such a picture-gallery; for whenever she sees anything lovely or interesting, she looks at it until she has the picture in her ‘mind’s eye’ ”

“ A small portfolio of his charcoal reproductions or a few photographs of his pictures should be a part of the print collection of every artist. No better designer of small groups ever lived.
With the amount of good art now coming from the camera it is strange that no groups of note have been produced.12 In the field of pure portraiture the attempt may as well be abandoned. The photographer can at best but mitigate conditions. The picture group can only apply when sacrifice and subordination are possible. ”

“ For if we can not see a picture in a fine piece of music or hear the strains of a distant song in a picture,—if we can not drink of the beauty of both with the eye as well as the ear,—we had better seek entertainment in a picture gallery, where hang many a visible palpable specimen of colors rioting in quadrangles of gilded mouldings, of colors clamoring for recognition in the little square horizons of the artist's soul. ”

“ The use of pictures in language work runs through all the school grades. The picture furnishes something to talk about or write about. It stimulates observation, starts up the thinking apparatus, and arouses the imagination. Among younger children teachers usually prefer story pictures, that is, illustrative or anecdotic compositions embodying a more or less dramatic situation. The pupil is drawn out by a series of questions: “When did the action take place, that is, at what time of the day or season of the year?” ”

“ We can certainly spare both the ground and the funds which would enable us to exhibit pictures for which no price is thought too large, and for all purposes of study and for most of enjoyment pictures are useless when they are even a little above the line. The fatigue complained of by most persons in examining a picture gallery is attributable, not only to the number of works, but to their confused order of succession, and to the straining of the sight in endeavoring to penetrate the details of those above the eye. ”

“ Too much gilding, too many gaudy oil paintings attract the eye and distract the mind.
There is a simple picture in my room, red curtains, a white-robed child kneeling, that is all, but everything in it harmonizes, and it harmonizes with the furnishings of the room, and my eye is often drawn toward it.
One authority objects to portraits as a decoration. "Their presence, if at all impressive, is too stimulating."
Picture frames should never be so gorgeous as to distract the mind from the picture. "Frames are to protect the picture and relate it to the walls." ”

“ I wondered next, how it would work to make a picture of my fancy. I doubted not for a moment that it would not make an ordinary picture. An every-day painting is a mere reproduction, on a piece of silk or canvas of what one sees around, as it is, or else after filtering it [99] through an æsthetic eye. A picture has done its part, when a flower looks the flower it is, the water as it reflects in the eye, and human characters animate as in life. ”

“ Thus by the magic of pictorial design our vision is caught and so controlled that a single glance, sweeping the picture in the direction ordained by the artist, gives us a definite feeling of movement. ”

“ On the whole, it is much better to have a few good things than many inferior prints.
In one sense any and every picture is a story picture. An active imagination may weave a drama out of the most meager material. The figure of an animal, Landseer’s Newfoundland Dog, let us say, may sug- gest all sorts of exploits to form an endless tale. A portrait, like the head of Van Dyck’s Prince Charles, may be the starting-point of the life-story of the Merry Monarch. This story use of the picture is perfectly legitimate, but it is not the original intention of the artist. ”

“ Picture-posing opens a very interesting class of subjects for the amateur photographer. When his ingenuity is taxed for new ideas, he can find pleasure and profit in reproducing the compositions of the masters. If he has groups of figures to arrange, he may interest his sitters in posing à la some famous portrait group of an old master. ”

“ After all, what does it matter what the child likes best, pianos, pictures, or what-not, so long as it is something in this fairyland of art which will make him want to come again? That is the great desideratum. A picture gallery on a free day is a delightful resort for children. One can pick up many chance acquaintances there. The choosing game almost always meets a response. I have sometimes managed to make friends very quickly with stray young visitors by proposing that we all walk around slowly, and choose the picture we like best. ”