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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
In "Modern Illustration," Joseph Pennell presents a comprehensive exploration of the evolution of illustration as an essential visual medium during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Pennell's articulate prose weaves together historical context, artistic movements, and technological advancements that shaped the practices and perceptions of illustration. The book is characterized by a vivid and engaging literary style, enriched by Pennell's own artistic experiences and insights into the interplay between text and image. Through a thoughtful examination of influential figures and techniques, Pennell captures the nuances of a dynamic period marked by innovation and cultural transformation. Joseph Pennell, an esteemed American illustrator, etcher, and author, was deeply immersed in the artistic and literary spheres of his time. In addition to his extensive work in illustration, his travels and interactions with prominent figures, including contemporaries in the European avant-garde movement, profoundly influenced his perspective. His multifaceted background as both an artist and a scholar informs his analysis in "Modern Illustration," providing readers with a unique lens through which to appreciate the significance of illustrated art in shaping modern visual culture. For scholars, artists, and enthusiasts alike, "Modern Illustration" serves as an invaluable resource that not only elucidates the historical development of this art form but also invites readers to reflect on its ongoing relevance. Pennell's astute observations and extensive knowledge render this work a must-read for anyone interested in the intersection of art, literature, and the visual narrative.
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Modern Illustration
Table of Contents
PREFACE.
BY BOUTET DE MONVEL. FROM “ST. NICOLAS” (DELEGRAVE).
This book is the result of a request, made to me by the editor of the Ex-Libris Series, that I should write for him something about the Illustration of to-day.
The idea, I must acknowledge, and I am glad to do so, is his, not mine. To the editor also I am indebted for much help, especially in the matter of the illustrations which the book contains; in fact, if he has not selected and chosen them all, he has performed the more difficult and thankless task of obtaining them. 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. I know from past experience, and I was therefore only too glad to shirk the work when I found Mr. Gleeson White willing to undertake it. I doubt, however, if he will ever again attempt such a task. For the appearance of the illustrations in the book he deserves the credit; for much advice and many suggestions of great value, as well as to the articles he has written, and the lectures he has delivered, on this subject, I am greatly indebted.
There are many others also whom I must thank. First of all Mr. Austin Dobson, who, when he learned I was making a study of the subject, took the trouble to put me on the track of the French illustrated books of the early part of this century, giving me a most helpful start. Without his assistance, and that of M. Beraldi, I might never have even been able to trace the true birth, development, and growth of modern illustration, which springs from Goya, the Spaniard, as draughtsman,[1] and Bewick, the Englishman, as engraver; spreading, spontaneously but quite independently, to France; thence to Germany, back again to England, and finally to America, whence it has been diffused again all over the world. 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.
Once again I must thank the authorities at South Kensington and the British Museum, Mr. E. F. Strange and the assistants; Mr. A. W. Pollard, who, though the editor of a rival series, helped me as though the book was to appear in his own collection; Professor Colvin and Mr. Lionel Cust, the latter of whom, during his stay in the Print Room of the British Museum, I bothered persistently; his transfer to a more important post is a great loss to students at the Museum; Dr. Hans Singer of Dresden, and many others.
Artists, especially those of the older generation, the men who gave illustration in this country thirty-five years ago a position it does not hold to-day, have been untiring in their interest in the book, and most helpful in every way; it has been a delight and a pleasure to meet Frederick Sandys, Birket Foster, Harrison Weir, Frederick Shields, and W. H. Hooper, just as it is an undying proof of the artistic blindness of a generation which has not the intelligence to use the work of its masters. Mr. Hooper has told me that he does not believe the Bewick blocks could be printed any better than they originally were; this is an interesting problem, but one which can never be solved; from my point of view they were badly printed. He also thinks that Bewick used overlays.
Mr. Hooper is the English master of facsimile wood-engraving; and some day, when this fact is generally discovered (as Mr. William Morris has found out, for Mr. Hooper has engraved the greater part, if not all, of Sir Edward Burne-Jones's and Mr. Morris's designs), there will be a wild and fruitless discussion among bibliographers as to the engravers of the wonderful blocks in Morris's books, and of much of the best work of 1860 to 1870, signed with the name of a firm, or a tiny mark in the most obscure corner.
Mr. Laurence Housman's article on A. Boyd Houghton in "Bibliographica" I wish I had seen before the English chapter was written, and I wish I had had the benefit of his researches concerning this master, as well as the advice of Mr. A. Strahan, which would have been invaluable.
Mr. W. J. Hennessy has given much help in the American chapter, and I must thank Mr. Emery Walker, Mr. Horace Townsend, Mr. H. Orrinsmith, Mr. C. T. Jacobi, Mr. W. E. Henley, and I cannot remember how many more. Mr. Edmund Gosse kindly allowed us to reproduce his Rossetti, one of the strongest pieces of work, I think, that artist ever did in pen and ink. The other drawings not contributed directly by artists, or not obtained as electros, etc., are mainly from my own collection, for strange as it may seem, the collection of original drawings is one of my hobbies; others may collect bad prints, I prefer good originals. The proprietors of "The Daily Chronicle" allowed us to reproduce a number of designs made for that paper, and published in it during February, 1895. That no drawings are included from many of the artists of "Fliegende Blätter" is because the proprietors refused to allow them to be reproduced or used; no doubt the publishers have daily applications of the same sort, but as a book like this is not intended as a rival to a comic paper, I think their refusal in this case rather uncalled for. Still, I have not allowed their decision to influence me, nor yet the refusal of one or two artists, who evidently prefer the advertisement of the vulgar type of weekly to being included with their equals or masters. No doubt these confessions will be greeted with applause, especially in that paper whose boast it was once to be "written by gentlemen for gentlemen." No doubt I shall be censured for leaving out the work of every man who ever happened to make an illustration or even a sketch, especially if it was privately published. No doubt the omission of Miss Alexander and other Ruskin-boomed amateurs will be noted, but I have no collection of their works which I should like to unload on the dear public. And as for the misplaced energy contained in these drawings, I am sorry that their authors wasted so much time over them. No doubt for making these confessions, unknown or anonymous nobodies will shriek out that I have stolen everything in the book from an authority of whom I never heard. And, finally, no doubt an ordinarily rational paper like the "Spectator" will remark of certain of the drawings, "they make us sick."
As to the text, it is in no sense an attempt at a complete history of modern illustration; such a subject would fill volumes, and take a lifetime to prepare. It is but a sketch, and a very slight one, of what I think is the most important work of this century; from which I know I shall be told I have omitted almost all that I should have included, and inserted much that should have been omitted.
But I should like to point out that there are no works that I have been able to consult on modern illustration, that is on drawing, engraving and printing as practised to-day in Europe and America; there are a few excellent books notably a "Chapter on English Illustration," by Mr. Dobson, in Mr. Lang's "The Library," and Mr. Linton's works on engraving; Mason Jackson's "Pictorial Press;" a few good monographs on the great illustrators, Champfleury's "Vignettes Romantiques," for example; many excellent scattered articles, and an ocean of rubbish. But I am the unfortunate who will be sacrificed for attempting to write the first book on a subject he loves. There is another most serious, really insurmountable difficulty, for me or anyone else who attempts to write of modern illustration: no illustrations are catalogued to any extent; only the most important illustrators find a place in either the catalogues of South Kensington Art Library or the British Museum; therefore a few years, even a few weeks, after an illustrated book is published, if it has already passed through several editions, it may require hours to find the edition one wants. And as for a special illustration, that necessitates almost always turning over thousands of pages—unless one knows exactly where to find it. I know of but one magazine—"Once a Week"—in the bound volumes of which the artist's work is properly indexed, and even here the engraver's name is omitted.[2] In Harper's most excellently conducted magazine, for some unknown reason artists and engravers are ignored in the index. Even "The Century" leaves much to be desired in this way. Again, it is almost impossible to obtain the date or the name of the work in which many an important illustration first appeared. Illustrations are used over and over again, this has always been done; even a publisher at times cannot help one: for this reason it is very difficult to tell when one is consulting a first edition of an illustrated book. Sometimes I fancy this carelessness is not altogether unassociated with the author's or publisher's desire to palm off old blocks as new. It is by no means uncommon to omit the name of the artist altogether from the work he has illustrated; rarely indeed is it that the engraver's name is given; sometimes no mention that the work is illustrated is even made on the title page, or only that it contains so many illustrations; usually if an attempt is made to describe the method by which the designs have been reproduced, it is wrong; in rare cases, I am glad to say, this is intentional—photogravures being called etchings, for example—but it is mainly the result of sheer ignorance on the part of publisher, author, or at times, the illustrator.
Hence there are two matters to which I should like to call attention; that all library catalogues give the name of artist and engraver whenever these are printed in the book being catalogued; naturally in a work like this or a magazine, such a course would be impossible, but at least the number of illustrations might be given. The name of the illustrator should always appear on the title page when possible; if his work is worth printing he should have a decent amount of attention drawn to it. This matter is not so difficult, nor would it entail in new catalogues so much work as librarians might think, for I may say in the British Museum and South Kensington I find that Menzel's work is so catalogued already.
Secondly, that bibliographers everywhere should turn their attention more to modern illustrated works, even if from the bibliographer of the future it removed much of that pleasant uncertainty which enhances, for some, the work of to-day. There is scarce an illustrated book of the fifteenth or sixteenth century, in which we are absolutely sure of the artist and engraver; but the bibliographers of the future will have a far bigger puzzle to solve, unless we pay some attention to the work of to-day, when they come to catalogue and describe the books of this century.
Most illustrators, it is true, now sign their drawings, but I should not care to attempt a catalogue of my own work.
I have no doubt that I have omitted to mention some really important books, but they have been omitted because I have never seen them; with no good catalogue, no guide, many of the artists dead, and the books dead too, how is one to find them? I have done what I could to make a start; I only hope some one will carry it on; certainly I am sure some of my sincere flatterers will imitate me, as they always do.
But to-day the output of illustration is overwhelming; to study the subject properly one must see all the books, magazines, and papers published all over the world. No one man has a chance to do this, and, if he had, the mere looking at such a mass of material would take up all his time. Yet one must get some idea of what is being done, for in the most unexpected places the best work often appears; originality is barred in many, so-called, high-class journals, and has to struggle, in the cheapest publications, with the printing-press, ink, and paper.
What magazine, for example, has eclipsed "The Daily Chronicle's" experiment in illustration? Within the same short period no such distinguished band of contributors ever appeared.
Again, in this book it is repeatedly stated that certain artists are at work on certain publications; these have since appeared; I can only say that the book was not made in a day, and the artists, engravers, and printers to whom I have referred, have worked faster than I have. Even the "Yellow Book" has come into existence, and been artistically eclipsed—I hope but for a short while—since I have been working at this volume. Temporarily, the shrieking brother and sisterhood have hurt the pockets of a few artists; but illustrators may be consoled by remembering that from the time of Dürer to the pre-Raphaelites, from Whistler to Eternity, Art never has been and never will be understanded of the people; but they no longer dare to burn our productions, they only write to the newspapers about them. Art can stand that—even though it, for the moment, is hard on the artist.
It is now no longer necessary for me to insist on the importance of illustration; it is acknowledged, and, save that academic honours are denied him in this country, the illustrator ranks with any other practitioner of the fine or applied arts.
Nor do I propose to contradict the statement that one can see too much good art; well, the Elgin marbles stood for centuries where only the blind could avoid them, and I have not heard that the Athenians were injured in consequence; now they are shut up in boxes, and only visible at certain times, hence the British taste has been so elevated, that the ha'penny comic and the photograph have become its ideal. Still, if people could see every day, as they had the chance of seeing this year in the "Chronicle," illustrations by Whistler and Burne-Jones, I do not think they would be harmed, even if they did not happen to have to travel in a penny 'bus to the British Museum, or take a Cook's ticket and a shilling Ruskin in order to walk in Florence. My opinion is, the better the art around us, even in the penny paper, the better shall we be able to appreciate the work we must travel to see.
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 world may or may not appreciate it, still "there never was an artistic period, there never was an art-loving nation."
Footnote
Since this preface was written much has happened, and I hope I have learned a little. A show of wood-engravings was held in March, 1895, in Stationers' Hall, which demonstrated clearly that there are many capable artists in this branch of illustration, though at present they have but little encouragement to practise their art; in that exhibition one saw much good work, and I must at least record the names of H. Harral and C. Roberts among English engravers on wood who have done notable large blocks—while excellent engraving has been recently accomplished by Messrs. M. Stainforth, O. Lacour, J. D. Cooper, R. Paterson, A. Worf, F. Babbage, J. M. Johnstone, and W. Spielmeyer, the latter of whom was good enough to give me much help in the German chapter of this book. Edmund Evans, the engraver and colour-printer, loaned me the original drawings on the wood by Birket Foster, William Harvey, and Harrison Weir, now for the first time reproduced, while William Archer allowed us to reproduce the Tegner on page 72.
Among artists too I should have noted the work of G. H. Thomas and Samuel Palmer, who made some designs for Sacred Allegories, mainly engraved by W. T. Green, 1856. One of the earliest and best of modern illustrated books, "Poets of the Nineteenth Century," 1857, and Wilmott's "Sacred Poetry," 1863, are worth preservation for their illustrations. The more I see of this illustration of twenty or thirty years ago, the better and more interesting I find it. Arthur Hughes' work grows on one; certainly his illustrations to Christina Rossetti's "Sing Song," are very charming. I have made no mention scarcely of the splendid work Charles Green, Luke Fildes, and Fred. Barnard did for Charles Dickens. My only excuse is that till yesterday I never saw it. Griset's grotesques, too, I have but just come across—but while one is looking up the work of a few years ago, that of the present is unseen. 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.
London,September 30th, 1895.
MODERN ILLUSTRATION.
INTRODUCTION.
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; or else the direct interpretation by some artistic means of a written description, or the chronicling of an historical event; or, it is a composition which has been suggested to him by some occurrence in nature; or, again, his impression of some phase of nature or life. Therefore all art is illustration, though it rather seems to follow that all illustration is not art.
In the past, the great illustrators were employed by the great patrons of art in the church and at court. The church, by means of graphic or plastic illustration, warned or encouraged her followers, terrifying them by endless purgatories and infernos, more gruesome and ghastly than the British idea of the Salon picture; turning their thoughts towards heaven mainly by cloying sweetness, which the typical member of the Royal Academy finds much difficulty in approaching. Though such illustration, in a certain sense, was made for the people, it was not given into their possession as modern illustration is to-day; it was meant not for their pleasure, but for their instruction.
The old illustrator in his work was simply nothing if not a moralist, though he himself may have been a most amusing person, while his treatment of even the most sacred subjects was frequently the broadest and most suggestive. Still, he was commissioned solely to "point a moral and adorn a tale." As for the court painters, their work was never seen by the people at all, any more than it is now, often luckily. But what were the portraits of Velasquez, the groups of Rembrandt, the feasts of Veronese, the processions of Carpaccio? 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.
With the writing and illustrating of manuscripts, however, there had been developed a school of minor artists and craftsmen: illuminators and scribes who—mainly taking for their subjects either a portion of some painting by a master, but usually the mere mechanical part of the early painters' backgrounds, the mechanical gold punch design of the primitives, the elaborate, but mannered and conventional, foregrounds of Botticelli, and the entire compositions, more or less altered, of Fra Angelico and Pinturicchio—by "lifting" these things judiciously, evolved the art of illumination. It must be borne in mind that this illumination, in its detail and accessories often very beautiful and conventionally decorative, in its main subject almost always as realistic as possible, was the work, with two or three most notable exceptions, of second- and third-rate clever technicians, but in no sense great creative artists at all. Only a few well-known painters were ever employed to illuminate important manuscripts.
After the introduction of printing, the same state of affairs continued. Although the most beautiful books which came from the early German press appeared during the lifetime of Dürer, his contributions as an illustrator are curiously limited, considering the amount of black-and-white work which he produced. He illustrated not more than three or four books, and of these only the Missal of the Emperor Maximilian was worked out completely.[3] The great Italians never did anything of any importance, if we except Botticelli's designs for Dante which were never completed. Velasquez has left nothing behind him; nor has Rembrandt. A few of Rubens' sketches for title-pages exist in Antwerp, and Dürer's monograms and various decorative designs have proved a veritable mine for the minor artists, or greatest thieves—I mean the decorators—who are with us still. With the exception of Hans Holbein, there never was in the past a great artist who devoted himself to illustration. The glorification of these minor craftsmen into great illustrators is unjust, incorrect, and absurd, when one seriously considers it. Dürer's designs were really published and sold as portfolios of engravings, or separately, although there was a little text with them, but not as illustrated books. So, too, were those of Rubens; while Rembrandt's etchings were altogether published separately. It was the same with the work of the early Italians. Holbein is almost the only exception proving the rule that great artists in the past were not illustrators of books. Still, one can never be absolutely certain on this point, since on some of the finest books, like the "Hypnerotomachia," a great artist was employed whose name has never been recorded.
Although it is impossible now to give with absolute certainty the true reasons why the best-known artists did not illustrate the important publications of their own day, there seem to be three very good ones. First, because it is almost certain that the wood-cutter, when he was known at all, and this implied his being reasonably successful, was the head of a large shop in which the artist and the actual engraver were mere necessary evils; the proprietor, I do not doubt, taking not only all the credit, as we know, but most likely the bulk of the cash as well. Secondly, we have Dürer's own testimony that his wood-cutters were incompetent, and careless, and the much belauded line of Dürer which one is bidden to admire in the wood-block to-day, he himself, it is almost certain, did not cut.[4] But he sketched freely on paper, his design was then copied by another person on the block, and the third man cut it. That Dürer did work on the wood, correcting his designs and criticising his wood-cutters, there can be little doubt, simply from the improvement in this method of reproduction which began with him. But the reason that a great artist like Dürer did not contribute illustrations to books most probably is because he was not decently paid for them, and because his designs were all cut to pieces. Finally, not only was almost all the engraving, except work done under the direct supervision, or influence, of Dürer, absolutely characterless so far as the quality of the line went, but there is not a single early printed book to be found in which the illustrations are decently printed. There is scarcely a solid black in any of them.[5]
When one considers these facts, which have been carefully ignored by a small set of artists, and, of course, are absolutely unknown to the ordinary critic and authority on the early printed book, two things become evident. First, that the great artists of the past did not illustrate; and, second, that the reason they did not was because they could be neither decently engraved nor printed.
With the introduction of steel and copper-plate engraving and etching, the paintings and sculptures of great artists were not infrequently used as the subjects of book illustrations, but they were seldom made expressly for the books they illustrate. And as the steel or copper engraving must be printed separately, and as the best proofs of these engravings were almost always sold as separate works of art, it hardly seems to me that engravings on metal or on stone, like lithographs, properly come under the head of illustration for printed books.
The use of what we call now clichés and stock blocks was almost universal, even from the very invention of printing, when the illustrations to the block-books were cut up for this purpose; and not only this: the same map was made to do duty for as many countries as were required, and one and the same portrait or town served for as many characters and places as happened to figure in the book. While, under the heading of appropriateness of decoration and fitness, it may be remarked that most of the old printers only had one set of initials, and if they did possess two sets of borders, they usually chopped them up, and, by judicious mixing, obtained a variety apparently pleasing to their patrons.
It is not until the eighteenth century that one finds artists of note illustrating books, always with the exception of Holbein. Even then the illustrations were usually steel or copper-plate engravings made very freely from other men's drawings, although the artists were beginning to be commissioned to produce designs themselves. One might devote much space to the work of Piranesi, Canaletto, Watteau, Greuze, Hogarth, Chodowiecki, and the illustrators of La Fontaine. 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.
