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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
In "The Illustration of Books," Joseph Pennell presents a comprehensive exploration of the symbiotic relationship between text and illustration, delving into the historical evolution and artistic techniques employed in book design. With a keen eye for detail, Pennell employs a blend of critical analysis and personal reflection, offering insights into various illustrative styles that have accompanied literature from the Victorian era to his contemporaneous time. This work not only serves as a visual feast for the reader but also contextualizes the significance of illustrations within the literary domain, revealing their power to enhance narrative engagement and convey complex themes. Joseph Pennell, an esteemed American artist and illustrator, was deeply influenced by his experiences in the fields of art and publishing, which passionately drove him to illuminate the essential role of illustrations in literature. A prolific figure in the early 20th century, Pennell's background as an engraver and his connections to prominent literary and artistic circles enable him to reflect on the harmonic interplay between artistry and literature. This dual perspective enriches his narrative, providing a deeper understanding of the book's illustrative practices and innovations. For scholars, artists, and bibliophiles alike, "The Illustration of Books" is an essential read that transcends mere visual analysis, inviting readers to appreciate the nuanced dialogue between image and text. Pennell'Äôs eloquent prose combined with his authoritative insights makes this volume a significant contribution to the fields of literary studies and book arts. It is an indispensable resource for anyone seeking to comprehend the artistry that breathes life into the literary tradition.
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The Illustration of Books
Table of Contents
PREFACE.
THESE lectures were delivered in the Slade School, University College, at the request and suggestion of Professor F. Brown, and, I believe, were the first, or among the first, serious attempts in this country to point out all the various methods of making and reproducing drawings for book and newspaper illustration.
Since they were first delivered, now some three winters ago, courses of lectures on illustration, and classes for instruction in drawing and engraving have been started in almost all art schools.
It seemed to me, therefore, that a small manual on the subject might be useful.
There is no attempt in this book to define Art, or even to tell the student how to draw; that he learns in his ordinary school work. Still less is there any endeavour to dictate, or even suggest, any especial style, or manner of handling, or technique.
But illustration is, up to a certain point, a mechanical craft, which must be learned, and can be learned, by any one. And ignorance of the requirements and absolute necessities are evident all around us.
The book, therefore, might rather be described as a series of tips or hints—to put it on as low a plane as possible—the result of practical experience, which should enable the student to make his drawings so that they will produce a good effect on the printed page; but, first of all, he must be able to make the drawing well. No one can teach him that; but he can be taught what materials he should use, where he can get them, and how he should employ them. That is all I have tried to do.
As I have said in this book repeatedly, processes are discovered and perfected almost daily. Since these lectures were last given, the method of etching zinc and copper half-tone blocks has been entirely revolutionised. Now, there is no inking up of plates; the photograph on the metal serves as a protecting and acid-resisting ground, and the biting is done as simply as in ordinary etching; though, of course, it is the lines or dots which are left in relief.
Possibly before the book is out, even greater improvements and developments may be made.
Nor have I attempted to describe all the tricks, dodges, and clever schemes employed in newspaper offices for making blocks from photographs, or for the rapid reproduction of sketches, such as drawing on lithographic transfer paper, making photographic enlargements on fugitive prints. All are most useful and valuable in their way, but not exactly what one would tell a student to do. If he becomes an illustrator he will learn these things fast enough.
As the book is passing through the press Mr. W. Lewis Fraser, the art manager of “The Century” magazine, writes me that he thinks it “a good practical book, likely to be of much use to the young illustrator, and save the art editor many a pang and many a sorrow.” I hope so, and it is with this hope that the book is published.
JOSEPH PENNELL.
London, Oct., 1895.
THE ILLUSTRATION OF BOOKS.
LECTURE I.WHAT IS ILLUSTRATION?
THE craving for pictures, that is, for illustrations, is as old as the world. The cave-dweller felt it when he scratched on the walls of his house, or carved the handle of his battle-axe; one there was “who stayed by the tents with the women, and traced strange devices with a burnt stick upon the ground.” Others painted themselves blue, and were beautiful; and these were the first illustrators.
The Egyptians were the most prolific, and their works may be found, monuments more durable than brass, not alone in their places, but scattered to all the corners of the earth.
From the Egyptians and the Assyrians we may skip, offending but the archæologist and the pedant, to the illuminators who threw their light on the Dark Ages. They changed their methods from carving to tracing, and their mediums from stone and papyrus to parchment and vellum.
But always these illustrations were single works of art, they were not reproduced, and only duplicated by copying by hand.
Beautiful as are the manuscripts, they play but a small and unimportant part in the history of illustration, when compared with the block books that follow them; though block printing is but a natural evolution from the stamp on the bricks of the Egyptian, or the painting on the vases of the Etruscan.
The block books, more often loose sheets, were printed from designs, picture and text, cut on the wood, in one piece, sometimes possibly engraved in metal. These blocks, being inked, and having sheets of paper placed on their inked surfaces, and the paper being rubbed, gave off an impression; as many blocks having to be cut as there were pages, and as many impressions having to be taken from each block as there were copies desired. The first of these illustrated blocks is the St. Christopher, 1423, though playing-cards, produced in the same way, were known much earlier.
It is only, however, with the invention of printing with movable types, practised by the Chinese centuries before we ever thought of it, that illustration, in its modern sense, may be said to have been created; though printing with movable type is but the cutting up into separate letters of the pages of the block books. As soon as the artist was able to make his design upon a block of wood, have that engraved, and set up in the press with movable type, and print from it, a new art was discovered.
From the day of Gutenberg and Schœffer, illustration has, in the main, never changed; new methods have been employed, new processes for making the blocks have been perfected, but an illustration still continues to be a design on a wood block or metal plate, so cut, engraved, or etched as to produce a printing surface from which impressions may be taken, either in connection with type, when we call it letterpress or relief printing, or separate from the type, when it usually becomes intaglio or plate printing.
These methods have undergone, and still are undergoing, incessant modifications, developments, and improvements; and anyone who wishes to take up illustration as a profession or a study, must learn the rudiments of the science, as well as master the great principles of art, if he wishes to succeed.
To-day, the methods of making the design are many, but the methods of reproducing it are virtually endless; still one must try to learn something of the most important, and the more one understands the requirements of drawing for engraving and printing, the better will be the results obtained.
In the fifteenth century one had but to design the picture on the side of a plank, write in the text in reverse, cut everything else away, wet the block thoroughly, ink the face of it, lay damp paper over it, and rub or press the back of the sheet of paper till the ink came off on it, producing a print.
To-day one must understand drawing in all sorts of mediums, know something of the effect of photographing a drawing on to the wood block or metal plate, take at least an intelligent interest in engraving on wood and metal, understand process and lithography, and be prepared to struggle with that terrible monster, the modern steam-press, and its slave, the modern printer. To do this intelligently requires, not only a training in Art, but in the arts and sciences of engraving, reproduction, printing; and it is to these arts and sciences that I propose to call your attention.
An illustration—using the term in its artistic sense—is a design intended to give an artist’s idea of an incident, episode, or topographical site, or it may be but a mere diagram referred to by a writer; and an illustrator is one who makes pictures or illustrations which illustrate or explain his own text, or that of another writer.
An illustration really is a work of art, or rather it should be, which is explanatory; but, as a matter of fact, so too is all graphic art, explanatory of some story, sentiment, emotion, effect, or fact; and it would be very difficult indeed to point out when art is not illustrative.
As the word is used to-day, however, an illustration is a design made for the purpose of publication in book or magazine or paper. The fashion of making such designs to accompany lettering or type is, as I have shown, as old as the art of writing. The art of illustration, or rather the existence of illustration as a separate craft, and of illustrators as a distinct body of craftsmen, is virtually the growth of this century, more properly of the last sixty years since the invention of illustrated journalism.
Until the other day illustration had no place among the Fine Arts, and it has been said that, to win renown, an illustrator must achieve it in some other branch of art.
A few great artists of the past have made illustrations which will be prized for ever, and to-day these men are spoken of as illustrators; with Dürer and Holbein it was but one of the many forms of art in which they excelled, but they were not altogether given up to it.
To-day, however, illustration is the most living and vital of the Fine Arts, and among its followers are found the most able and eminent of contemporary artists.
It cannot, however, be said that this prominence which has been so suddenly thrust upon illustration is altogether due to its increase in artistic excellence; there are a number of other reasons.
Illustration has indeed reached technically, on the part of artist, engraver, and printer, such a point of perfection, that it has at length forced critics and amateurs to give it the attention it has so long demanded.
More important reasons are the developments in reproduction and printing, started, and to a great extent carried on, merely to lessen the cost of production, but capable of giving better and truer results in the hands of intelligent craftsmen, than anything previously known.
