Читать книгу English Illustration 'The Sixties': 1855-70 - Gleeson White - Страница 6

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The borderland between the hallowed past and the matter-of-fact present is rarely attractive. It appeals neither to our veneration nor our curiosity. Its heroes are too recent to be deified, its secrets are all told. If you estimate a generation as occupying one-third of a century, you will find that to most people thirty-three years ago, more or less, is the least fascinating of all possible periods. Its fashions in dress yet linger in faded travesties, its once refined tastes no longer appeal to us, its very aspirations, if they do not seem positively ludicrous, are certain to appear pathetically insufficient. Yet there are not wanting signs which denote that the rush of modern life, bent on shortening times of waiting, will lessen the quarantine which a period of this sort has had to suffer hitherto before it could be looked upon as romantically attractive instead of appearing repulsively old-fashioned. For the moment you are able to take a man of a former generation, and can regard him honestly, not as a contemporary with all human weakness, but with the glamour which surrounds a hero; he is released from the commonplace present and has joined the happy past. Therein he may find justice without prejudice. Of course the chances are that, be he artist or philosopher, the increased favour bestowed upon him will not extend to his subjects, or perhaps his method of work; but so sure as you find the artists of any period diligently studied and imitated, it is almost certain that the costumes they painted, the furniture and accessories they admired, and the thought which infused their work, will be less intolerable, and possibly once again restored to full popularity.

Not very long ago anything within the limits of the century was called modern. Perhaps because its early years were passed in yearnings for the classic days of old Greece, and later in orthodox raptures over the bulls of Nineveh and the relics of dead Pharaohs. Then by degrees the Middle Ages also renewed their interest: the great Gothic revival but led the way to a new exploration of the Queen Anne and Georgian days. So in domestic life England turned to its Chippendale and Sheraton, America to its colonial houses, and the word 'antique,' instead of being of necessity limited to objects at least a thousand years old was applied to those of a bare hundred. Now, when the nineteenth century has one foot in the grave, we have but to glance back a few years to discover that what was so lately 'old-fashioned' is fast attaining the glamour of antiquity. Even our immediate progenitors who were familiar with the railway and telegraph, and had heard of photography, seem to be in other respects sufficiently unlike our contemporaries to appear quite respectably ancestral to-day. It is true that we have compensations: the new photography and electric lighting are our own joys; and the new criticism had hardly begun, except perhaps in the Far West, during the time of this previous generation—the time that begins with a memory of the project for the Great Exhibition, and ends with an equally vivid recollection of the collapse of the Third Empire.

In those days people still preserved a sentimental respect for the artist merely because he was 'an artist,' quite apart from his technical accomplishment. It was the period of magenta and crinoline—the period that saw, ere its close, the twin domes of the second International Exhibition arise in its midst to dominate South Kensington before they were moved to Muswell Hill and were burnt down without arousing national sorrow—in short, it was 'the sixties.' Only yesterday 'the sixties' seemed a synonym for all that was absurd. Is it because most of us who make books to-day were at school then, and consequently surveyed the world as a superfluous and purely inconsequent background? For people who were children in the sixties are but now ripening to belief in the commonplace formulæ dear to an orthodox British citizen. To their amazement they find that not a few of the pupils of the 'seventies,' if not of the 'eighties,' have already ripened prematurely to the same extent. Have we not heard a youth of our time, in a mood not wholly burlesque, gravely discussing the Æsthetic movement of the 'eighties' as soberly as men heretofore discussed the movement of a century previous? Were the purpose of this book phrase-making instead of a dull record of facts, we might style this sudden appreciation of comparatively recent times the New Antiquity. To a child the year before last is nearly as remote as the time of the Norman Conquest, or of Julius Cæsar. Possibly this sudden enlightenment respecting the artistic doings of the mid-Victorian period may indicate the return to childhood which is part of a nonagenarian's equipment. At seventy or eighty, our lives are spent in recollections half a century old, but at ninety the privilege may be relaxed, and the unfortunate loiterer on the stage may claim to select a far more recent decade as his Golden Age, even if by weakening memory he confuses his second childhood with his first.

To-day not a few people interested in the Arts find 'the sixties' a time as interesting as in the last century men found the days of Praxiteles, or as, still more recently, the Middle Ages appeared to the early pre-Raphaelites. These few, however, are more or less disciples of the illustrator, as opposed to those who consider 'art' and 'painting' synonymous terms. Not long since the only method deemed worthy of an artist was to paint in oils. To these, perhaps, to be literally exact, you might add a few pedants who recognised the large aims of the worker in fresco, and a still more restricted number who believed in the maker of stained glass, mosaic, or enamel, if only his death were sufficiently remote. Now, however, the humble illustrator, the man who fashions his dreams into designs for commercial reproduction by wood-engraving or 'process,' has found an audience, and is acquiring rapidly a fame of his own.

For those who recognise most sincerely, and with no affectation, the importance of the mere illustrator, this attempt to make a rough catalogue of his earlier achievements may be not without interest. Yet it is not put forward as a novel effort. One of the most hopeful auguries towards the final recognition of the pen-draughtsmen of the sixties quickly comes to light as you begin to search for previous notices of their work. It was not Mr. Joseph Pennell who first appreciated them. It is true that he carried the report of their powers into unfamiliar districts; but, long before his time, Mr. J. M. Gray, Mr. Edmund Gosse, and many another had paid in public due tribute to their excellence. Nor can you find that they were unappreciated by their contemporaries. On the contrary, our popular magazines were filled with their work. Despite Mr. Ruskin's consistent 'aloofness' and inconsistent 'diatribes,' many critics of their own day praised them; their names were fairly well known to educated people, their works sold largely, they obtained good prices, and commissions, as the published results bear witness, were showered upon them.

But, until to-day, the draughtsman for periodicals was deemed a far less important person than the painter of Academy pictures. Now, without attempting to rob the R.A. of its historic glory, we see there are others without the fold who, when the roll-call of nineteenth-century artists is read, will answer 'Adsum.'

There are signs that the collector, always ready for a fresh hobby, will before long turn his attention to the English wood-engravings of this century, as eagerly as he has been attracted heretofore by the early woodcuts of German and Italian origin, or the copper-plates of all countries and periods. It is true that Bewick already enjoys the distinction, and that Cruikshank and Leech have also gained a reputation in the sale-rooms, and that Blake, for reasons only partly concerned with art, has for some time past had a faithful and devout following. But the prices realised, so far, by the finest examples of the later wood-engravings, in the Moxon edition of Tennyson's Poems, in Once a Week, and Messrs. Dalziels' books, are not such as to inspire faith in the collector who esteems his treasures chiefly for their value under the hammer. But in this case, as in others, the moderate prices demanded in 1896 may not be the rule a few months hence. Already, although books rarely fetch as much as the original published cost, they are getting scarce. You may hunt the London shops in vain, and ransack the second-hand stores in the big provincial towns and not light on Jean Ingelow's Poems, 4to, Thornbury's Legendary Ballads, or even Wayside Poesies, or a Round of Days, all fairly common but a short time ago.

There are two great divisions of the objects that attract collectors. In the first come all items of individual handiwork, where no two can be precisely alike (since replicas by the authors are too rare to destroy the argument), and each specimen cannot be duplicated. Into this class fall paintings and drawings of all sorts, gems, sword-guards, lacquer, and ivories, and a thousand other objects of art. In the second, where duplicates have been produced in large numbers, the collector has a new ideal—to complete a collection that contains examples of every variety of the subject, be they artistic:—coins, etchings, or engravings of any sort; natural objects:—butterflies, or crystals, or things which belong neither to nature nor art:—postage-stamps, the majority of book-plates, and other trifles so numerous that even a bare list might extend to pages. The first class demands a long purse, and has, of necessity, a certain failure confronting it, for many of the best specimens are already in national collections, and cannot by any chance come into the market. But in the second class, no matter how rare a specimen may be, there is always a hope, and in many cases not a forlorn one, that some day, in some likely or unlikely place, its fellow may be discovered. And the chance of picking up a treasure for a nominal price adds to the zest of the collector, whose real delight is in the chase, far more than in the capture. Who does not hope to find a twopenny box containing (as once they did) a first edition of Fitzgerald's Omar Khayyám? or a Rembrandt's Three Trees in a first state? Or to discover a Tetradrachm Syracuse, B.C. 317, 'with the superb head of Persephone and the spirited quadriga, on the obverse,' in some tray of old coins in a foreign market-place?

Without more preamble, we may go on to the objects the new collector wishes to acquire; and to provide him with a hand-book that shall set him on the track of desirable specimens. This desultory gossip may also serve to explain indirectly the aims and limits of the present volume, which does not pretend to be a critical summary, not a history of art, and neither a treatise on engravers, nor an anecdotal record of artists, but merely a working book of reference, whatever importance it possesses being due only to the fine examples of the subject, which those concerned have most kindly permitted to be reproduced.

It is quite true that in collecting, the first of the two classes demands more critical knowledge, because as it is not a collection but only a selection that is within the reach of any one owner, it follows that each item must reflect his taste and judgment. In the second division there is danger lest the rush for comprehensiveness may dull the critical faculty, until, by and by, the ugly and foolish rarity is treasured far more than the beautiful and artistic items which are not rare, and so fail to command high prices.

In fact the danger of all collectors is this alluring temptation which besets other people in other ways. Many people prefer the exception to the rule, the imperfect sport to the commonplace type. If so, this discursive chatter is not wholly irrelevant, since it preludes an apology for including certain references to work distinctly below the level of the best, which, by its accidental position in volumes where the best occurs, can hardly be ignored completely.

Another point of conscience arises which each must decide for himself. Supposing that the collection of wood-engravings of the sixties assumes the proportion of a craze, must the collector retain intact a whole set of an illustrated periodical for the sake of a few dozen pictures within it, or if he decides to tear them out, will he not be imitating the execrable John Bagford, who destroyed twenty-five thousand volumes for the sake of their title-pages? Must he mutilate a Tennyson's Poems (Moxon, 1857) or The Music-master, or many of Dalziels' gift-books, for the sake of arranging his specimens in orderly fashion? The dilemma is a very real one. Even if one decides to keep volumes entire, the sets of magazines are so bulky, and in some cases contain such a small proportion of valuable work, that a collector cannot find space for more than a few of them. Possibly a fairly representative collection might be derived entirely from the back-numbers of periodicals, if any huge stores have yet survived the journey to the paper-mill or the flames; the one or the other being the ultimate fate of every magazine or periodical that is not duly bound before it has lost its high estate, as 'a complete set,' and become mere odd numbers or waste-paper.

So far the question of cost has not been raised, nor at present need it frighten the most economic. Taking all the subjects referred to in this book, with perhaps one or two exceptions (Allingham's Music-master, 1855, for instance), I doubt if a penny a piece for all the illustrations in the various volumes (counting the undesirable as well as the worthy specimens) would not be far above the market-price of the whole. But the penny each, like the old story of the horse-shoes, although not in this case governed by geometrical progression, would mount up to a big total. Yet, even if you purchase the books at a fair price, the best contain so many good illustrations, that the cost of each is brought down to a trifle.

Having decided to collect, and bought or obtained in other ways, so that you may entitle your treasures (as South Kensington Museum labels its novelties) 'recent acquisitions,' without scrupulous explanation of the means employed to get them, you are next puzzled how to arrange them. It seems to me that a fine book should be preserved intact. There are but comparatively few of its first edition, and of these few a certain number are doomed to accidental destruction in the ordinary course of events, so that one should hesitate before cutting up a fine book, and be not hasty in mutilating a volume of Once a Week or the Shilling Magazine. But if you have picked up odd numbers, and want to preserve the prints, a useful plan is to prepare a certain number of cardboard or cloth-covered boxes filled with single sheets of thick brown paper. In these an oblique slit is made to hold each corner of the print. By this method subjects can be mounted quickly, and, as the collection grows, new sub-divisions can be arranged and the subjects distributed among a larger number of boxes. This plan allows each print to be examined easily, the brown paper stands wear and tear and shows no finger-marks, and affords a pleasant frame to the engraving. Pasting-down in albums should be viewed with suspicion—either the blank leaves for specimens still to be acquired are constantly in evidence to show how little you possess, compared with your expectations; or else you will find it impossible to place future purchases in their proper order.

There is a process, known as print-splitting, which removes the objectionable printed back that ruins the effect of many good wood-engravings. It is a delicate, but not a very difficult operation, and should the hobby spread, young lady artists might do worse than forsake the poorly-paid production of nasty little head-pieces for fashion-papers and the like, and turn deft fingers to a more worthy pursuit. It needs an artistic temperament to split the print successfully, and a market would be quickly opened up if moderate prices were charged for the new industry.

One could wish that representative collections of the best of these prints were gathered together and framed inexpensively, for gifts or loans to schools, art industrial classes, and other places where the taste of pupils might be raised by their study. The cheap process-block from a photograph is growing to be the staple form of black and white that the average person meets with in his daily routine. The cost of really fine etchings, mezzotints, lithographs, and other masterpieces of black and white prohibits their being scattered broadcast; but while the fine prints by Millais, Sandys, Hughes, Pinwell, Fred Walker, and the rest are still to be bought cheaply, the opportunity should not be lost.