Читать книгу English Illustration 'The Sixties': 1855-70 - Gleeson White - Страница 7

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The more you study the position of illustrators during the last forty years, the more you are inclined to believe that they owe their very existence, as a class, to the popularity of magazines and periodicals. From the time Once a Week started, to the present to-day, the bulk of illustrations of any merit have been issued in serial publications. It is easy to find a reason for this. The heavy cost of the drawings, and, until recent times, the almost equally heavy cost of engraving them, would suffice to prohibit their lavish use in ordinary books. For it must not be forgotten that every new book is, to a great extent, a speculation; whereas the circulation of a periodical, once it is assured, varies but slightly. A book may be prepared for twenty thousand buyers, and not attract one thousand; but a periodical that sold twenty thousand of its current number is fairly certain to sell eighteen thousand to nineteen thousand of the next, and more probably will show a slight increase. Again, although one appears to get as many costly illustrations in a magazine to-day as in a volume costing ten times the price, the comparative sales more than readjust the balance. For a quarter of a million, although a record circulation of a periodical, is by no means a unique one; whereas the most popular illustrated book ever issued—and Trilby could be easily proved to merit that title—is probably not far beyond its hundred thousand. This very book was published in Harper's Magazine, and so obtained an enormous advertisement in one of the most widely circulated shilling monthlies. One doubts if the most popular illustrated volumes published at one or two guineas would show an average sale of two thousand copies at the original price. Therefore, to regard the periodical, be it quarterly, monthly, or weekly—and quite soon the daily paper may be added to the list—as the legitimate field for the illustrator, is merely to accept the facts of the case. True, that here and there carefully prepared volumes, with all the added luxury of fine paper and fine printing, stand above the magazine of their time in this mechanical production. But things are rapidly changing. One may pick up some ephemeral paper to-day, to find it has process-blocks of better quality, and is better printed, than 'the art book of the season,' be it what it may. The illustrator is the really popular artist of the period—the natural product of the newer conditions. For one painter who makes a living entirely by pictures, there are dozens who subsist upon illustrating; while, against one picture of any reputable sort—framed and sold—it would be impossible to estimate the number of drawings made specially for publication. Nor even to-day—when either the demand for illustration is ahead of the supply, or else many editors artfully prefer the second best, not forgetting all the feeble stuff of the cheap weeklies—would it be safe to declare that the artistic level is below that of the popular galleries. Certainly, even in the thirties, there were, in proportion, as many masterpieces done for the engraver as those which were carried out in oil or water-colour. Waiving the question of the damage wrought by engraver, or process-reproducer, the artist—if he be a great man—is no less worthy of respect as an illustrator in a cheap weekly, than when he chooses to devote himself solely to easel pictures. It is not by way of depreciating paintings that one would exalt illustration, but merely to recognise the obvious truth that the best work of an artist who understands his medium can never fail to be of surpassing interest, whether he uses fresco, tempera, oil, or water-colour; whether he works with brush or needle, pen or pencil. Nobody doubts that most of these products are entitled, other qualities being present, to be considered works of art; but, until lately, people have not shown the same respect for an illustration. Even when they admired the work, it was a common form of appreciation to declare it was 'as good as an etching,' or 'a composition worthy of being painted.' Many writers have endeavoured to restore black-and-white art to its true dignity, and the labours of Sir F. Seymour Haden, who awakened a new popular recognition of the claims of the etcher, and of Mr. Joseph Pennell, who fought with sustained vigour for the dignity and importance of illustration, have helped to inspire outsiders with a new respect. For it is only outsiders who ever thought of making absurd distinctions between high art and minor arts. If the thing, be it what it may, is good—as good as it could be—at no age did it fail to win the regard of artists; even if it had to wait a few generations to charm the purchaser, or awaken the cupidity of the connoisseur. It is a healthy sign to find that people to-day are interesting themselves in the books of the sixties; it should make them more eager for original contemporary work, and foster a dislike to the inevitable photograph from nature reproduced by half-tone, which one feared would have satisfied their love for black-and-white to the exclusion of all else.

If, after an evening spent in looking over the old magazines which form the subject of the next few chapters, you can turn to the current weeklies and monthlies, and feel absolutely certain that we are better than our fathers, it augurs either a very wisely selected purchase from the crowded bookstall, which, at each railway station as the first of the month approaches, has its hundreds of rival magazines, or else that it would be wiser to spend still more time over the old periodicals until a certain 'divine dissatisfaction' was aroused towards the average illustrated periodical of to-day.

Not that we are unable to show as good work perhaps, man for man, as they offer. We have no Sandys, no Millais, no Boyd Houghton, it is true; they had no E. A. Abbey, no Phil May, no ..., but it would be a delicate matter to continue a list of living masters here. But if you can find an English periodical with as many first-rate pictures as Once a Week, The Cornhill Magazine, Good Words, and others contained in the early sixties, you will be ... well ... lucky is perhaps the most polite word.

That the cheapness and rapidity of 'reproduction by process' should be directly responsible for the birth of many new illustrated periodicals to-day is clear enough. But it is surprising to find that a movement, which relatively speaking was almost as fecund, had begun some years before photography had ousted the engraver. Why it sprang into existence is not quite so obvious; but if we assume, as facts indicate, that the system of producing wood-engravings underwent a radical change about this time, we shall find that again a more ample supply provoked a larger demand. Hitherto, the engraver had only accepted as many blocks as he could engrave himself, with the help of a few assistants; but not very long before the date we are considering factories for the supply of wood-engravings had grown up. The heads of these, practical engravers and in some cases artists of more than average ability, took all the responsibility for the work intrusted to them, and maintained a singularly high standard of excellence; but they did not pretend that they engraved each block themselves. Such a system not merely permitted commissions for a large quantity of blocks being accepted, but greatly increased speed in their production.

There can be little doubt that something of the sort took place; it will suffice to name but two firms, Messrs. Dalziel and Messrs. Swain, who were each responsible often enough, not merely for all the engravings in a book, but often for all the engravings in a popular magazine. Under the old system, the publisher had thrown upon him the trouble of discovering the right engraver to employ, and the burden of reconciling the intention of the artist with the product of the engraver. This, by itself, would have been enough to make him very cautious before committing himself to the establishment of an illustrated magazine. But if we also remember that, under such conditions, almost unlimited time would be required for the production of the engravings, and that, to ensure a sufficient quantity being ready for each issue, a very large number of independent engravers must needs have been employed, it is clear that the old conditions would not have been equal to the task.

When, however, the publisher or editor was able to send all his drawings to a reputable firm who could undertake to deliver the engravings by a given time, one factor of great practical importance had been established. It is not surprising to find that things went even further than this, and that the new firms of engravers not only undertook the whole of the blocks, but in several cases supplied the drawings also.

Without claiming that such a system is the best, it is but fair to own that to it we are indebted for the masterpieces of the sixties. No doubt the ideal art-editor—a perfectly equipped critic, with the blank cheque of a millionaire at his back—might have done better; but to-day there are many who think themselves perfectly equipped critics, and perhaps some here and there who are backed by millionaires, yet on neither side of the Atlantic can we find better work than was produced under the system in vogue in the sixties. But after all, it is not the system, then or now, that is praiseworthy, but the individual efforts of men whose hearts were in their professions.

The more you inquire into the practice of the best engravers then and now, the more you find that ultimately one person is responsible for the good. In the sixties the engraver saw new possibilities, and did his utmost to realise them; full of enthusiasm, and a master of his craft, he inspired those who worked with him to experiment and spare no effort. That he did marvels may be conceded; and to declare that the merely mechanical processes to-day have already distanced his most ambitious efforts in many qualities does not detract from his share. But in this chapter he is regarded less as a craftsman than as a middleman, an art-editor in effect if not in name; one who taught the artists with whom he was brought in contact the limits of the material in which their work was to be translated, and in turn learned from them no little that was of vital importance. Above all, he seems to have kept closely in touch with draughtsmen and engravers alike; one might believe that every drawing passed through his hands, and that every block was submitted to him many times during its progress. When you realise the mass of work signed 'Dalziels' or 'Swain,' it is evident that its high standard of excellence must not be attributed to any system, but to the personal supervision of the acting members of the firms—men who were, every one of them, both draughtsmen and engravers, who knew not only the effect the artist aimed to secure, but the best method of handicraft by which to obtain it.

If, after acknowledging this, one cannot but regret that the photographic transfer of drawings to wood had not come into general use twenty years before it did, so that the masterpieces of the Rossetti designs to Tennyson's Poems and a hundred others had not been cut to pieces by the engraver; yet at the same time we must remember that, but for the enterprise of the engraver, the drawings themselves would in all probability never have been called into existence in many cases. This is especially true of the famous volumes which Messrs. Dalziel issued under the imprint of various publishers, who were really merely agents for their distribution.

The Penny Magazine in 1832, and other of Charles Knight's publications, Sharp's Magazine, The People's Journal, Howitt's Journal of Literature, The Illustrated Family Journal, The Mirror, The Parterre, The Casket, The Olio, The Saturday Magazine, Pinnock's Guide to Knowledge, Punch, The Illustrated London News, had led the way for pictorial weekly papers, even as the old Annuals and the various novels by Ainsworth, Dickens, and Thackeray had prepared the way for magazines; but the artistic movement of the 'sixties,' so far as its periodicals are concerned, need be traced back no further than Once a Week. Perhaps, however, it would be unfair to forget the influence of The Art Journal (at first called The Art Union), which, started in 1851, brought fine art to the homes of the great British public through the medium of wood-engravings in a way not attempted previously; and certainly we must not ignore John Cassell, who, on the demise of Howitt's Journal and The People's Journal in 1850, brought out an illustrated chronicle of the Great Exhibition, which was afterwards merged in a Magazine of Art. As The Strand Magazine—the first monthly periodical to exploit freely the Kodak and the half-tone block—started a whole school of imitators, so Once a Week, depending chiefly on drawings by the best men of the day, engraved by the foremost engravers, was followed quickly by the Cornhill Magazine, Good Words, and the rest. Many of these were short-lived; nor, looking at them impartially to-day, are we quite sure that the survivors were always the fittest. Certainly they were not always the best. But the number of new ventures that saw the light about this time can scarce be named here. Then, as now, a vast army of quite second-rate draughtsmen were available, and a number of periodicals, which it were gross flattery to call second-rate, sprang up to utilise their talents. Besides these, many weekly and monthly publications, ostensibly devoted to catering for the taste of the masses, gained large audiences and employed talented artists, but demand no more serious consideration as art, than do the 'snippet' weeklies of to-day as literature. But some of these popular serials—such as The Band of Hope, The British Workman, The London Journal, The London Reader, Bow Bells, Every Week, and the rest—are not, relatively speaking, worse than more pretentious publications. It is weary work to estimate the place of the second and third bests, and whatever interest the subject possesses would be exhausted quickly if we tried to catalogue or describe the less important items. Yet, to be quite just, several of these, notably the cheap publications of Messrs. Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, Messrs. S. W. Partridge and Co., and many others, employed artists by no means second-rate and gave better artistic value for their money than many of their successors do at present.

It is well to face the plain fact, and own that at no time has the supply of really creative artists equalled the popular demand. Not all the painters of any period are even passable, nor all the illustrators. Much that is produced for the moment fulfils its purpose admirably enough, although it dies as soon as it is born. Nature shows us the prodigal fecundity of generation compared with the few that ripen to maturity. The danger lies rather in appreciating too much, whether of 'the sixties' or 'the nineties'; yet, if one is stoical enough to praise only the best, it demands not merely great critical acumen, but no little hardness of heart. The intention always pleads to be recognised. We know that accidents, quite beyond the artist's power to prevent, may have marred his work. Each man, feeling his own impotence to express his ideas lucidly, must needs be lenient to those who also stammer and fail to interpret their imaginings clearly and with irresistible power. Yet, although the men of the sixties survive in greatly reduced numbers and one might speak plainly of much of its trivial commonplace without hurting anybody's feelings, there is no need to drag the rubbish to light.