CHAPTER III.
SOME MISCELLANEOUS ILLUSTRATIONS APPROPRIATE FOR DIFFERENT PURPOSES — THE RIVOIRE APPROPRIATE WHERE EXPENDITURE IS UNLIMITED — HALF-TONES USED FOR NEWS-GIVING OR INFORMATION-GIVING PURPOSES — THE HASSALL OUTLINE APPROPRIATE FOR POSTERS AND DECORATIVE PRINTING.
LET US RESUME the consideration of some miscellaneous illustrations for the sake of investigating the different styles of design and the principles which underlie them. As we said in Chapter II, the French, who are the most ready to use simple designs printed on rough paper, also are experts in preparing with most exquisite workmanship most delicate designs. Let us cite the cover of the Paris Illustré—you will see that here a half-tone and a wood engraving have been used, and that each is virtually a picture. The type of the title is very fine French Old Style (by fine we mean thin), and while, of course, the hair lines in the a and e are due to our great reduction of the cut, yet in the original these lines were very fine, and therefore by no {176}
Cover design, by Rivoire, for a summer number of Paris Illustré, the flowers printed in slate color, in half-tone; the portrait, of Mlle. Weber, a wood engraving, and the title, printed in black. The original 11 1/2 by 15 inches.
{177} means as well adapted to ordinary printing as the Grasset, Caspari (Jugend), and Stuck designs given in Chapter II. Yet I consider the present design an admirable one. But what are the facts in the case? The art editor, in getting up this design, had plenty of money at his disposal. The cover was of heavy calendered paper, the flowers were printed in half-tone in color, and the woman’s portrait, printed in black, was beautifully engraved on wood, a very costly process. This single cover may have cost as much as the entire sixteen pages of the body of the weekly.
The Auriol heading of this chapter is French also, and is no less artistic than the realistic flowers on the Paris Illustré cover; but on account of its simplicity it is far superior to the Paris Illustré as a floral design for ordinary printing, simply because it can be printed on cheap stock and can be cheaply and quickly reproduced. There ought to be no mistake, then, about my attitude in recommending one style of designing above another. I do so from a practical point of view.
A third example is found in the two Burns cuts. Surely, when I found the half-tone among the news columns of an English art periodical I did not object to its realism; on the contrary, it gave me a very good idea of what the original statue was like. But think of the expense of having a half-tone made large enough for a poster! Also, how vague it would appear from across the street if the poster were in half-tone.
But, turning to the Hassall, see how admirably the artist has given us the impression of Burns, how {178}
BURNS STATUE. By F. W. Pomeroy. Recently unveiled at Paisley. Half-tone from a half-tone from a photograph, published in the Magazine of Art.
{179}
POSTER DESIGN FOR THE BURNS EXHIBITION, GLASGOW. By J. Hassall.
{180} well his design would appear from across the street, and how cheaply it could be reproduced. Therefore, what an excellent style his is as a guide for my printer readers.
Hence, if the printer readers wish to make a cover design containing a portrait and flowers, I advise them not to follow the Rivoire—not for the reason that it is inartistic, but because it is too expensive for ordinary printing, and for cheap printing a poor imitation is abominable; while a design like the Caspari (Jugend, see page [169]), where the portrait would be an outline and the lettering broad so it could be quickly read like the word “Jugend,” and in which the floral form should be decoratively treated like the dandelion design in the Grasset “Larousse,” or like the Auriol, page [175], would be just as pleasing to the eye, would print on the cheapest kind of stock, and would, therefore, appear to the critical as an artistic design.