CHAPTER V.
WOOD ENGRAVINGS.
O turn to a more practical side of book illustration. The first principle of illustration is to illustrate, and yet it is a fact that few illustrations in books or magazines are to be found in their proper places in the text.
It is seldom that the illustration (so called) is in artistic harmony with the rest of the page, as it is found in old books. One of the great charms of Bewick’s work is its individuality and expressive character. Here the artist and engraver were one, and a system of illustration was founded in England a hundred years ago which we should do well not to forget.[21]
We are fast losing sight of first principles and aiming rather at catching the eye and the public purse with a pretty page; and in doing this we are but imitators. In the English magazines it is strange to find a slavish, almost childish imitation of the American system of illustration; adopting, for instance, the plan of pictures turned over at the corners or overlapping each other with exaggerated black borders and other devices of the album of the last generation. This is what we have come to in England in 1894 (with excellent wood engravers still), and the kind of art by which we shall be remembered at the end of the nineteenth century! I am speaking of magazines like Good Words and Cassell’s Magazine, where wood engraving is still largely employed.
It may be as well to explain here that the reasons for employing the medium of wood engraving for elaborate illustrations which, such as we see in American magazines, were formerly only engraved on copper or steel, are—(1) rapidity of production, and (2) the almost illimitable number of copies that can be produced from casts from wood blocks. The broad distinction between the old and new methods of wood engraving is, that in early days the lines were drawn clearly on the wood block and the part not drawn cut away by the engraver, who endeavoured to make a perfect fac-simile of the artist’s lines. It is now a common custom to transfer a photograph from life on to the wood block (see p. 167), also to draw on the wood with a brush in tint, and even to photograph a water-colour drawing on to the wood, leaving the engraver to turn the tints into lines in his own way.
In the very earliest days of book illustration, before movable type-letters were invented, the illustration and the letters of the text were all engraved on the wood together, and thus, of necessity (as in the old block books produced in Holland and Belgium in the fifteenth century), there was character and individuality in every page; the picture, rough as it often was, harmonising with the text in an unmistakable manner. From an artistic point of view, there was a better balance of parts and more harmony of effect than in the more elaborate illustrations of the present day. The illustration was an illustration in the true sense of the word. It interpreted something to the reader that words were incapable of doing; and even when movable type was first introduced, the simple character of the engravings harmonised well with the letters. There is a broad line of demarcation, indeed, between these early wood engravings (such, for instance, as the “Ars Moriendi,” purchased for the British Museum in 1872, from the Weigel collection at Leipsic, and recently reproduced by the Holbein Society) and the last development of the art in the American magazines. The movement is important, because the Americans, with an energy and naïveté peculiar to them, have set themselves the task of outstripping all nations in the beauty and quality of magazine illustrations. That they have succeeded in obtaining delicate effects, and what painters call colour, through the medium of wood-engraving, is well known, and it is common to meet people in England asking, “Have you seen the last number of Harper’s or the Century Magazine?” The fashion is to admire them, and English publishers are easily found to devote time and capital to distributing American magazines (which come to England free of duty), to the prejudice of native productions. The reason for the excellence (which is freely admitted) of American wood-engraving and printing is that, in the first place, more capital is employed upon the work. The American wood-engraver is an artist in every sense of the word, and his education is not considered complete without years of foreign study. The American engraver is always en rapport with the artist—an important matter—working often, as I have seen them at Harper’s, the Century Magazine, and Scribner’s in New York, in the same studio, side by side. In England the artist, as a rule, does not have any direct communication with the wood engraver. In America the publisher, having a very large circulation for his works, is able to bring the culture of Europe and the capital of his own country to the aid of the wood-engraver, spending sometimes five or six hundred pounds on the illustrations of a single number of a monthly magazine. The result is an engraver’s success of a very remarkable kind.
No. XXXV.
(Photograph from life, engraved on wood. From the Century Magazine.)
A Portrait engraved on wood at the Office of the
Century Magazine.
Example of portraiture from the Century Magazine. It is interesting to note the achievements of the American engravers at a time when wood engraving in England is under a cloud.
This portrait was photographed from life and afterwards worked up by hand and most skilfully engraved in New York.
A discussion of the merits of the various styles of wood engraving, and of the different methods of drawing on wood, such as that initiated by the late Frederick Walker, A. R. A.; the styles of Mr. William Small, E. A. Abbey, Alfred Parsons, etc.—does not come into the scope of this publication, but it will be useful to refer to one or two opinions on the American system.
“Book illustration as an art,” as Mr. Comyns Carr pointed out in his lectures at the Society of Arts ten years ago, “is founded upon wood engraving, and it is to wood engraving that we must look if we are to have any revival of the kind of beauty which early-printed books possess. In the mass of work now produced, there is very little trace of the principles upon which Holbein laboured. Instead of proceeding by the simplest means, our modern artist seems rather by preference to take the most difficult and complex way of expressing himself. A wood engraving, it is not unjust to say, has become scarcely distinguishable from a steel engraving excepting by its inferiority.”
Mr. Hubert Herkomer, R. A., who has had a very wide experience in the graphic arts, says:—
“In modern times a body of engravers has been raised up who have brought the art of engraving on wood to such a degree of perfection, that the most modern work, especially that of the Americans, is done to show the skill of the engraver rather than the art of the draughtsman. This, I do not hesitate to say, is a sign of decadence. Take up any number of the Century or Harper’s magazines, and you will see that effect is the one aim. You marvel at the handling of the engraver, and forget the artist. Correct, or honest, drawing is no longer wanted. This kind of illustration is most pernicious to the student, and will not last....
“America is a child full of promise in art—a child that is destined to be a great master; so let us not imitate its youthful efforts or errors. Americans were the first to foster this style of art, and they will be the first to correct it.”
Mr. W. J. Linton, the well-known wood engraver, expresses himself thus strongly on the modern system, and his words come with great force from the other side of the Atlantic:—
“Talent is misapplied when it is spent on endeavours to rival steel-line engraving or etching, in following brush-marks, in pretending to imitate crayon-work, charcoal, or lithography, and in striving who shall scratch the greatest number of lines on a given space without thought of whether such multiplicity of lines adds anything to the expression of the picture or the beauty of the engraving. How much of talent is here thrown away! How much of force that should have helped towards growth is wasted in this slave’s play for a prize not worth having—the fame of having well done the lowest thing in the engraver’s art, and having for that neglected the study of the highest! For it is the lowest and the last thing about which an artist should concern himself, this excessive fineness and minuteness of work.... In engraving, as in other branches of art, the first thing is drawing, the second drawing, the third drawing.”
This is the professional view, ably expressed, of a matter which has been exercising many minds of late; and is worth quoting, if only to show the folly of imitating a system acknowledged by experts to be founded on false principles.
But there is another view of the matter which should not be lost sight of. Whatever the opinion of the American system of illustration may be, there is, on the other side of the Atlantic, an amount of energy, enterprise, cultivation of hand and eye, delicacy of manipulation, and individual industry, cleverly organised to provide a wide continent with a better art than anything yet attempted in any country. Some fine engravings, which the Americans have lately been distributing amongst the people, such, for instance, as the portraits (engraved from photographs from life) which have appeared in Harper’s and the Century magazines, only reach the cultivated few in Europe in expensive books. It is worth considering what the ultimate art effect of this widespread distribution will be. The “prairie flower” holds in her hand a better magazine, as regards illustrations, than anything published in England at the same price; and a taste for delicate and refined illustration is being fostered amongst a variety of people on the western continent, learned and unlearned. That there is a want of sincerity in the movement, that “things are not exactly what they seem,” that something much better might be done, may be admitted; but it will be well for our illustrators and art providers to remember that the Americans are advancing upon us with the power of capital and ever-increasing knowledge and cultivation. In the Century magazine, ten years ago, there was an article on “The Pupils of Bewick,” with illustrations admirably reproduced from proofs of early wood engravings, by “photo-engraving.”
This is noteworthy, as showing that the knowledge of styles is disseminated everywhere in America; and also, how easy it is to reproduce engravings by “process,” and how important to have a clear copyright law on this subject.
Of the English wood engravers, and of the present state of the profession in England much has been written. I believe the fact remains that commercial wood engraving is still relied on by many editors and publishers, as it prints with more ease and certainty than any of the process blocks.
That there are those in England (like Mr. Biscombe Gardner and others, whose work I am unable to reproduce here), that believe in wood engraving still as a vital art, capable of the highest results, I am also well aware. But at the moment of writing it is difficult to get many publishers to expend capital upon it for ordinary illustrations.
On the next page is an example of good wood engraving.
“DRIVING HOME THE PIGS.” (JOHN PEDDER.)
(Academy Notes, 1891.)
No. XXXVI.
Joan of Arc’s House at Rouen, by the late
Samuel Prout.
Engraved on wood by Mr. J. D. Cooper, from a water-colour drawing by Samuel Prout.
The original drawing, made with a reed pen and flat washes of colour, was photographed on to the wood block, and the engraver interpreted the various tints into line. The method is interesting, and the tones obtained in line show the resources of the engraver’s art, an art rather carelessly set aside in these days.
This engraving is from Normandy Picturesque. (London: Sampson Low & Co.)
[21] In The Life and Works of Thomas Bewick, by D. C. Thomson; in The Portfolio, The Art Journal, The Magazine of Art, and in Good Words, Bewick’s merits as artist and engraver have been exhaustively discussed.
DESIGN BY WALTER CRANE.