(Original 8 x 2.)
One other notable form of illustration remains, and that is the purely decorative. This is seen to advantage in the book-plates in which a device bears the name of the owner and is affixed to each book; to revive which custom an effort has happily been made of late. In allegorical figures and scrollwork on title-pages, at heads of chapters, in borders, in large initial letters, at the termination of a chapter, or a design interspersed with the type on a page, and in many other forms beyond the prescribed shape which its position determines, there is little to restrict the artist. Some examples of designs for book-plates were recently given in that excellent magazine The Studio; and some interesting and wholly praiseworthy "initials," formed on an actual photogram, appeared recently in The Photogram. These are two instances out of the many which may be seen on every hand, and in this connection I have long felt that photograms from nature might be more largely applied to book illustration or decoration.
Thus I have endeavoured to indicate the principal uses of illustrations. Now in every work of art, its strength and its success are dependent in a great measure upon its composition and purpose possessing simplicity and unity, and I think that it cannot be too deeply impressed upon the illustrator that singleness of purpose will be a strong contributory to success.
If the purpose of the illustration be to explain or to describe, then let it do that at the sacrifice, if need be, of all else; and if, at the same time, it be possible to introduce such qualities as will make it void of offence to the more cultivated eye, so much the better; but the particular aim and intention must be paramount. In like manner, if the illustration be for purely ornamental purposes, or purely pictorial, giving pleasure to the eye and the sense of beauty: then to attempt to make it fulfil the function of a teacher, to anything more than a subordinate degree, is to divide, and therefore to weaken, both capacities.
An illustration, therefore, should be thought out, designed, and produced, with a definite and single purpose.
Speaking of the rise and development of newspaper illustration, in a lecture delivered before the Society of Arts, in November, 1893, Mr. Henry Blackburn quoted from a discussion held at the same place in 1875, when the following conclusion was arrived at: "In the production of illustrations we have arrived at great proficiency, and from London are issued the best illustrated newspapers in the world. But our artistic skill has led us into temptation, and by degrees engendered a habit of making pictures when we ought to be recording facts. We have thus, through our cleverness, created a fashion, and a demand from the public, for something which is often elaborately untrue.
"Would it, then, be too much to ask those who cater for (and really create) the public taste, that they should give us one of two things, or rather two things, in our illustrated papers—the real and the ideal.
"1st. Pictorial records of events in the simplest and truest manner possible."
"2nd. Pictures of the highest class that can be printed in a newspaper."