A PORTRAIT FROM A DRAWING BY MR. T. BLAKE WIRGMAN.
A striking exception to these is seen in [Mr. Alfred Hartley’s drawing of a pasturage]. It is full of tender, pearly greys, and is drawn with the lightest of hands, but with a peculiar disposition of pen-strokes that no professional pen-draughtsman would employ, because of his constant care to give the process-man the easiest of problems. And the autocrat of the rocking-bath and the etching-room would veto such work as this; yet, you will observe, it comes excellently well by the ordinary zinc processes.
But with [Mr. David Murray’s large pen-drawing] it was another matter. The greyness of the ink with which it was drawn and the extreme tenuity of its lines rendered it impossible of adequate reproduction except by the swelled gelatine process which has been employed. The result is admirable; all the fine grey lines in the sky are reproduced and give an excellent effect.
The [portrait of the painter, Mr. Bonnat, by himself], is one of the most suggestive pen-drawings that can be found anywhere. It shows what admirable effects of light and shade and modelling can be obtained even with the heavy hand, and it is worthy careful study.
Unfortunately the illustrations in the long series of Academy Notes, in which so many autographic sketches by painters appear, are almost useless for study and comparison, because of the extreme reduction to which they have been subjected. This is greatly to be deplored, for the tendency of the times is more and more towards drawing for the limitations of process, not only in journalism, but in the more permanent illustrations of magazines and books. All this tends to bring about a hard and formal line, to establish a dry and unsatisfactory academic manner, of which the painter’s pen sketches are the very antithesis. It is always well to remember that the only valid reason why process should live is that it enables the draughtsman to live his life at first hand; that is the first and last argument in favour of modern methods of reproduction.