Although to those who have not followed closely the splendid period of English illustration which may be said to have reached its zenith at the time when Dalziel's "Bible Gallery" was published, it may be a surprise to find "Frederic Leighton" figuring as an illustrator, yet the nine compositions in that book are by no means his sole contribution to the art of black and white.
For each instalment of "Romola," as it ran through the pages of the "Cornhill Magazine," the artist contributed a full page drawing, and an initial letter. The twenty-four full pages were afterwards reprinted in "The Cornhill Gallery" (Smith and Elder, 1865). These are most notable works, even when measured by the standard of their contemporaries. The same magazine contains two other works from his pen, one illustrating a poem, "The great God Pan," by Mrs. Browning, and another illustrating a story by Mrs. Sartoris, entitled "A Week in a French Country House." These, and the nine compositions in the "Bible Gallery" (the pictures from which have lately been re-issued in a popular form by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge) exhaust the list of those which can be traced. As four of the magnificent designs are reproduced here, it would be superfluous to describe them; the titles of the five others are: Abram and the Angel, Eliezer and Rebekah, Death of the First Born, The Spies' Escape, and Samson at the Mill.
One of the original drawings on wood is now on view at the South Kensington Museum, and, by comparison with impressions from the engraved blocks, we see how small has been the loss in translation, so admirably has the artist mastered the limitation of the technique that was to represent his work in another medium. The reproductions here given are considerably reduced, and necessarily lose something, but they retain enough to prove that had the artist cared to rest his reputation upon such works, he might have done so with a light heart, for whenever the golden period of English illustration is recalled, these comparatively few drawings will inevitably be recalled with it.
A photographic silver-print from a drawing which forms the frontispiece to a little book of fairy tales is of hardly sufficient importance—charming though its original must have been—to be included among the book illustrations. The drawing, A Contrast, reproduced at p. [72], is undated; the idea it is intended to suggest, a model who once stood for some youthful god, revisiting the adolescent portrait of himself when old age has him gripped fast with rheumatism and failing vigour.
To-day, when one has heard sculptors claim that Lord Leighton's finest work was in their own craft, one has also heard many illustrators not merely extol these drawings—notably the Bible subjects—as his masterpieces, but jealously refuse to consider him entitled to serious regard as an artist in any other medium. This attitude, so curiously unlike the usual welcome from experts which awaits an artist who ventures into fresh mediums for expressing himself, should be put on record as a unique tribute; the more worthy of attention, because in each instance it was advanced not wholly as praise, but to some extent as a reproach on Leighton's painting. No intended compliment could carry more genuine appreciation than this warm approval from fellow experts in the special subjects of which they are masters.
CAIN AND ABEL
