ILLUSTRATION FROM "CHILDREN'S SINGING GAMES" BY WINIFRED SMITH (DAVID NUTT. 1894)
The art of Miss Greenaway is part of the legend of the æsthetic craze, and while its storks and sunflowers have faded, and some of its eccentricities are forgotten, the quaint little pictures on Christmas cards, in toy books, and elsewhere, are safely installed as items of the art product of the century. Indeed, many a popular Royal Academy picture is likely to be forgotten before the illustrations from her hand. Bric-à-brac they were, but more than that, for they gave infinite pleasure to thousands of children of all ages, and if they do not rise up and call her blessed, they retain a very warm memory of one who gave them so much innocent pleasure.
ILLUSTRATION FROM "UNDINE" BY HEYWOOD SUMNER (CHAPMAN AND HALL)
ILLUSTRATION FROM "THE RED FAIRY BOOK" BY L. SPEED (LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 1895)
Sir John Tenniel's illustrations, beginning as they do with "Undine" (1845), already mentioned, include others in volumes for young people that need not be quoted. But with his designs for "Alice in Wonderland" (Macmillan, 1866), and "Through the Looking Glass" (1872), we touch the two most notable children's books of the century. To say less would be inadequate and to say more needless. For every one knows the incomparable inventions which "Lewis Carroll" imagined and Sir John Tenniel depicted. They are veritable classics, of which, as it is too late to praise them, no more need be said.
Certain coloured picture books by J. E. Rogers were greeted with extravagant eulogy at the time they appeared "in the seventies." "Worthy to be hung at the Academy beside the best pictures of Millais or Sandys," one fatuous critic observed. Looking over their pages again, it seems strange that their very weak drawing and crude colour could have satisfied people familiar with Mr. Walter Crane's masterly work in a not dissimiliar style. "Ridicula Rediviva" and "Mores Ridiculi" (both Macmillan), were illustrations of nursery rhymes. To "The Fairy Book" (1870), a selection of old stories re-told by the author of "John Halifax," Mr. Rogers contributed many full pages in colour, and also to Mr. F. C. Burnand's "Present Pastimes of Merrie England" (1872). They are interesting as documents, but not as art; for their lack of academic knowledge is not counterbalanced by peculiar "feeling" or ingenious conceit. They are merely attempts to do again what Mr. H. S. Marks had done better previously. It seems ungrateful to condemn books that but for renewed acquaintance might have kept the glamour of the past; and yet, realising how much feeble effort has been praised since it was "only for children," it is impossible to keep silence when the truth is so evident.
ILLUSTRATION FROM "KATAWAMPUS" BY ARCHIE MACGREGOR (DAVID NUTT)