'SUNDAY MAGAZINE'
1865, p. 328
WINTER
Like its companion, Good Words, it has known fat years and lean years; volumes that were full of admirable drawings, and volumes that barely maintained a respectable average. From the very first volume of the Sunday Magazine we find among others R. Barnes, A. Boyd Houghton, M. E. Edwards, Paul Gray, J. Lawson, F. W. Lawson, J. W. North, G. J. Pinwell, and Marcus Stone well represented. The standard of excellence implied by these names was preserved for a considerable time. To this Pinwell contributes two drawings, The House of God (p. 144) and Only a Lost Child (p. 592), a typical character-study of town life. Paul Gray has a full page, The Maiden Martyr (p. 272), engraved by Swain; either the drawing is below his level, or it has suffered badly at the hands of the engraver. The Orphan Girl (p. 296), Clara Linzell's Commentary (p. 401), and Dorcas (p. 617), by the same artist, are all interesting, but do not represent him at his best. The single contribution by A. Boyd Houghton, Friar Ives (p. 384), is not particularly good. In Winter, by J. W. North (p. 328), we have a most excellent drawing of a snow-clad farm with a thrashing machine at work in the distance, and two children in the foreground. The delicacy and breadth of the work, and its true tonality deserve appreciation; it was engraved by Swain. Drowned (p. 585), by Marcus Stone, is not very typical. The Watch at the Sepulchre (p. 940), by J. Lawson, is a spirited group of Roman soldiers. Caught in a Thunderstorm, by R. P. Leitch, engraved by W. J. Linton, is interesting to disciples of 'the white line.' Edward Whymper supplies the frontispiece, The Righi. M. E. Edwards, in the drawings to Grandfather's Sunday (pp. 481, 489), appears to be under the influence of G. H. Thomas. Robert Barnes has twenty illustrations to Kate the Grandmother, and one each to Light in Darkness (p. 25) and Our Children. A series of fourteen to Joshua Taylor's Passion, engraved by Dalziel, are unsigned; the style leads one to credit them to F. A. Fraser, who in later volumes occupied a prominent position. F. W. Lawson, in A Romance of Truth (pp. 641, 649) and The Vine and its Branches (p. 904), has not yet found his individual manner. The rest of the pictures by T. Dalziel, F. J. Slinger, R. T. Pritchett, F. Eltze, W. M'Connell, etc., call for no special comment.
In 1866 J. Mahoney's Summer, the frontispiece to the volume, is a notable example of a clever artist, whose work has hardly yet attracted the attention it deserves; Marie (p. 753), a study of an old woman knitting, is no less good. Birket Foster's Autumn (p. 1) is also a very typical example. Paul Gray's Among the Flowers (p. 624), a group of children from the slums in a country lane, is fairly good. W. Small, in Hebe Dunbar 'from a photograph' (p. 441), supplies an object-lesson of translation rather than imitation, which deserves to be studied to-day. In it, a really great draughtsman has given you a personal rendering of facts, like those he would have set down had he worked from life, and thereby imparted individual interest to a copy of a photograph. This one block, if photographers would but study it, should convince them that a good drawing is in every way preferable to a 'half-tone' block from a photograph of the subject; it might also teach a useful lesson to certain draughtsmen, who employ photographs so clumsily that the result is good neither as photography nor as drawing, but partakes of the faults of both. Three designs to the Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood, by Dr. George Mac Donald, (pp. 641, 713, 785), the first quite in the mood of the hour, a capital piece of work, and A Sunday Afternoon in a London Court, complete Mr. Small's share in this volume. Robert Barnes supplies the other eight drawings to Dr. Mac Donald's story, and another, The Pitman and his Wife (p. 17), an excellent specimen of his 'British Workman' manner. F. J. Shields, a very infrequent contributor to these magazines, has a biblical group, 'Even as thou wilt' (p. 33). Edward Hughes (who must not be confounded with Arthur Hughes, nor with the present member of the Old Water-Colour Society, E. R. Hughes) is responsible for Under a Cottage Roof (p. 192), The Bitter and Sweet (p. 249), The First Tooth (p. 337), and The Poor Seamstress (p. 409); although a somewhat fecund illustrator not devoid of style and invention, his work fails to interest one much to-day. J. Gordon Thomson, so many years the cartoonist of Fun, is represented by On the Rock (p. 544). F. W. Lawson's Hope (p. 120) and A. W. Bayes's Saul and David (p. 703), with a drawing of wild animals drinking, by Wolf, complete the list of original work, the rest being engraved from photographs.
S. L. FILDES
'SUNDAY MAGAZINE,' 1868, p. 656
THE FARMER'S DAUGHTER
A. BOYD HOUGHTON
