“GREETING.” (BY THE HON. MRS. BOYLE.)
CHAPTER II.
ELEMENTARY ILLUSTRATION.
HE first object of an illustration, the practical part, is obviously, to illustrate and elucidate the text—a matter often lost sight of. The second is to be artistic, and includes works of the imagination, decoration, ornament, style. In this chapter we shall consider the first, the practical part.
Nearly twenty years ago, at a meeting of the Society of Arts in London, the general question was discussed, whether in the matter of illustrating books and newspapers we are really keeping pace with the times; whether those whose business it is to provide the illustrations which are tossed from steam presses at the rate of several thousand copies an hour, are doing the best work they can.
In illustrated newspapers, it was argued, “there should be a clearer distinction between fact and fiction, between news and pictures.” The exact words may be thought worth repeating now.[3]
“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;