The Art of Illustration / 2nd ed.

by Henry Blackburn

A curious experiment was made lately with some students in an Art school, to prove the fallacy of the accepted system of describing landscapes, buildings, and the like in words. A page or two from one of the Waverley novels (a description of a castle and the heights of mountainous land, with a river winding in the valley towards the sea, and clusters of houses and trees on the right hand) was read slowly and repeated before a number of students, three of whom, standing apart from each other by pre-arrangement, proceeded to indicate on blackboards before an audience the leading lines of the picture as the words had presented it to their minds. It is needless to say that the results, highly skilful in one case, were all different, and all wrong; and that in particular the horizon line of the sea (so easy to indicate with any clue, and so important to the composition) was hopelessly out of place. Thus we describe day by day, and the pictures formed in the mind are erroneous, for the imagination of the reader is at work at once, and requires simple guidance. The exhibition was, I need hardly say, highly stimulating and suggestive.

Many arguments might be used for the substitution of pictorial for verbal methods of expression, which apply to books as well as periodicals. Two may be mentioned of a purely topical kind.

1. In June, 1893, when the strife of political parties ran high in England, and anything like a rapprochement between their leaders seemed impossible, Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Balfour were seen in apparently friendly conversation behind the Speaker’s chair in the House of Commons. A newspaper reporter in one of the galleries, observing the interesting situation, does not say in so many words, that “Mr. G. was seen talking to Mr. B.,” but makes, or has made for him, a sketch (without caricature) of the two figures standing talking together, and writes under it, “Amenities behind the Speaker’s chair.” Here it will be seen that the subject is approached with more delicacy, and the position indicated with greater force through the pictorial method.

2. The second modern instance of the power—the eloquence, so to speak, of the pictorial method—appeared in the pages of Punch on the occasion of the visit of the Russian sailors to Paris in October, 1893. A rollicking, dancing Russian bear, with the words “Vive la République” wound round his head, hit the situation as no words could have done, especially when exposed for sale in the kiosques of the Paris boulevards. The picture required no translation into the languages of Europe.

It may be said that there is nothing new here—that the political cartoon is everywhere—that it has existed always, that it flourished in Athens and Rome, that all history teems with it, that it comes down to us on English soil through Gillray, Rowlandson, Hogarth, Blake, and many distinguished names. I draw attention to these things because the town is laden with newspapers and illustrated sheets. The tendency of the time seems to be to read less and less, and to depend more upon pictorial records of events. There are underlying reasons for this on which we must not dwell; the point of importance to illustrators is the fact that there is an insatiable demand for “pictures” which tell us something quickly and accurately, in a language which every nation can understand.

Another example of the use of pictorial expression to aid the verbal. A traveller in the Harz Mountains finds himself on the Zeigenkop, near Blankenberg, on a clear summer’s day, and thus describes it in words:—

“We are now on the heights above Blankenberg, a promontory 1,360 feet above the plains, with an almost uninterrupted view of distant country looking northward and eastward. The plateau of mountains on which we have been travelling here ends abruptly. It is the end of the upper world, but the plains seem illimitable. There is nothing between us and our homes in Berlin—nothing to impede the view which it is almost impossible to describe in words. The setting sun has pierced the veil of mist, and a map of Northern Germany seems unrolled before us, distant cities coming into view one by one. First, we see Halberstadt with its spires, then Magdeburg, then another city, and another.

“We have been so occupied with the distant prospect, and with the objects of interest which give character to it, that we had almost overlooked the charming composition and suggestive lines of this wonderful view. There is an ancient castle on the heights, the town of Blankenberg at our feet, a strange wall of perpendicular rocks in the middle distance; there are the curves of the valleys, flat pastures, undulating woods, and roads winding away across the plains. The central point of interest is the church spire with its cluster of houses spreading upwards towards the château, with its massive terraces fringed with trees, &c., &c.”

This was all very well in word-painting, but what a veil is lifted from the reader’s eyes by some such sketch as the one below.