This illustration suggests possibilities in producing decorative pages in modern books without the aid of printers’ type, which is worth consideration in art schools. It requires, of course, knowledge of the figure and of design, and a trained hand for process. One obvious preparation for such work, is an examination of decorative pages in the Manuscript Department of the British Museum. (See Appendix.)
It would be difficult, I think, to show more clearly the scope and variety of line work by process than in the contrast between this and the two preceding illustrations. Each artist is an expert in black and white in his own way.
“BABY’S OWN.” (G. HILLYARD SWINSTEAD.)
(From “Academy Notes,” 1890.)
A wonderful and startling invention is here, worthy of a land of enchantment, which, without labour, with little more than a wave of the hand, transfixes the artist’s touch, and turns it into concrete; by which the most delicate and hasty strokes of the pen are not merely recorded in fac-simile for the eye to decipher, but are brought out in sharp relief, as bold and strong as if hewn out of a rock! Here is an argument for doing “the best and truest work we can,” a process that renders indestructible—so indestructible that nothing short of cremation would get rid of it—every line that we put upon paper; an argument for learning for purposes of illustration the touch and method best adapted for reproduction by the press.[13]
“A SILENT POOL.” (ED. W. WAITE.)
(From “Academy Notes,” 1891.)