BY A. B. FROST. FROM “STUFF AND NONSENSE” (SCRIBNER’S).
In his own way Mr. Abbey stands completely apart from all other artists. His beautiful drawing, conscientious attention to detail and costume, interesting composition and perfect grace give him rank as a master. His edition of Herrick has become a classic, while in his "Old Songs," and "Quiet Life," done in collaboration with Mr. Parsons, he has so successfully delineated the eighteenth century that he has made it a mine for less able men who have neither his power as draughtsman, nor his appreciation that illustration is as serious as any other branch of art, not to be entered upon lightly and without training. He has transformed "She Stoops to Conquer" from a play into a series of pictures; and his illustrations to Shakespeare will, without doubt, become historic; they are models of accurate learning and careful research, and yet, at the same time, the most perfect expression of beauty and refinement. The decorative or decadent craze has also reached America, and its most amusing representative, so far, is W. H. Bradley; but G. W. Edwards, L. S. Ispen, and others, decorated books long before mysticism became the rage.
Mr. Reinhart and Mr. Smedley have treated the more modern side of life with an intelligence which is almost equal to Abbey's. Mr. Reinhart's most remarkable work is to be found in "Spanish Vistas" by Mr. George Parsons Lathrop, and in his sketches in "American Watering Places." Mr. Smedley's drawings may be seen any month in "Harper's Magazine."
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| BY E. A. ABBEY. FROM “HARPER’S MAGAZINE” (COPYRIGHT 1894, BY HARPER AND BROTHERS). | |
BY E. A. ABBEY. FROM AUSTIN DOBSON’S POEMS (KEGAN PAUL).
Mr. Howard Pyle has brought all the resources of the past to aid him in the present, and is probably the most intelligent and able student of the fifteenth century living to-day. Yet Mr. Pyle is, when illustrating a modern subject, as entirely modern. He has treated with equal success the England of Robin Hood, the Germany of the fifteenth century, colonial days in America, children's stories, and the ordinary everyday events which an illustrator is called upon to record. He is deservedly almost as well known as a writer. His principal books are "Otto of the Silver Hand," the "Story of Robin Hood," and "Pepper and Salt."
