Most illustrators, it is true, now sign their drawings, but I should not care to attempt a catalogue of my own work.
I have no doubt that I have omitted to mention some really important books, but they have been omitted because I have never seen them; with no good catalogue, no guide, many of the artists dead, and the books dead too, how is one to find them? I have done what I could to make a start; I only hope some one will carry it on; certainly I am sure some of my sincere flatterers will imitate me, as they always do.
But to-day the output of illustration is overwhelming; to study the subject properly one must see all the books, magazines, and papers published all over the world. No one man has a chance to do this, and, if he had, the mere looking at such a mass of material would take up all his time. Yet one must get some idea of what is being done, for in the most unexpected places the best work often appears; originality is barred in many, so-called, high-class journals, and has to struggle, in the cheapest publications, with the printing-press, ink, and paper.
What magazine, for example, has eclipsed "The Daily Chronicle's" experiment in illustration? Within the same short period no such distinguished band of contributors ever appeared.
Again, in this book it is repeatedly stated that certain artists are at work on certain publications; these have since appeared; I can only say that the book was not made in a day, and the artists, engravers, and printers to whom I have referred, have worked faster than I have. Even the "Yellow Book" has come into existence, and been artistically eclipsed—I hope but for a short while—since I have been working at this volume. Temporarily, the shrieking brother and sisterhood have hurt the pockets of a few artists; but illustrators may be consoled by remembering that from the time of Dürer to the pre-Raphaelites, from Whistler to Eternity, Art never has been and never will be understanded of the people; but they no longer dare to burn our productions, they only write to the newspapers about them. Art can stand that—even though it, for the moment, is hard on the artist.
It is now no longer necessary for me to insist on the importance of illustration; it is acknowledged, and, save that academic honours are denied him in this country, the illustrator ranks with any other practitioner of the fine or applied arts.
BY J. McNEIL WHISTLER. FROM “LEGENDARY BALLADS” (CHATTO).
Nor do I propose to contradict the statement that one can see too much good art; well, the Elgin marbles stood for centuries where only the blind could avoid them, and I have not heard that the Athenians were injured in consequence; now they are shut up in boxes, and only visible at certain times, hence the British taste has been so elevated, that the ha'penny comic and the photograph have become its ideal. Still, if people could see every day, as they had the chance of seeing this year in the "Chronicle," illustrations by Whistler and Burne-Jones, I do not think they would be harmed, even if they did not happen to have to travel in a penny 'bus to the British Museum, or take a Cook's ticket and a shilling Ruskin in order to walk in Florence. My opinion is, the better the art around us, even in the penny paper, the better shall we be able to appreciate the work we must travel to see.
As for the people who would vulgarize art and literature, bringing everything down to their own low level, we have them always with us. And they and their hangers-on are the ones against whom the present puritans should level their attacks—not against men whose art they do not understand, even if they do object to their personality. Still here it will be always impossible to separate a man from his work; yet good art will live, and good illustration is good art. The world may or may not appreciate it, still "there never was an artistic period, there never was an art-loving nation."