"As I never have a model, I never draw from life, always when I want a portrait, a uniform, and so on, from a photograph, though not in quite the same spirit as Sambourne does. I get a photograph only of the man whom I want to draw, and seek to get his character. Then, if the photograph is in profile, I have to 'judge' the full face, and vice versá; but if I only succeed in getting the character, I seldom go far wrong—a due appreciation is an almost infallible guide. I had the opportunity of studying Mr. Gladstone's face carefully when he did me the honour of inviting me to dinner at Downing Street, and I have met him since; but I fancy, after my 'Mrs. Gummidge' cartoon and 'Janus,' I don't deserve to be honoured again! His face has much more character and is much stronger than Mr. Bright's. Mr. Bright had fine eyes and a grand, powerful mouth, as well as an earnest expression; but a weak nose—artistically speaking, no nose at all—still, a very intellectual face indeed."
Thus it was not only Nature, but the Pope, who marked out Tenniel for the position of Punch's Cartoonist—the greatest "Cartoonist" the world has produced. Had the Pope not "aggressed" by appointing archbishops and bishops to English Sees, and so raised the scare of which Lord John Russell and Mr. Punch really seem to have been the leaders, Doyle would not have resigned, and no opening would have been made for Tenniel. Sir John, indeed, was by no means enamoured of the prospect of being a Punch artist when Mark Lemon made his overtures to him. He was rather indignant than otherwise, as his line was high art and his severe drawing above "fooling." "Do they suppose," he asked a friend, "that there is anything funny about me?" He meant, of course, in his art, for privately he was well recognised as a humorist; and little did he know, in the moment of hesitation before he accepted the offer, that he was struggling against a kindly destiny.
John Tenniel was only sixteen years old when his first oil picture was exhibited at the Suffolk Street Galleries, and he soon became recognised, not only as a painter, but as a book and magazine illustrator of unusual skill. But he and Keene had already proclaimed themselves the humorists they were by the production of the "Book of Beauty," to which much public attention was drawn when the sketches contained in it were exhibited and sold. They had been fellow-students at the life class, and in the year 1844 were both intimate visitors at the house of their friends, Mr. and Mrs. Barrett. After dinner, when the lamp was brought in, the two young artists would amuse themselves, together with their host, by making drawings in coloured chalks. Mr. Barrett, it may be said, was a thin man, signing himself "5-12ths," in recognition of the nobler proportions of Mrs. Barrett, unquestionably his "better half." Keene chose the "Signs of the Zodiac," to begin with, as the subject of his admirable burlesques, Tenniel having already selected quotations from Shakespeare, history, poetry, and so forth, the humour which he infused into them being equal to anything he afterwards produced in Punch. But it may interest the present owners of these highly-prized productions to know that those who produced them thought very little of them as art, while Sir John expressed the greatest surprise that in their rubbed condition they should attract any notice whatever. As early proofs, however, of the comic faculty of two of Punch's giants, they were interesting and valuable designs; while, so far as Sir John's work was concerned, they were the forerunners of the extremely humorous illustrations of Shakespearian quotations with which he advanced his reputation and his position on the paper.
No sooner had the severe young classicist determined to accept the position offered him in Punch's band, than Mr. Swain was requested to wait upon him in Newman Street, and instruct him in the art of drawing upon wood. But he found that Tenniel, the illustrator of the Rev. Thomas James's edition of Æsop's Fables, published by John Murray in 1848, was already a brilliant expert. The accomplished young draughtsman soon took keen delight in the smooth face of a block, and at once began—and ever continued—to demand a degree of smoothness that was the despair of Swain to procure. Tenniel, indeed, always drew with a specially-manufactured six-H pencil—which appears more impressive with its proper style of "H H H H H H"—and so delicate was the drawing that, firm and solid as were the lines, it looked as if you could blow it off the wood. The result is that Swain has always interpreted Sir John Tenniel's work, not simply facsimile'd it, aiming rather at producing what the artist intended or desired to have, than what he actually provided in his exquisite grey drawings. So Swain would thicken his lines while retaining their character, just as he would reduce Mr. Sambourne's, particularly in the flesh parts, and otherwise bring the resources of the engraver's art to bear upon the work of the masters of the pencil. Doubtless the artists might deplore the "spoiling" of their lines; but pencil greys are not to be reproduced in printer's ink—they must be "rendered." And though, as artists, draughtsmen may groan under the transitional process, they realise that in submitting their work to the wood-cutter's craft, they must take its drawbacks along with its advantages.
ROUGH SKETCH FOR "THOR" FOR "PUNCH'S POCKET-BOOK."
"HUMPTY-DUMPTY!"
(From Sir John Tenniel's First Rough Sketch for the Cartoon in "Punch" 20th July, 1875—p. 18, Vol. LXXV.)