The late George H. Thomas was not less successful than Gilbert in the spirit and vigour of his drawings. His bold and eminently artistic pencil alternated with Gilbert’s in portraying the exciting events following the revolutionary period of 1848-49. His contributions to the Illustrated London News during the Crimean war were marked by great force and truthfulness, and procured him the notice and patronage of her Majesty Queen Victoria. Mr. Thomas’s premature death in 1868 was a great loss to the world of art in general, and to the pictorial press in particular.
It is remarkable that many of our distinguished artists should have begun their careers as engravers or draughtsmen on wood. The production of works in black and white, whether as engravings or drawings, is no doubt good artistic practice in the study of light and shade, and the young artist who draws on wood as a means of helping him to live while he is waiting for fame, is at the same time pursuing a useful branch of his art education. Luke Fildes, A.R.A., Birket Foster, W. Small, R. C. Woodville, C. Gregory, A.R.A., and many others began in this way, and among deceased artists occur the names of S. Read, E. Duncan, and F. W. Topham. The two last were both engravers. All these men have done good work on the pictorial press, and some of them first won distinction through its medium. Both the Illustrated London News and the Graphic may claim to have done good service to art and artists in this respect. Their pages have always been open to young artists of ability, and while they have helped forward struggling genius they have opened up new sources of enjoyment to the general public.
The pictorial press has hitherto been mainly dependent on the art of wood-engraving for its illustrations, but latterly several inventions have been used, not unsuccessfully, in the production of blocks in relief, to be printed in the same manner as woodcuts. The great improvements that have been made in surface printing render it probable that in the future these process blocks may be extensively used in illustrated newspapers. They are recommended by their cheapness and rapid production; and as the intermediate process of engraving is dispensed with, they retain the exact touch of the artist, and are not liable to be mutilated by careless or hasty engraving. It may be said of all these inventions, however, that they are best suited for slight sketches, and should not be applied to the production of highly-finished subjects. For the latter there is nothing better than a woodcut, which, when well executed and carefully printed, has a richness superior to any other method of engraving. But in the present day competition is so great and the march of events is so rapid that cheapness and rapidity of production will override artistic excellence, and process-engraving, as it is called, will probably be the method adopted for the daily pictorial press, the era of which is approaching.
Wood-engraving, as an art, scarcely existed in this country before the time of Thomas Bewick. To him we owe its revival, and he was thus indirectly concerned in the creation of the pictorial newspaper. Though we have seen that the Grub Street Journal and the Observer on a few occasions used copperplate illustrations, it is perfectly certain that an illustrated newspaper, properly so-called, never could have existed but for the art of wood-engraving. It was an essential agent in bringing into life this novel offspring of the printing press, just as it assisted in the birth of the old ‘block books.’ When Caxton brought the art of printing into this country the woodcuts printed at his press were probably executed by the printers whom he brought with him. His successors illustrated their books in the same way, and even after wood-engraving was practised in England as a distinct profession many of the illustrations in books and pamphlets were the work of printers. When something of superior design and finish was wanted, ready-made woodcuts were procured from Nuremberg or Lyons, then the chief marts for such productions. The blocks so obtained were sometimes used without much regard to the book in which they were printed. Cuts originally designed for an edition of Ovid appeared in the Bible, and no notice was taken of this mixture of sacred and profane things. Albert Dürer’s influence on the art of wood-engraving was very great, but it never extended to this country. Hans Holbein, who came to England two years before Dürer’s death, made a few designs for the wood-engravers during his long residence here. His transient use of the art, however, did not raise it to a better condition, and printers continued to be the chief producers of woodcuts. In the time of Queen Elizabeth there flourished a printer and engraver of the name of John Day, who took for his mark an emblematic device of the day-spring of the reformed religion, with the motto, ‘Arise, for it is Day.’ The best illustrated books of that period were produced by him. About this time the art was rapidly declining in other countries, but in England it was in a better condition than at any previous period. It soon, however, declined in this country also, but was kept alive by Edward Kirkall, John Baptiste Jackson, and others, until it was revived by Thomas Bewick.
The low condition of the art of wood-engraving in this country was chiefly owing to the want of good designers, and it was not until a man arose who possessed the power to draw as well as to engrave that an English school of wood-engraving was created. Bewick possessed the artistic faculty as a direct gift from nature; and though it was from accidental circumstances that he was led to exercise this innate power in drawing and engraving on wood, he soon discovered of what the art was capable, and devoted his chief attention to it. He drew such things as he understood and had studied from nature, and thoroughly comprehending the scope and power of wood-engraving, he was able, with little labour, to produce the best results.
At the time of Bewick’s death, in 1828, England had scarcely recovered from the exhausting wars of Napoleon, trade was stagnant, and taxation was heavy. The mass of the people had no money to spend on such luxuries as illustrated books, and the enterprise of publishers was confined to the production of the well-known ‘Annuals’ of that day; but they were illustrated with steel engravings, and were only purchased by the wealthier classes. Such works as Robinson Crusoe and the Pilgrim’s Progress, for which there is always a demand, were illustrated by Cruikshank and Harvey. There was Northcote’s Fables, on which all the best engravers of the day were employed; but it was not until the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge began its operations, and Charles Knight took the lead in illustrated literature, that wood-engraving began to be extensively used. The art was so little known that when the woodcuts of the Penny Magazine began to attract attention a nobleman of that day spoke of them as the productions of a new art. Illustrations were so seldom used that the preparation of even a small woodcut was of much moment to all concerned. I have heard the late William Harvey relate that when Whittingham, the well-known printer, wanted a new cut for his ‘Chiswick Press’ series, he would write to Harvey and John Thompson, the engraver, appointing a meeting at Chiswick, when printer, designer, and engraver talked over the matter with as much deliberation as if they were about to produce a costly national monument, and after they had settled all points over a snug supper, the result of their labours was the production, months afterwards, of a small woodcut measuring perhaps two inches by three. At this time only about a dozen persons, besides Bewick’s pupils, were practising the art of wood-engraving in England, and in France the art was so low that a few years later the blocks for the Magazin Pittoresque were sent from Paris to London to be engraved. In Germany, the cradle of the art, it languished as in other countries, while in America, a country which is now taking a leading part in the cultivation of wood-engraving, the art was almost unknown as a native production. It is now in use all over the civilised world, and there is scarcely a capital city without its newspaper illustrated with woodcuts. It has even penetrated to the sunless regions of ice and snow. In the Library of the South Kensington Museum there is a book with illustrations drawn and engraved on wood by Esquimaux!
The cause of this wide diffusion and extended employment of the art of wood-engraving is undoubtedly its close alliance with the kindred art of printing. No other method of engraving lends itself so easily to the rapid productions of the printing-press. From the earliest days of printing the two arts have advanced hand in hand, aiding in the growth of knowledge and the spread of civilisation. The application of steam to the art of printing revolutionised the world of typography, and wood-engraving was not slow in adapting itself to the new conditions. The advancing spirit of education created a demand for cheap knowledge. Penny magazines and pictorial newspapers came into existence. The steam printing-press spread them far and wide, and wood-engraving since the time of Bewick has shown that it possesses capabilities which that genuine old artist would have rejoiced to behold.
In tracing the origin and progress of the pictorial press I have confined my researches to British journalism, but the subject might be widely extended. From the days of the Acta Diurna of the Romans something in the shape of a newspaper appears to have been a necessity of civilised life. Soon after the invention of printing small news-sheets appeared in various towns of Germany and in Venice. In the Low Countries an illustrated war gazette was published as early as 1605. It was called the Niewetijdinghe, and it was the precursor of the Gazette van Antwerpen, which survived till 1805. During the Spanish and Austrian rule in Belgium each town had its privileged newspaper. As the printers of those days were well acquainted with the art of wood-engraving, it is not unlikely that some of these early newspapers contained illustrations. The earlier newspapers of Holland were chiefly devoted to commercial intelligence, and afforded little scope for illustration, but illustrated broadsides were not uncommon. In Germany the first regular newspaper appeared in 1615, when the art of wood-engraving had greatly declined; and when the physician Renaudot started the first newspaper in France, in 1631, if the idea of illustrating it had occurred to him he would have had to rely on his printer for the production of the woodcuts. As, however, the low condition of illustrative art in the seventeenth century did not deter English printers of ‘News-books’ from seeking such pictorial aid as they could obtain, it is highly probable their Continental brethren did the same, however insufficient might be the means at their command.
When the history of our own age comes to be written the pictorial newspapers will form an inexhaustible store-house for the historian. The following list of cities in Europe, America, and the English colonies, with the names of the illustrated newspapers published by them, will convey some idea of the extent to which pictorial journalism has spread during the last forty years:—