After Mr. Pennell comes Mr. Herbert Railton. No architectural drawings are more popular than his, and no style is better known or more generally 'adopted' by the illustrators of little guide-books or of magazine articles. An architect's training and knowledge of structure underlies the picturesque dilapidation prevalent in his version of Anglo-gothic architecture. His first traceable book-illustrations belong to 1888, though in 'The English Illustrated,' in 'The Portfolio,' and elsewhere, he had begun before then to formulate the style that has served him so admirably in later work with the pen. The illustrations to Mr. Loftie's 'Westminster Abbey' (1890) show his manner much as it is in his latest pen drawings. There is a lack of repose. One would like to undecorate some of the masonry, to reveal the austere lines under the prevalence of pattern. At the same time one realizes that here is the style needed in illustration of picturesquely written books about picturesque places, and that the stone tracery of Westminster, or the old brick and tiles of the Inns of Court, are more interesting to many people in drawings such as these than in actuality. But Rico's 'broken line' is responsible for much, and not every draughtsman who adopts it direct, or through a mixed tradition, has the architectural knowledge of Mr. Railton to support his deviations from stability. Mr. Railton is the artist of the Cathedral Guide; he has drawn Westminster, St. Paul's, Winchester, Gloucester, Peterborough, and many more cathedrals, inside and out, within the last ten years. In illustrations to books where a thread of story runs through historical fact, books such as those written by Miss Manning concerning Mary Powell, and the household of Sir Thomas More, the artist has collaborated with Mr. Jellicoe, who has put figures in the streets and country lanes.
There are so many names in the list of those who, in the beginning, profited by the initiative of Mr. Pennell or of Mr. Railton that generally they may be set aside. Of artists who have made some position for themselves, there are enough to fill this chapter. Mr. Holland Tringham and Mr. Hedley Fitton were at one time unmistakable in their Railtonism. Mr. Fitton has illustrated cathedral books, and in later drawings by Mr. Tringham exaggeration of his copy has given place to a more direct record of beautiful buildings. Miss Nelly Erichsen and Miss Helen James[1] are two artists whose work is much in request for illustrated series, such as Dent's 'Mediæval Towns.' Miss James' drawings to 'Rambles in Dickens' Land' (1899) showed study of Mr. Railton, which is also observable in other books, such as 'The Story of Rouen.' At the same time, she carries out her work from individual observation, and gets an effect that belongs to study of the subject, whether from actuality or from photographs. Miss James and Miss Erichsen have collaborated in certain books on Italian towns, but architectural drawing is only part of Miss Erichsen's illustrative work, though an important part, as the illustrations to the recently-published 'Florentine Villas' of Mrs. Ross show. Illustrating stories, she works with graceful distinctness, and many of the drawings in the 'Story of Rome'—though one remembers that Rome is in Mr. Pennell's province—show what she can do.
Mr. C. G. Harper and Mr. C. R. B. Barrett are the most prominent among those writers of travel-books who are also their own illustrators. They belong, though with all the difference of time and development, to the succession of Mr. Augustus Hare. Mr. Hissey also has made many books out of his driving tours through England, and may be said to have first specialized the subject that Mr. Harper and Mr. Barrett have made their own. It is plain that the kind of book has nothing to do with the kind of art that is used in its making. Mr. Hare's famous 'Walks' may be the prototypes of later books, but each man makes what he can out of an idea that has obvious possibilities in it. Mr. Harper has taken to the ancient high-roads of England, and has studied their historical and legendary, past, present, and imagined aspects. Of these he has written; while his illustrations rank him rather among illustrators who write than among writers who illustrate. Since 1889 he has published a dozen books and more. In 'Royal Winchester'—the first of these—he is illustrator only. 'The Brighton Road' of 1892 is the first of the road-books, and the illustrations of the road as it was and is, of town and of country, have colour and open air in their black-and-white. Since then Mr. Harper has been from Paddington to Penzance, has followed Dick Turpin along the Exeter road, and bygone fashion from London to Bath, while accounts of the Dover road from Southwark Bridge to Dover Castle, by way of Dickens' country and hop-gardens, and of the Great North Road of which Stevenson longed to write, are written and drawn with spirited observation. His drawing is not so picturesque as his writing. It has reticence and justness of expression that would not serve in relating tales of the road, but which, together with a sense of colour and of what is pictorial, combine to form an effective and frequently distinctive style of illustration. The drawing reproduced, chosen by the artist, is from Mr. Harper's recent book on the Holyhead road.
DUNCHURCH. BY C. G. HARPER.
FROM 'THE HOLYHEAD ROAD.'
BY HIS PERMISSION.
Mr. Barrett has described and illustrated the 'highways and byways and waterways' of various English counties, as well as published a volume on the battlefields of England, and studies of ancient buildings such as the Tower of London. He is always well informed, and illustrates his subject fully from pen-and-ink drawings. Mr. F. G. Kitton also writes and illustrates, though he has written more than he has drawn. St. Albans is his special town, and the old inns and quaint streets of the little red city with its long cathedral, are truthfully and dexterously given in his pen drawings and etchings. Mr. Alexander Ansted, too, as a draughtsman of English cathedrals and of city churches, has made a steady reputation since 1894, when his etchings and drawings of Riviera scenery showed ambition to render tone, and as much as possible of colour and atmosphere, with pen and ink. Since then he has simplified his style for general purposes, though in books such as 'London Riverside Churches' (1897), or 'The Romance of our Ancient Churches' of two years later, many of the drawings are more elaborate than is common in modern illustration. The names of Mr. C. E. Mallows and of Mr. Raffles Davison must be mentioned among architectural draughtsmen, though they are outside the scope of a study of book-illustration. Some of Mr. Raffles Davison's work has been reprinted from the 'British Architect,' but I do not think either of them illustrates books. An extension of architectural art lies in the consideration of the garden in relation to the house it surrounds, and Mr. Reginald Blomfield's 'Formal Garden' treats of the first principles of garden design as distinct from horticulture. The drawings by Mr. Inigo Thomas, whether one considers them as illustrating principles or gardens, are worth looking at, as 'The Yew Walk' sufficiently shows.
THE YEW WALK; MELBOURNE DERBYSHIRE
BY F. INIGO THOMAS.
FROM BLOMFIELD'S 'THE FORMAL GARDEN.'
BY LEAVE OF MESSRS. MACMILLAN.