The rediscovered qualities of the wood block have attracted many artists to its use. They are producing work of great variety of interest, but it is rather in the pictorial direction than as book illustration. The work of Valloton elsewhere, and of Jane Bouquet and Brangwyn, of Sydney Lee and Verpilleux in this Studio special number are examples of this. The work of Lucien Pissaro, of Charles Shannon, and Charles Ricketts shows the right use of the woodcut as decorative illustration, but their work belongs to the early days of this revival. Dürer, Holbein, and the Polyphilus printed by Aldus are the great exemplars for a pre-Bewick Brotherhood of the decorative woodcut. Where work of a freer quality is desirable, Miss Jackson's on page 13 shows the texture that goes with type satisfactorily. Miss Gribble has given the right degree of formal treatment to the pastoral motives she has chosen for tail-pieces, and makes them decorative without letting them lose their interest and so become vapid conventions. Both Miss Jackson and Miss Gribble are pupils of Mr. Noel Rooke, who has done so much for the right use of the woodcut for decorative illustration.
The lithographs suffer much more than the woodcuts by reproduction. To begin with, they are very much reduced in size, and they are printed by a letterpress method (i.e., from a relief surface) instead of from the plain surface for which they were drawn. The loss which they suffer by these changes can only be appreciated by those who know the originals. Both Mr. and Mrs. Hartrick's fine examples suffer through the loss of the rich lithographic black.
BIBLIOGRAPHIES OF MODERN AUTHORS
G. K. CHESTERTON
Verse
GREYBEARDS AT PLAY. Brimley Johnson. 1900.
THE WILD KNIGHT. Grant Richards. 1900. Enlarged Edition. Dent. 1914.
THE BALLAD OF THE WHITE HORSE. Methuen. 1911.