Read Ebook: The Illustration of Books A Manual for the Use of Students Notes for a Course of Lectures at the Slade School University College by Pennell Joseph

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PREFACE

These lectures were delivered in the Slade School, University College, at the request and suggestion of Professor F. Brown, and, I believe, were the first, or among the first, serious attempts in this country to point out all the various methods of making and reproducing drawings for book and newspaper illustration.

Since they were first delivered, now some three winters ago, courses of lectures on illustration, and classes for instruction in drawing and engraving have been started in almost all art schools.

It seemed to me, therefore, that a small manual on the subject might be useful.

There is no attempt in this book to define Art, or even to tell the student how to draw; that he learns in his ordinary school work. Still less is there any endeavour to dictate, or even suggest, any especial style, or manner of handling, or technique.

But illustration is, up to a certain point, a mechanical craft, which must be learned, and can be learned, by any one. And ignorance of the requirements and absolute necessities are evident all around us.

The book, therefore, might rather be described as a series of tips or hints--to put it on as low a plane as possible--the result of practical experience, which should enable the student to make his drawings so that they will produce a good effect on the printed page; but, first of all, he must be able to make the drawing well. No one can teach him that; but he can be taught what materials he should use, where he can get them, and how he should employ them. That is all I have tried to do.

As I have said in this book repeatedly, processes are discovered and perfected almost daily. Since these lectures were last given, the method of etching zinc and copper half-tone blocks has been entirely revolutionised. Now, there is no inking up of plates; the photograph on the metal serves as a protecting and acid-resisting ground, and the biting is done as simply as in ordinary etching; though, of course, it is the lines or dots which are left in relief.

Possibly before the book is out, even greater improvements and developments may be made.

Nor have I attempted to describe all the tricks, dodges, and clever schemes employed in newspaper offices for making blocks from photographs, or for the rapid reproduction of sketches, such as drawing on lithographic transfer paper, making photographic enlargements on fugitive prints. All are most useful and valuable in their way, but not exactly what one would tell a student to do. If he becomes an illustrator he will learn these things fast enough.

As the book is passing through the press Mr. W. Lewis Fraser, the art manager of "The Century" magazine, writes me that he thinks it "a good practical book, likely to be of much use to the young illustrator, and save the art editor many a pang and many a sorrow." I hope so, and it is with this hope that the book is published.

THE ILLUSTRATION OF BOOKS.

The Egyptians were the most prolific, and their works may be found, monuments more durable than brass, not alone in their places, but scattered to all the corners of the earth.

Beautiful as are the manuscripts, they play but a small and unimportant part in the history of illustration, when compared with the block books that follow them; though block printing is but a natural evolution from the stamp on the bricks of the Egyptian, or the painting on the vases of the Etruscan.

The block books, more often loose sheets, were printed from designs, picture and text, cut on the wood, in one piece, sometimes possibly engraved in metal. These blocks, being inked, and having sheets of paper placed on their inked surfaces, and the paper being rubbed, gave off an impression; as many blocks having to be cut as there were pages, and as many impressions having to be taken from each block as there were copies desired. The first of these illustrated blocks is the St. Christopher, 1423, though playing-cards, produced in the same way, were known much earlier.

It is only, however, with the invention of printing with movable types, practised by the Chinese centuries before we ever thought of it, that illustration, in its modern sense, may be said to have been created; though printing with movable type is but the cutting up into separate letters of the pages of the block books. As soon as the artist was able to make his design upon a block of wood, have that engraved, and set up in the press with movable type, and print from it, a new art was discovered.

These methods have undergone, and still are undergoing, incessant modifications, developments, and improvements; and anyone who wishes to take up illustration as a profession or a study, must learn the rudiments of the science, as well as master the great principles of art, if he wishes to succeed.

To-day, the methods of making the design are many, but the methods of reproducing it are virtually endless; still one must try to learn something of the most important, and the more one understands the requirements of drawing for engraving and printing, the better will be the results obtained.

In the fifteenth century one had but to design the picture on the side of a plank, write in the text in reverse, cut everything else away, wet the block thoroughly, ink the face of it, lay damp paper over it, and rub or press the back of the sheet of paper till the ink came off on it, producing a print.

To-day one must understand drawing in all sorts of mediums, know something of the effect of photographing a drawing on to the wood block or metal plate, take at least an intelligent interest in engraving on wood and metal, understand process and lithography, and be prepared to struggle with that terrible monster, the modern steam-press, and its slave, the modern printer. To do this intelligently requires, not only a training in Art, but in the arts and sciences of engraving, reproduction, printing; and it is to these arts and sciences that I propose to call your attention.

An illustration really is a work of art, or rather it should be, which is explanatory; but, as a matter of fact, so too is all graphic art, explanatory of some story, sentiment, emotion, effect, or fact; and it would be very difficult indeed to point out when art is not illustrative.

As the word is used to-day, however, an illustration is a design made for the purpose of publication in book or magazine or paper. The fashion of making such designs to accompany lettering or type is, as I have shown, as old as the art of writing. The art of illustration, or rather the existence of illustration as a separate craft, and of illustrators as a distinct body of craftsmen, is virtually the growth of this century, more properly of the last sixty years since the invention of illustrated journalism.

Until the other day illustration had no place among the Fine Arts, and it has been said that, to win renown, an illustrator must achieve it in some other branch of art.

To-day, however, illustration is the most living and vital of the Fine Arts, and among its followers are found the most able and eminent of contemporary artists.

It cannot, however, be said that this prominence which has been so suddenly thrust upon illustration is altogether due to its increase in artistic excellence; there are a number of other reasons.

Illustration has indeed reached technically, on the part of artist, engraver, and printer, such a point of perfection, that it has at length forced critics and amateurs to give it the attention it has so long demanded.

More important reasons are the developments in reproduction and printing, started, and to a great extent carried on, merely to lessen the cost of production, but capable of giving better and truer results in the hands of intelligent craftsmen, than anything previously known.

Still, cheapness in reproduction by process, cheapness in the cost of printing, has enabled numbers of absolutely ignorant people , but possessed of, they think, fine commercial instincts, to start illustrated papers and publish illustrated books. The result has been that an army of out-of-works in other fields of art, of immature or even utterly untrained students, escaping from the hard labour and drudgery of an art school, ignorant even of the fact that great illustrators have always studied and worked before they have found a chance to start, have rushed into illustration. They are led blindly by the advice of the blind, they find even manuals on the subject written authoritatively by people who are either not artists, engravers, or printers, or, if they do pretend to practise any of these arts and crafts, are unknown and unheard of among the artists with whom they would rank themselves; and more wonderful still, the pupils of these blind leaders of the blind find publishers and printers ignorant enough to employ them; but not so ignorant as to pay more than the wage of an inferior servant for the worthless work supplied them.

Therefore, as a mass, instead of advancing, illustration is sinking lower and lower, owing to the action of those who pretend to be its patrons; at the present moment we find ourselves in a critical situation, good work crowded out by mediocrity--because mediocrity is cheaper--real artists lost sight of amid the crowd of squirming, struggling, advertising hacks. Any spark of originality is stamped out if possible. The mere attempt to say anything in one's own fashion is a crime, and on all sides the prayer for the extinction of the artist is heard; after him will go the process man as the commercial wood engraver has vanished, and then--well, things will take a new start, good work will be done, and we may as well prepare for the time coming soon, when cheapness and nastiness, having struggled to the bitter end, will kill each other for want of something better.

Still, to-day, as good work is being done as ever there was; only cheapness has to shriek so loud, and advertise so large, to be seen at all, that people are deafened by the shrieking, and at times the best is but seen through a glass, darkly. Nevertheless, good art will as surely live as bad will perish. Let us then endeavour not only to learn what good work is, but how to do it. In the near future this will be absolutely necessary. When one sees the greatest artists in England drawing for penny papers, one realises that illustration is only apparently in a bad way, that really we are entering upon a second renaissance, that this is but the dark moment before the dawn.

As a preliminary, and also a final, word to you, I would say, you must draw, draw, draw first, last, and all the time, and until you can draw, and draw well, you cannot illustrate.

Three special qualifications are absolutely indispensable to the artist who desires to become an illustrator.

First, in order to make the least important illustration, the student must have a sound training in drawing, and if he has worked in colour so much the better, for in the near future colour work will play a very important part, even in the least costly form of books and papers.

Second, the student must thoroughly understand the use of various mediums, oil , water colour, wash and body colour, pen and ink, chalk, etching, lithography, and he must have ability to express himself by almost all these methods. A knowledge, too, of the appearance the drawing will present after it has been engraved on wood or metal, processed, etched, or lithographed is necessary, because the illustrator will be held responsible for the results on the printed page; even though, as is usually the case, the fault is that of the engraver or printer, the public certainly will blame the artist alone. Therefore the editor or publisher will not employ him. The engraver will blame him if only to save his own business reputation. The printer will take away in every case many valuable qualities which the drawing possessed; but for the incompetency or inability of engraver and printer, the artist will be held accountable, and he must therefore understand engraving and printing well enough to place the blame where it belongs, if not on his own shoulders.

To be able, then, to obtain good printed results, requires a knowledge of the reproductive arts, on the part of the illustrator, in theory at least, almost equal to the practical skill demanded in drawing.

Third, but most important of all, the ability to discover the vital or characteristic motive of an author's work, and so set it forth that the public may see it too. And the power to do this well is without doubt the real test of an illustrator.

Nothing is more difficult. The artist must please the author, therefore he should if possible know the writer personally; at least he must be in sympathy with, and interested in his work, else a difference arises at once; jealousy between author and artist, nearly always the fault of the author, who usually resents the presence of the artist at all, is the cause of half the failures in illustration. No artist would think of dictating to an author the fashion in which the latter should write his story, but every author, and not a few editors, try to tell their own artist how it shall be illustrated. To a certain extent this is right, and it would be altogether right, if only the author and editor knew anything of art; but not infrequently they do not, and the less they know the more they dictate.

Still, with descriptive articles, the case is somewhat different. If the illustrator knows the author, he may undertake the journey, if to a foreign land, for example, with him, and a most delightful piece of collaboration may be the result. Or the author having visited the spot--sometimes he writes about it without having done so--may make out a list of subjects, and the artist may pick and choose from them, going to the place described to do so, with more or less satisfactory results. It is in this way that most of the better known magazines obtain their illustrated descriptive articles, but even by this method the artist and author usually disagree as to what should be drawn, the matter being looked at from two entirely different points of view. Or the artist may be asked to work up into drawings, from photographs, views of a place, or portraits of people never seen by him; some illustrators are very successful at this, work which in most men's hands would be but the veriest drudgery and hack work, becoming interesting, attractive, and truly artistic.

But in most cases such drawings, even by the most skilful men, lack the go and life obtained when the work is done direct from nature, or at least without the photograph; and every true artist prefers nature to any photograph. There is nothing in the world more difficult to work from. One is confused by endless unimportant, unselected details; the point of view is never that which one would have selected, and the result, save in the rarest instances, is dubbed photographic even by the artless.

Such people should contribute solely to the journals of actuality, where neither art nor literature find an abiding place, and the photograph, the amateur, and the personal paragraph are supreme.

Despite all these things, and many more, people struggle to become illustrators.

Another qualification for the illustrator is education; no ignorant person may become a decent illustrator. He need not possess an university degree; few do. But he must be able to understand a vital or dramatic or pictorial point, and to arrive at this understanding may necessitate much study of literature at home and the visiting of many lands.

How can one illustrate a history of Napoleon, for example, without reading everything possible about his life that the author read, and without visiting the various countries in which his life was passed; in short, the conscientious illustrator goes through exactly the same process as the author, when collecting his materials. With this difference; the author is, in most cases, the final judge of his own work, and of his artist's efforts too. It is amazing that, considering that an illustrator has to submit to having his work judged by editors, rejected by authors, spoiled by engraving, injured by process, and ruined by printing--and all this may happen to good as well as bad work--armies of young people are rushing into an over-crowded profession, and every art school, by teaching illustration, is encouraging them to do so.

Seeing, then, that such is the case, my object is to endeavour to give you a start in the right way if possible, at least in the way that, up to the present, the best work has been done.

That is, briefly, by drawing well, by working carefully, by expressing ideas plainly, and these desired results can only be obtained by those who regard illustration quite as seriously as any other branch of the Fine Arts; who know the good work that has been done in the past, and working on the right traditions, adapt their methods to the requirements of the present.

There are many more points to be noted, not least of which is that an illustrator must learn to keep his temper; from the first drawing he submits, until he takes to painting in despair, his work will almost surely be misunderstood, his motives disbelieved. If he works in the style affected by his paper, that is, the style which the editor considers appeals to his subscribers--for papers are published for gain, not love--he will be asked by the critic why he does so. If he dares to be original, to follow his own inclinations, he will be told to efface himself and work like the rest. If he sketches he will be accused of shirking his work. If he elaborates he will be told he is ruining the proprietor.

His only consolation is that he, personally, seldom sees the editor, he prepares himself for the ordeal, and as the editor has to encounter a constant succession of irate, contrite, emphatic, and even furious artists, his life cannot be an altogether happy one. Still he flourishes, and so does the illustrator.

But there are compensations. One may be asked to illustrate the works of a deceased author, one may treat the volume almost as one likes, and discuss the result with the editor. In this case the artist will almost certainly do his best. If he has the true illustrative spirit, he will study the period, the country, the manners, the costume; and, if let alone, to produce the work in his own way and at his leisure, he may create a masterpiece. This, however, depends entirely on the artist. It is in this way that the great illustrated works of the century have come into existence, without hurry, without worry, and, after all, the pleasure of work has been almost the only reward the artist has gained--and that seems to be enough to attract crowds--but I doubt if the business side of illustration means much to the student.

Better still, the artist may make a series of drawings, and then get a writer--an artist in words--one of those people who talk of impressionism in prose, or impasto in poetry, to turn out so many yards of copy. With what a grace he does so, and with what glee the artist pounces on his lines! If it were not for the ever-present editor the author's lot would be almost as bad as the illustrator's.

Best condition of all under which work may be produced is when the illustrator is his own author, when he writes his own story or does his own description; this requires that one shall be doubly gifted. Much may be learned by practice, but to be really great in this has as yet scarce been granted. But a few very talented artist-authors exist.

Equally pleasant, too, is working for the weekly illustrated press--how long this form of publication will last is doubtful--making drawings which will be printed of a large size and show really the ability of the artist. It is pleasant, too, when the editor is an artist or man of sympathetic intelligence.

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