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Produced by: Robert J. Hall

BY A. E. JOHNSON

CONTAINING 46 EXAMPLES OF THE ARTIST'S WORK IN BRUSH, PEN, AND PENCIL

PREFACTORY NOTE

In presenting under the title of "Brush, Pen, and Pencil" the series of books of which the present volume forms part, the publishers feel that they are meeting a demand which has long existed but has hitherto not been supplied. It is an unfortunate circumstance of the conditions which affect the modern artist who chooses black and white for his principal medium, that as a general rule his work--or, at all events, the reproduction of it--is ephemeral only. In respect of much that appears in the illustrated Press this is small matter for regret; but there is good reason to believe that opportunities of obtaining in permanent form some record of the work of the leading men amongst those artists who work for the Press would be welcomed. It is to afford such opportunities that the present series is issued; and it is hoped that in the volumes composing it the public will have pleasure in finding representative examples of the work with brush, pen, and pencil of the men whose skill and fancy have from time to time delighted them.

TONY WELLER OF THE BELLE SAUVAGE THE INTRODUCTION FRIVOLITY THE WARRENER

It has been said of Tolstoy, anatomising the grim skeleton of human nature, that his writings are more like life than life itself. Of Frank Reynolds, with gently satirical pen and pencil depicting the superficial humours of modern life, it might be said that his drawings, too, are more humanly natural than real flesh and blood. It is the peculiar faculty of the true observer that his eye pierces straight to the heart of what he sees, and his mind, disregarding mere detail, thereby receives and retains a clear perception of the essential, which those of less clear and direct vision fail to grasp more than momentarily, though they hail it with instant recognition when in its naked simplicity it is set before them. The process is unconscious, or at least but semi-conscious; for your professed observer has never that keen insight which, being native, is not to be acquired by even the most assiduous practice, and alone permits of truthful analysis.

In the making of the genuine humorist the faculty of observation is the first necessity. Consider the great pictorial humorists, whether dead or living, whose names are familiar in the mouth as household words. That they gained acknowledgment by masterly handling of the medium in which they chose to work is not to be denied. It is by the peculiar distinction of his technique, indeed, that the work of each, in a general way, is called to mind. But this fame was not achieved solely upon purely artistic merits. Charles Keene, George du Maurier, Phil May, Raven Hill, Bernard Partridge--it is rather for the happy fidelity of their transcripts from life than for the artistic sureness of their hands that they are and will be remembered.

It is the possession of just that subtle power of quiet but comprehensive observation which has obtained for Frank Reynolds the unique position which he occupies amongst the humorous artists of to-day.

For unique his position is. Other men are as funny as he, perhaps funnier. For when a determined man sets out with a fixed and unshakeable resolve to tickle your fancy, there is no limit to the means he may adopt to catch you unawares, and it shall go hard with him but he extorts from you a laugh, however tardy. Frank Reynolds makes no such desperate efforts. One might say, indeed, that he makes no effort at all. His simple method is to set down--with the most refined and delicate art--just one of those little scenes or incidents which everyone may every day everywhere witness.

Of the fine qualities of Frank Reynolds' technique the reader can judge for himself from the varied specimens of the artist's work which are reproduced in the present volume. His pencil drawings represent, perhaps, his more familiar style, one reason of the association of his name with this medium in the public mind being the comparative rarity of its use for the purposes of reproduction. Certainly it will be conceded that pencil, soft and amenable, with its opportunities for delicate manipulation, is admirably adapted to the interpretation of those refined shades of meaning and expression which constitute the characteristic charm of Reynolds' drawings, and of his masterly handling of it there can be no two opinions.

His early drawings for publication were in line, and it was not until his work in the illustrated press had appeared for some time that he began to substitute pencil for pen-and-ink. His first experiments in pencil were made at the Friday evening meetings of the London Sketch Club, and it was at the suggestion of a fellow member of that cheery coterie, his friend John Hassall, that he adopted the softer medium for the purposes of reproduction.

For sheer power in the art of drawing, Frank Reynolds has few equals and no betters. As a draughtsman pure and simple, he seems to me well-nigh perfect, whether he has pen, pencil, or stump of charcoal in his hand. It is the great merit of his work, as it appears to me, that it depends for the achievement of its intention solely on its own intrinsic qualities. It has no tricks, no mannerisms, no "fakements" to distract the attention and conceal weaknesses. It is straightforward, direct in its appeal, self-reliant in its challenge.

To quote the words of a critic of discernment, as he passed from drawing to drawing, "Frank Reynolds is right, right--right every time." This is praise to which one can hardly add.

Frank Reynolds is yet another in the long list of artists who have arrived at their true vocation by devious routes. There are certain tendencies of mind which, when a man has them, refuse to be suppressed. The journalistic instinct is one of them. Do what you will with the man in whom it is planted, he can never keep his fingers from the pen. Make him a doctor and you will find him scribbling columns for the press on hygiene in the house and the benefits of breathing through the nose. Send him into the army and he will fill his leisure by writing tales of tiger-shoots and essays on the art of pig-sticking. So with the artist. The man born with the gift to draw finds as irresistible a fascination in pencil or brush as the man with the power of narrative discovers in ink and paper. Whether he serves before the mast as an A.B., or cattle-ranches out west, sooner or later he is certain to drift into his proper sphere of activity. It may take long to get there, but eventually he is bound to arrive.

In the case of Frank Reynolds the period of bondage was comparatively brief. Entering at first upon a business career, he had originally no prospect, nor intention, of developing his artistic impulses. He had scarcely, indeed, a suspicion of his own powers--certainly no proper knowledge of their latent possibilities. But commerce had little interest for him, and circumstances which offered an opportunity of escape combining with a happy chance which suggested a higher artistic value for that faculty for drawing which previously he had regarded in the light of a mere hobby, caused him to throw up his earlier plans and devote himself entirely to black-and-white illustration.

There had been preparation for this, however. The son of an artist, Frank Reynolds inherited his native talent, and this was developed in no small measure during boyhood under his father's guidance. It was the chief delight of Reynolds junior to "mess about" with the palette and tools of Reynolds senior, and the licence thus permitted enabled him to discover for himself much of the rudiments of the craft of the draughtsman and painter. More was learned from long and absorbed contemplation of his father at work.

If early inclinations were of more lasting duration than is their wont, it is likely that Frank Reynolds would now be known to fame as a painter of martial types and gory battlefields. With him the fascination which soldiers and all things military have for the boyish mind took the form of an intense eagerness to reproduce in colour and line the gay pageant of the march. The skirl of the fife and the tattoo of the drum inspired him with a desire, not to shoulder a gun, but to seize a pencil. There was a shop in Piccadilly where water-colour sketches of military types might frequently be seen displayed to view, and to Reynolds junior a tramp thither of several miles from the far west of London was as nothing, could he but have the ecstatic joy of gazing, with nose flattened against the window-pane, upon these transcendent works of art, for an hour or more on end.

This early training, to be regarded as the sure foundation upon which the artist's later education was to rest, owed not a little, perhaps, of its effectiveness to its casual and desultory nature. The natural bent was allowed to reveal itself: development was gradual, and automatic. Individuality was neither crushed nor cramped. On the contrary, it was given full play, and that the work of Frank Reynolds is invested with so definite a quality of personality is due in no small degree to the special circumstances of his youthful training.

In his student days at Heatherley's Frank Reynolds received much valuable help from Professor John Crompton. On the vital importance of drawing, the latter was especially insistent: this was the dominant note of his teaching, markedly made manifest in the work of his pupil. In the matter of draughtsmanship, few men have so sure a hand, an instinct so unerring.

How does one portray a type? What are the rules that govern the selection of those separate distinctive features which are to form, when blended together, one harmoniously characteristic whole? Frank Reynolds, surely, of all people should be able to answer. But if the question be asked him, he will reply that he does not know. The process is unconscious, or almost so. The portrait "comes" of its own accord. Reflection shows that this must be so. If the artist were to try deliberately to copy this or that feature from concrete personalities, the result would fail to carry conviction. The portrait of a type must be the presentment of an abstract personality--a print, as it were, from a composite negative comprising the likenesses of many individuals, so welded together as to reproduce only that which is common to all: a collective portrait which is like all but resembles none.

It is related of Charles Dickens that the creation of many of his famous characters was inspired by a chance remark overheard in the street. A single telling sentence, uttering some quaint sentiment, perhaps in quaint idiom, would set up a train of ideas ultimately resulting, after much meditative elaboration, in a Mrs. Gamp or a Dick Swiveller. The process is not dissimilar, one imagines, from that by which the artist evolves a character sketch: with this difference, that whereas a solitary trait, accidentally revealed, was to Dickens sufficient foundation upon which to construct his fanciful portrait, such studies of types as Frank Reynolds excels in must be the outcome, not of one "thing seen," but of reiterated observation of the same thing in identical or closely similar guise. The results in either case vary as the method employed. Mrs. Gamp, the outcome of a single observation, is a type certainly, but exaggerated and "founded on fact" rather than true to life. "The Suburbanite" , though an equally imaginary portrait, is the real thing--the absolute personification of a type or class.

In the case of Reynolds, his studies of types are the result of an exceptional power of observation coupled with a very retentive memory. His keen eye notes--often unconsciously, as he admits--the small eccentricities by which character is revealed; his sense of humour emphasises them, and his memory retains them. As a result, when he essays to portray a type, there rises before his mental vision, not the figure of this individual or that, but a hazy recollection of all its representatives that he has ever come into contact with. The misty impression materialises as he works, and there grows under his hand a portrait which draws from us an instant smile of recognition, broadening as we perceive the veiled humour and satire that lurk beneath the skilful emphasis which has been laid upon the subject's salient characteristics.

But though his character studies are so largely the result of memory, it must not be supposed that his drawings are hastily conceived or carried out. As a discerning critic can guess Frank Reynolds is slow and careful in his method, and though the central idea of a drawing is frequently the inspiration of the moment, its elaboration is a matter which occupies time, and the picture passes through many stages before attaining in the artist's mind completion. To lay readers it may be of interest to be initiated into the mystery of the gradual development from germ to finished drawing. For their benefit is reproduced the initial rough sketch made for the portrait of "The Suburbanite," to which allusion has been made above. It will be seen that all the essentials are there in a raw state, and a comparison of this rough sketch with the finished reproduction will give some hint of the patient labour and careful thought which has gone to the making of the latter.

To mix as an observer in all ranks of society--especially the lower and more interesting ones--has always been to Frank Reynolds a matter of reflective amusement. The comedy of life affords him never-failing entertainment, for the world can never be dull to the man with the saving grace of humour and a quizzical interest in his fellow men. All is fish that comes to his net, for whether he touches off the foibles of Belgravia or records the broader humours of Bethnal Green he is equally happy. In the well-remembered series of "Dinners with Shakespeare," for instance, he illustrated with genial humour in half a dozen cartoons as many mannerisms of the dinner-table. The drawing which is reproduced opposite to page 56 portrays types that are familiar to all who know the small restaurants of Soho. The historian of the future, I sometimes think, who may wish to describe society in the early part of the twentieth century, will be fortunate if he contrives to illustrate his volume with a collection of contemporary drawings by Frank Reynolds. They will speak more eloquently than any narrative which he may compile from the most diligent searching of written records.

Then Georgette de Bertigny steps out through the haze, and stands, a tragic little figure, on the platform by the piano. Her hair and eyes are ebon black; her face, thin lipped and pale, is like a mask of ivory. There is no life whatever in it. She stands there like a tragedy in miniature, her hands behind her back, unseeing, motionless. Then, to a low, monotonously modulated melody, she sings a song of utter misery and passion, and, as she sings, her eyes and face light up. The mask of ivory gleams as though there were living light behind it, and the sweet, low voice stirs us as but few singers can. The music ceases. And the light behind the ivory goes out again as Georgette bows her thanks for our enthusiasm.

It is trite to remark that comedy is akin to tragedy, and it is in the natural order of things that an artist of so keen a perception of the comedy of life should be able to strike with such truth and precision the note of pathos or of tragedy.

Looking through these inimitable sketches of Paris and Parisians, one indulges a fond hope that some day Frank Reynolds will produce a companion set of drawings illustrative of London life. It is answered, perhaps, that Paris affords a unique opportunity such as the artist would hardly find at home; but the supposition is due, of course, only to the familiarity of our immediate surroundings and the difficulty which invariably arises, in consequence, of focussing them to their true proportions. Needless to say, Frank Reynolds has already worked the rich vein of Cockney life to a considerable extent, but his essays in this direction only increase the desire to see an exhaustive pictorial commentary from his pencil and pen upon the men and manners of our own city. Such quaint humour as is contained in his study of "Sunday Clothes at Bethnal Green" , suggests what possibilities the subject presents.

To a certain extent, Frank Reynolds has already recorded contemporary manners in England, and especially in London, in his well-known series of "Social Pests," though it would perhaps be more correct to say that he has pilloried therein the more extravagant of our social freaks. Probably the delighted recognition with which these ruthless analyses of character were hailed was due to the satisfaction which attends the exhibition of a proper object of satire meeting with its just deserts.

No ridicule could be more serene, nor yet more biting, than that with which the artist touches off the desperate efforts to attract attention of the rowdy group of callow youths whom he names, with a flash of inspiration, "The Dare-Devils" . Of "The Suburbanite," to the writer's mind perhaps the most subtly accurate character-study of all, the artist speaks in terms of apology. It is hardly fair, he contends, to include in a gallery of pests the bulwark of the nation!

A particular aspect of London life which provides a rich fund of material for humorous treatment was dealt with by Frank Reynolds in his series of drawings entitled "The 'Halls' from the Stalls." As every frequenter of the variety theatre is aware, the programme at such places of entertainment is arranged on certain well-defined lines. The music-hall performer may be divided into certain very distinct classes, each with its orthodox methods and mannerisms; and it was on the little peculiarities of these different branches of the profession that the artist seized with characteristic glee.

Other drawings in the same series, depicting other examples of the strange freaks of humanity by whom the British public delights to be entertained, afford good examples of the innate humour of Frank Reynolds' art. There is often little that is actually comic in the situations depicted, yet each is instinct with humour. It is the triumph of Reynolds' comic art that he can snare, on the wing as it were, humour that is too elusive and nimble for one of slower perception and heavier hand.

The drawings entitled "Dinners with Shakespeare," to which allusion has already been made, gave scope for a very varied range of character studies. Meal-time is a happy moment at which to catch human nature unawares, and the artist made the most of his opportunities. They add to the debt which the historians of contemporary manners will owe to Reynolds in the future, for as a sidelight on social habits of the present day these pictures of the dinner-table will be instructive. The very triteness of their theme gives them their interest.

Illustrators of Charles Dickens are legion, but when one thinks of the opportunities for character-study, without that exaggeration into which previous illustrators have been too prone to indulge, which the works of the great novelist afford, one is inclined to think that until we see that wonderful gallery of fanciful personalities which began with Mr. Pickwick and his companions portrayed by the pencil of Frank Reynolds, we shall have to wait still for the perfect edition of Dickens. One niche in that gallery has already been filled, and a study of the water-colour drawing of "Tony Weller at the Belle Sauvage," which is reproduced in the present volume, only increases our desire, like the immortal Oliver, to ask for more.

Frank Reynolds as a colourist is less known to the general public than Frank Reynolds the black-and-white artist. It is only of recent years, indeed, that he has turned his attention to painting. But his work, as seen at the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours and elsewhere, proves that his skill with the brush is no less than with pen or pencil. The present volume includes, besides the drawing of Tony Weller just referred to, his picture of "The Warrener," another fine character-study, exhibited at the Royal Institute in 1907. "The Introduction," an example of a "time sketch" done at the London Sketch Club, illustrates the quick readiness with which the artist nimbly catches the spirit of his subject, and the subtle touch which invests his drawing with the evasive quality of atmosphere. Another Sketch Club study is that of the curate at the play, which bears the title "Frivolity." As a study in expression it is amazingly clever: and it must be a painful and melancholy respect for the cloth which can suppress the smile which it summons. Even an Archbishop will scarce forbear to snigger!

It is not uncommon to hear modern black-and-white art in this country decried by some persons--mostly of that shallow critical class which can praise nothing in the present, and has encomiums only for that which is past. But while English art can point to such work in black-and-white as Frank Reynolds produces, he must have dull senses who deplores the present and must hark back to the days, let us say, of Charles Keene to find satisfaction for his artistic cravings.

Frank Reynolds is fortunately a young man. Long may we continue to suffer the good-natured pricks with which his gentle shafts of satire, piercing the cracks in our self-complacent armour, stimulate us; long may we continue, secure in our own self-esteem, rapturously to gloat over the spectacle of our dear friends and neighbours held up, by his whimsical humour, to keen but harmless ridicule.

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