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There are two or three seventeenth-century drawings on the wood at South Kensington, and some, I believe, in the British Museum.

On paper.

At least, he was the first man to do important artistic wood-engraving.

The art of wood-engraving was dying in the clutch of the engraver, when an artless process came to its aid. For, at this crisis it was discovered that a drawing made in any medium, upon any material, of any size , might be photographed upon the sensitized wood-block in reverse. The importance of the discovery will be appreciated when it is remembered that, before this, the poor artist, if he were drawing the portrait of a place directly on the block, was compelled to draw it the exact size it was to be engraved, to reverse it himself, and to have his actual drawing destroyed by engraving through it. Once photography was used, the drawing could be made of any size, it was mechanically reversed, the original was preserved, and the artist was free. Gone, however, according to the engraver, was the engraver's art. It is true that the wood-chopper disappeared: the man who could not draw a line himself, and yet would pretend that his mechanical lines, made with a graver or ruling machine, were more valuable than the artist's, and who had no hesitancy in changing the entire composition of a subject if he did not like it. But his disappearance was a great gain. In his place there arose the latest school of wood-engravers. Many of the new were perhaps no better than the old men, for not knowing how to draw, not being artists, they directed their energies often to the meaningless elaboration of unimportant detail. But at least this work could always be corrected, now that the original drawing was preserved and could be compared with the print from the engraved block.

In England, from 1860 to 1870 some very remarkable drawings were made and engraved upon the block. During the years just before the introduction of photography, Walker, Pinwell, Keene, Sandys, Shields, and Du Maurier were illustrating. To a certain extent, they seem to have insisted upon their work being followed. Between 1870 and 1880, when the actual change was made from drawing on wood to drawing on paper, even a larger number of men were at work. The "Graphic" and the "Century" were founded, and enormous were the improvements in France and Germany. But between 1880 and 1890 came the greatest development of all. For these years saw the perfecting and successful practice of mechanical reproduction: that is, the photographing of drawings in line upon a metal plate or gelatine film, the biting of them in relief on this plate, or the mechanical growth of a plate on the gelatine, resulting in the production of a metal block which could be printed along with type. This method of replacing the wood-engraver by a chemical agent has, however, been the aim of every photographer since the time of Niepce, who made the first experiments, while the process was patented by Gillot on the 21st of March, 1850. These ten years are also noted for the invention of what is now generally known as the half-tone process: that is the reproduction by mechanical means of drawings in wash, or in colour, worked out in Europe by the Meisenbach process, in America by the Ives method. In many ways wood-engraving as a trade or business has been, it may be only temporarily, seriously damaged. However, in the very short period since mechanical reproduction has been introduced, those wood-engravers who really are artists have been doing better work, because they can now engrave, in their own fashion, the blocks they want to. The art of wood-engraving has progressed if the trade has languished.

In France the credit for the invention is given to Dr. Donn?, who, about 1840, discovered that certain acids could be used to bite in the whites or the blacks of a daguerreotype. See also French chapter.

The most modern of these developments are worthy of special notice both in Europe and America. But before pointing out the changes and results that have come from them, it may be well to say something about process. Upon this subject there are two widely differing factions. It is not at all curious that the artists, the men who practise the art of illustration, should be found almost unanimously on one side, while the critics, whose business it is to preach about an art of which they know nothing in practice, are ranged upon the other. There are a few critics of intelligence, who understand the requirements and limitations of both process and wood-engraving, just as there are hack and superior illustrators who neither know nor care anything about any form of reproduction.

Process blocks for line work, and nearly always half-tone blocks, have to be finished by a clever engraver especially employed for the purpose. It is very hard for him, as it leaves him no chance for original work, but in course of time it is hoped that the process will be so perfected that the services of the engraver can be dispensed with. There are other methods, such as that of using swelled gelatine, to produce the same results, but the biting of zinc that I have described is the most popular.

This method, I believe, is no longer used.

Therefore, it seems to me that the strictures which have been applied to process are far more applicable to wood-engraving. Now that wood-engraving has become a medium for the reproduction of any and every sort of design, it has stepped quite outside its proper province. Almost anything can be done with a block of wood and a graver, but it must be evident to people of average intelligence that a very great gulf separates those things which possibly can be done, from those which rationally should be attempted. Still, to-day any subject that can be engraved on wood may be printed; and if one likes to try experiments, why should he be stopped? The wood-engraver of to-day has been compelled to suppress and efface himself. When he proposes to reproduce another man's designs, if he is really a great wood-engraver, he recognizes that his sole function is to render the original, faithfully giving as much of the artist's handiwork as possible, and as little of his own. That this must be to many a most galling and annoying position is evident. But to rebel against it is absurd, and for the engraver to tamper with an artist's original design is as unwarrantable as for an editor to change an author's manuscript after the final proof has left the writer's hands.

There have been two, or perhaps three, great periods of producing works of art on the block. First, that of the old woodcuts, which were undoubtedly great, though what the draughtsmen thought of them we shall never really know. Secondly, the period of Bewick, who engraved his own designs, and therefore was his own master, doing what he wanted. And thirdly, to-day, the greatest revival of all. Mr. Timothy Cole, in his interpretations of the old masters , has suggested one field for the artist who is a wood-engraver; the creation of masterpieces in his own medium of the painted masterpieces of other, or of his own time. Again, we have a man like Mr. Elbridge Kingsley working directly from nature, and producing the most amazing and interesting results; or M. Lep?re, who is engraving his own designs exactly as Bewick did, or else giving us those marvellous originals in colour, only equalled by the Japanese who, for ages, have been masters among wood-cutters; or Mr. Kreull, who is doing marvellous portraits on the block.

I believe that it will continue and flourish as an original art, side by side with process, until it runs against another of the snags or quicksands which every half century seem to imperil it. Still, at the present moment, its artistic outlook is very bright,--so also is that of process.

FRENCH ILLUSTRATION.

The nearer we approach our own time, the more difficult it becomes to write of illustration. For, although it is the duty of an editor, and even of an artist, to note all that is going on around him, at the present time this is almost impossible, so great is the output from the press, so varying are the fortunes of many artists. The man who, one day, promises to revolutionize all illustration, the next, disappears, or, worse still, becomes absolutely common-place. And process supersedes process with a rapidity that is perfectly bewildering.

But it seems best to begin with modern illustration in France, where the greatest activity has, until lately, existed. In the decade from 1875 to 1885, nowhere in the world were such big men working, or having their work so well reproduced. Fortuny and Rico, settled in Paris, were exhibiting their marvellous drawings. If Meissonier had ceased to illustrate, Dor?, Detaille, De Neuville, and Jacquemart were at the height of their powers. The first great book illustrated by process appeared in the midst of this period: Vierge's "Pablo de S?govie," published in 1882; while the last years saw the appearance of the Guillaume series which, it was believed, would prove to be the final triumph of process. At the same time Baude, Leveille, Lep?re, and Florian were busy producing their masterpieces of wood-engraving. Publishing houses were issuing the most artistic journals, probably, the world has ever seen: "La Vie Moderne," "L'Art," "La Gazette des Beaux-arts," "Paris Illustr?," "La Revue Illustr?e," "Le Monde Illustr?," "L'Illustration," and "Le Courrier Fran?ais."

But from 1885 onward, there has been a change, and this change is not difficult to account for. There are too many illustrators and too few publishers--I mean publishers worthy of the name--and, most important, too few real artists.

Another cause too has operated against the production of fine books and fine magazines. This is the "Suppl?ment litt?raire et artistique" given away each week with papers like "Gil Blas," "L'Echo de Paris," "La Lanterne," "Le Petit Journal," and occasionally "Le Figaro." It is especially in "Gil Blas" that the best French work is now to be found, usually printed in colour. But most of the others--there are notable exceptions--either publish the veriest drivel and dirt, both from the literary and artistic standpoint, or else the drawings of mere boys and girls just out of the art schools, who give their designs to the publishers for little more than the sake of having their names in the papers. Under these circumstances, which actually exist, it is becoming well-nigh impossible for a draughtsman to live in France. Printing, too, has degenerated, until French printing now ranks with the worst.

A few words as to the men, and the books they have illustrated. The artist who was most in evidence twenty years ago was Gustave Dor?. The unceasing stream of books which continued for years to delight the provinces and to amaze his biographers was then at its flood. That Dor? was a man of the most marvellous imagination, no one will doubt; that his imagination ran completely away with him is equally true. He has had no influence upon anything but the very cheapest form of wood-engraving. Though it is easy to understand his popularity, it is difficult, considering how much really good work he did, to explain why he has been completely ignored as an artist. There is no question that some of his compositions were magnificent, even if every figure and type in them was mannered and hackneyed to a horrible degree. The only way in which we can account for his utter failure as an artist, is the fact that he was ruined by the praise of his friends. Although Dor? started as a lithographer, carrying on the traditions of his immediate predecessors and contemporaries, Daumier and Gavarni, Raffet and Charlet, he soon took to drawing on the block, and for years the world was inundated with his work. In popularity no one ever approached him, but his drawing on the block is no more to be compared to Meissonier's, than his lithographs to Gavarni's, who contributed some of the most exquisite designs to "L'Artiste" in its early days.

Daniel Vierge's "Pablo de S?govie," though the work of a Spaniard, has for twelve years held its own as the best example of pen drawing for process reproduction published in France. Following, a long way behind, come men like Henri Pille and Edouard Toudouze. The development of the Guillaume half-tone process produced the curious series of little books known under that title; and also the larger series which contained "Madame Chrysanth?me" and "Fran?ois le Champi," books which made tone-process in France, and also the reputation of Myrbach and Rossi.

Several fine and limited editions have been published lately, illustrated by Albert Lynch, Mme. Lemaire, and Paul Avril, such as the "Dame aux Cam?lias;" while Octave Uzanne's series on fans and fashions were a great success. So, too, are many of the books issued by Conquet. Robida's designs for Rabelais virtually superseded those of Dor?, and he followed up the success of this book with a number of others which have gradually degenerated in quality. Louis Morin, who is author as well as artist; E. Grasset, who, not content with this, is an architect too, and whose "Quatre Fils d'Aymon" should be seen as a beautiful piece of colour-printing; and Georges Auriol have done extremely good work in their different ways. F?licien Rops is a man who stands apart from all other illustrators; he possesses a style and individuality so marked that, at times, it is not easy to obtain any of his books, so carefully are they watched by that Cerberus of the press: the social puritan, who never fails to see anything to which he can possibly find objection. From the mystic Rops, have sprung, one might almost say, even more mystic Rosicrucians, headed by Carlos Schwabe, who has produced, in "Le R?ve" of Zola, one of the most beautiful and refined books, despite its disgraceful printing, ever issued from the French press.

Adrian Marie and Emile Bayard died lately.

Among wood-engravers, Baude and Florian hold the foremost place as reproductive artists, while Lep?re stands quite apart, a brilliant many-sided man, at once draughtsman, engraver, etcher, and painter, a true craftsman in the best sense. Another man, F. Valloton, is making an endeavour to revive original wood-cutting, and though but few of his cuts are anything like so good as "Ent?rrement en Province," he is the leader of a movement which may result in the resurrection, or indeed the creation of an original art of wood-cutting. But this desire of artists to engrave and print their own work is growing in France, as may be seen in such a collection as "Estampe Originale." Pannemacker and his followers have been the most popular, and their influence has been felt, sometimes with distinction, in all cheap French wood-engraving.

After enumerating this long list, it seems as if I had contradicted my own rather pessimistic view of illustration in France. I do not think so. It is true that the artists, though few in number, are in the country, but to-day the opportunities for them to express their art are lacking: as a proof, the only book devoted solely to French illustration which has ever appeared has just been published in America.

ILLUSTRATION IN GERMANY, SPAIN, AND OTHER COUNTRIES.

In writing upon drawing on the Continent, I have heretofore found it only necessary to classify illustrators under three nationalities. In discussing illustration it seems to me that this question of nationality can be even further simplified. Italy and Spain have not produced a single original illustrated book of real importance. Although several of the foremost illustrators of the day were born in one or the other of these countries and partially educated there, they have left their native land as quickly as possible, for France or for Germany.

See note p. 78.

Following Menzel, and encouraged by "Fliegende Bl?tter," which started in the early forties, came Wilhelm Dietz, whose studies of armies on the march, and of peasants at work or at play, are inimitable. He, too, has been followed by Robert Haug and Hermann Luders. Dietz was the mainstay for years of "Fliegende Bl?tter," the only weekly comic paper of which it can be said, that during the half century of its existence it has been not only at the head of its contemporaries, but has on the artistic side left far behind any pretended rival.

One sort of decorative design, developed by a German, or, I presume, a Pole, Paul Konewka, though his work, was, I believe, first published in Copenhagen, is the silhouette; Konewka has had imitators everywhere, but none of them have surpassed him. His edition of "Faust" is one of the best-known examples. Retche's outline drawings for Shakespeare are also good.

Busch and Oberl?nder, Meggendorfer, and Hengler, are names so well known that their mere mention raises a laugh, and that, if anything, is the mission of those artists: while Harburger's and Aller's marvellous studies of character, and Ren? Reinecke's exquisite renderings in wash of fashionable life, marvellously engraved by Stroebel, can be seen every week printed in the pages of "Fliegende Bl?tter" and other papers. The works of Hackl?nder, published in Stuttgart, have been illustrated mainly by process by that clever band of artists of whom Schlittgen, Albrecht, Marold, Vogel, and others are so much in evidence. The German monthly magazines, like "Daheim," "Kunst f?r Alle," "Felz und Meer," "Die Graphischen Kunste," etc., are very notable, especially "Kunst f?r Alle," which seems to me to be about the best-conducted art magazine in the world. Altogether the arts of illustration and reproduction, and the business of publishing, in Germany are apparently in a most healthy condition. It could scarcely be otherwise, however, when we consider that one of the greatest illustrators in the world is still alive and at work there, as well as the most curious mystics, the most amusing comic draughtsmen, and the most conscientious and clever realists.

It is rather to the exquisite designs in red chalk for the "Scenes of Invasion," that one sees him at his best. Here he is the direct descendant of Callot, only there is a power in his work that Callot never possessed. It is, I am now certain, from these designs that Vierge obtained many of his ideas--although they are worked out in an entirely different fashion. The drawings for the "Caprices" are in pen and wash, and are as much finer than the aquatints made from them, as the aquatints are superior to the caricatures of any of his contemporaries. As Goya passed, an exile, the latter part of his life in France, his work must have been known to the men of 1830. He died in 1828, just as the few lithographs he has left show that he was aware of the work of Delacroix in that newly invented art.

Still, Goya cannot be called an illustrator, for none of his work was published as illustration; yet, at the same time, it is so well adapted to that end that it is perfectly incomprehensible that these drawings have not only never been published, but I am informed they have never even been photographed. The two that are in this book are from the "Caprices," those of the "Invasion" are too delicate to stand the necessary reduction. The portrait of Wellington in red chalk is in the British Museum.

ENGLISH ILLUSTRATION.

It is in England alone, that illustration, like many other things, has been taken seriously. Ponderous volumes have been written about it, as well as clever essays. It seemed at first sight rather unnecessary to repeat what has been said so well by Mr. Austin Dobson, for example, in his chapter on modern illustrated books in Mr. Lang's "Library," especially as he has added a postscript to the edition of 1892 which is supposed to bring his essay up to that date. But there are other ways of looking at the matter, and I have tried not to repeat what Mr. Dobson has said, nor yet to trench upon the preserves of Mr. C. G. Harper and Mr. Hamerton, or Mr. Blackburn.

It appears to me, that before discussing the English illustrators of to-day, it might be well to take a glance at the state of English illustration. English illustration has during the last twenty years suffered tremendously from over-writing and indiscriminate praise and blame. I suppose that among artists and people of any artistic appreciation, it is generally admitted by this time that the greatest bulk of the works of "Phiz," Cruikshank, Doyle, and even many of Leech's designs are simply rubbish, and that the reputation of these men was made by critics whose names and works are absolutely forgotten, or else, by Thackeray, Dickens, and Tom Taylor, whose books they illustrated, and who had absolutely no intelligent knowledge of art, their one idea being to log-roll their friends and illustrators. It is true, however, that some of Doyle's designs, like those in "Brown, Jones, and Robinson," were extremely amusing, though too often his rendering of character was brutal, as, for example, in the "Dinner at Greenwich" in the "Cornhill" Series. Technically, there is little to study, even in his most successful drawings. Leech's fund of humour was no doubt inexhaustible, but one cannot help feeling to-day that his work cannot for a moment be compared to that of Charles Keene. Some of his best-known designs, the man in a hot bath for instance, praised by Mr. Dobson may be amusing, but the subject is quite as horrible as a Middle Age purgatory. Leech was the successor in this work of Gillray and Rowlandson, and though his designs appealed very strongly to the last generation, they do not equal those of Randolph Caldecott, done in much the same sort of way. Though some of the editions containing the engravings from these men's drawings sell for fabulous prices, on account of their rarity, one may purchase to-day for almost the price of old paper, lovely little engravings after Birket Foster, and the other followers of the Turner school; while drawings after Sir John Gilbert, and later, Whistler, Sandys, Boyd Houghton, Keene, Du Maurier, Small, Shields, and the other men who made "Once a Week," "Good Words," and the "Shilling Magazine," really the most important art journals England has ever seen, can be picked up in many old book-shops for comparatively nothing. Of the best period of English illustration there are but few of the really good books that cannot be purchased for, at the present time, less than their original price. And only the works of one painter who did illustrate to any extent, Rossetti, command an appreciable value. For this, the fortunate possessors of his drawings have to thank Mr. Ruskin, who, himself, is by no means a poor illustrator. Some of his work in "Modern Painters," "Stones of Venice," "Examples of Venetian Architecture," is excellent, while his original drawings at Oxford are worth the most careful study. Many of Rossetti's designs are, it is true, very beautiful, and probably others were; one can see that from, the few which were never engraved. But the bulk of his drawings are certainly not so good as those which several people working in London are producing to-day.

When I commenced this book I have no hesitation in admitting that my knowledge of the really great period of English Illustration was of the vaguest possible description.

I knew of "Good Words," "Once a Week," and the "Shilling Magazine," "Dalziel's Bible Gallery," and a few other books, but I had never seen and never even heard of the great mass of work produced during those ten years; even now, I am only slowly beginning to learn about and see something of it.

But a day is coming when the books issued between 1860 and 1870, in this country, will be sought for and treasured up, when the few original drawings that are still in existence will be striven for by collectors, as they struggle for Rembrandt's etchings to-day.

The source from which the English illustrators of 1860 got their inspiration was Adolph Menzel's books; pre-Raphaelites and all came under the influence of this great artist. The change from the style of Harvey, Cruikshank, Kenny Meadows, Leech and S. Read, to Rossetti, Sandys, Houghton, Pinwell, Walker, Millais, was almost as great as from the characterless steel engraving of the beginning of the century to the vital work of Bewick. The first English book to appear after Menzel's work became known, was William Allingham's "The Music Master," 1855, illustrated by Arthur Hughes, Rossetti and Millais; the first book of that period which still lives is Moxon's edition of Tennyson published in 1857, containing Rossetti's drawings for "The Palace of Art" and "Sir Galahad"; Millais' "St. Agnes' Eve," and Holman Hunt's "Lady of Shalott." These drawings and a few others have given to the book a fame, among illustrated volumes, which it has no right or claim to.

Far more important and more complete is Sir John Gilbert's edition of Shakespeare published by Routledge in three volumes, 1858 to 1860. This edition of Shakespeare has yet, as a whole, to be surpassed.

The first drawing signed by Walker faces p. 556, "Nurse and Doctor," and illustrates Thackeray's "Adventures of Philip;" this is in May, 1861. "Good Words" was also started in 1860; in it in 1863 Millais' "Parables" were printed, as well as work by Holman Hunt, Keene and Walker, while A. Boyd Houghton, Frederick Sandys, Pinwell, North, Pettie, Armstead, Graham, and many others began to come to the front in this magazine and "Once a Week." About 1865 nearly as many good illustrated magazines must have been issued as there are to-day; not only were the three I have mentioned continued, but "The Argosy," "The Sunday Magazine," and "The Shilling Magazine," among others, printed fine work by all these artists.

The illustration was done in a curious, but very interesting sort of way. The entire illustration began to be undertaken by two firms, Messrs. Dalziel and Swain--and I believe in the case of "Good Words" the same system is still carried on by Mr. Edward Whymper. These firms commissioned the drawings from the artists, and then engraved them. The method seems to have been so successful that the engravers, notably the Dalziels, began not only to employ artists to draw for them, and to engrave their designs, but they became printers as well, and produced that set of books which are now the admiration and despair of the intelligent and artistic collector. When they were printed, they were sold to a publisher, who merely put his imprint on them. To this day they are known as Dalziel's Illustrated Editions. The first important book of this series that I have seen is Birket Foster's "Pictures of English Landscape," 1863 , printed by Dalziel; with "Pictures in Words," by Tom Taylor, though this was preceded by a horrid tinted affair by the same artist, called "Odes and Sonnets." The binding is vile; the paper is spotting and losing colour, but the drawings must have been exquisite, and here and there the ink is spreading and giving a lovely tone, like an etching, to the prints on the page.

In 1864 Messrs. Dalziel, who had already engraved for "Good Words" in the previous year Millais' "Parables of Our Lord," published them through Routledge. This book, in an atrocious binding described as elaborate, and it truly is, bound up so badly that it has broken all to pieces printed with some text in red and black, contains much of the finest work Millais ever did. Nothing could exceed in dramatic power, in effect of light and shade, "The Enemy sowing Tares," to mention one block among so many that are good. But the whole book is excellent, and excessively rare in its first edition.

But 1865 is the most notable year of all; in this "Dalziel's Illustrated Arabian Nights' Entertainments" came out; originally published in parts, I believe, and later in two volumes, text and pictures within horrid borders. In this book A. Boyd Houghton first showed what a really great man he was. He clearly proves himself the English master of technique, as well as of imagination, although in this volume, issued by Ward and Lock, he has as fellow illustrators Sir J. E. Millais, J. D. Watson, Sir John Tenniel, G. J. Pinwell, and Thomas Dalziel--the latter of whom is a very big man, and for this, and some of the subsequent books, he made most remarkable drawings. But Houghton towers above them all, and Mr. Laurence Housman in an able article on him in "Bibliographica" well says:

"Among artists and those who care at all deeply for the great things of art, he cannot be forgotten: for them his work is too much an influence and a problem. And though officially the Academy shuts its mouth at him ... certain of its leading lights have been heard unofficially to declare that he was the greatest artist" who has appeared in England in black and white. In '65, also, his "Home Thoughts and Home Scenes" was published, much less imaginative than his later work, but containing more beauty; and after this, for ten years, he worked prodigiously, and yet excellently. His edition of "Don Quixote" , must be sought for in the most out-of-the-way places; easier to find are his "Kuloff's Fables," '69 , and best known of all, the drawings in the early numbers of the "Graphic,"--the American series--which were not all published, I think, before he died. If some of these are grotesque, even almost caricature, they are amazingly powerful--and being the largest engraved works left, show him fortunately at his best. His original drawings scarce exist at all. I happen to have one of the most beautiful, "Tom the Piper's Son," from Novello's "National Nursery Rhymes," 1871. I have not pretended to give a list of Houghton's drawings, it would be nearly impossible; but those books and magazines I have mentioned contain many of the most important. In '65 Pinwell did a "Goldsmith" for Ward and Lock, which revealed his surprising powers.

Cassells may have been the originators of this sort of illustrated book, or only the followers of a style which became immensely popular. They issued many works by Dor? about the same time or later, and a "Gulliver," by T. Morten, among others, but as this volume is not dated, I am unable to say when it appeared--still to this day they keep up the system of publishing illustrated books in parts at a low rate. But soon expensive gift books, illustrated by Houghton, Pinwell, North, and Walker, began to appear, perfectly new unpublished works: in 1866 "A Round of Days" was issued by Routledge; Walker, North, Pinwell, and T. Dalziel, come off best in this gorgeous morocco covered volume, especially the last, who contributes a notable nocturne, the beauty of night, discovered by Whistler, being appreciated by artists, even while Ruskin was busy reviling or ignoring these illustrators. Houghton's edition of "Don Quixote" also belongs to this year. How these men accomplished all this masterly work in such a short time, I do not pretend to understand.

In 1867, "Wayside Posies," and "Jean Ingelow's Poems" were published by Routledge and Longmans. These two books reach the high-water mark of English illustration, North and Pinwell surpass themselves, the one in landscape and the other in figures. T. Dalziel also did some amazing studies of mist, rain, and night, which I imagine were absolutely unnoticed by the critics. The drawings, however, must have been popular, for Smith and Elder reprinted the Walkers and Millais', among others, from the "Cornhill" in a "Gallery" , and Strahan the Millais drawings in another portfolio. The "Cornhill Gallery," printed, it is said, from the original blocks, came out in 1864, possibly as an atonement for the shabby way in which the artists were treated in the magazine originally.

In 1868, "The North Coast," by Robert Buchanan, was issued by Routledge; it has much good work by Houghton hidden away in it. In the next year the "Graphic" started, and these books virtually ceased to appear--why, I know not. There were some spasmodic efforts, most notable of which were Whymper's magnificent "Scrambles amongst the Alps," 1871, containing T. Mahoney's best drawings and Whymper's best engraving; and "Historical and Legendary Ballads," Chatto and Windus, 1876; in this book, made up from the early numbers of the magazines, one will find Whistler's and Sandys' rare drawings; it is almost the only volume which contains these men's work, although the drawings were not done originally for it, as the editor would like one to believe.

Whistler, it is true, illustrated a "Catalogue of Blue and White Nankin Porcelain," published by Ellis and White, 1878, a very interesting work, mainly in colours. But Sandys' drawings must be looked for in the magazines alone. I know of no book that he ever illustrated, a few volumes contain one or two, that is all; his drawings are separate distinct works of art, every print from them worthy of the portfolio of the collector. Dalziels issued at least two books later on, magnificent India proofs of "English Rustic Pictures," printed from the original blocks by Pinwell and Walker, done for the books I have mentioned, this volume is undated; and their Bible Gallery in 1881 , to which all the best-known artists contributed, though the result was not altogether an artistic success; but most notable drawings by Ford Madox-Brown, Leighton, Sandys, Poynter, Burne-Jones, S. Solomon, Houghton, and T. Dalziel, are included in it.

Ten years later than the "Graphic" came the introduction of process, and process was employed in England mainly for one reason only: cheapness. Bad cheap process--which by the way is very little worse than cheap wood-engraving--has been responsible in this country for more vile work than in all the rest of the world put together. The development of process has brought with it not only truth of reproduction, which is its aim, but evils which its inventors did not anticipate.

Now I do not hold for a moment that the man who is generally accepted as the leader of the pre-Raphaelite movement, Rossetti, had any desire to reform anybody, or improve anything. A certain form of art interested him, and he succeeded in reviving it for himself, though he put himself and his century into his drawings. It is the same with Sir Edward Burne-Jones, and Mr. William Morris, and Mr. Walter Crane. But the praise which has been duly bestowed upon them has been unjustly lavished upon a set of people--or else, they, as they never weary of doing, have exploited themselves--who have neither the power to design nor the intelligence to appreciate a drawing when it is made, nor any technical understanding of how it was made. They will tell you, both by their work and in print, that there is nothing worth bothering about save the drawings of the Little Masters, and, to prove their appreciation of these drawings, they proceed at once not to copy the drawings, but the primitive woodcuts which were made out of them, not by the Masters at all. They will proceed to imitate painfully with pen and ink a woodcut, have it reproduced by a cheap process man, who, of course, is delighted to have work which gives him no trouble, entrust it to a printer buried in cellars into which the light of improvement has never made its way, that he may print it upon handmade paper, which the old men never would have used had they had anything better; and thus they succeed in perpetuating all the old faults and defects, adding to them absurdity of design which triumphs in the provinces, is the delight of Boston and the Western States of America, and the beloved of the Vicarage. Or, again, the young person, reeking with the School of Science and Art at South Kensington, will have none of process, and, painfully , and simply , endeavours, with halting execution but with perfect belief in his powers, to cut his design upon the wood-block, not knowing that the master woodcutter, whom he essays to worship, spent almost as many years in learning his trade, as this person has spent minutes in knocking off a little illustration as a change from designing a stained-glass window, or writing a sonnet. This is the sort of work that exhausts first editions, is remembered for a few months, and produces leaders in the advanced organs of opinion. It is unfortunately true that the leaders have little influence, and that, later on, the first editions may be bought as old paper.

Ignorance of printing and of the improvements in that art is really in this country too awful to contemplate. The average critic will blame a competent artist for the imperfections of a process and the ignorance of a printer. It never occurs to this critic that he knows nothing practically about the subject. No attempt is made to surmount mechanical difficulties; no attempt is made to study improvements; one is simply told to work down to the lowest level and to copy the fads of an obsolete past.

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