THE CORM:1TM GALLERY.*
THE publishers of the Cornhill Magazine lead the van of Christmas picture-books with a splendid volume, containing selections from the illustrations which have from time to time appeared in that periodical. These pictures, which by most readers have hitherto been estimated according to the greater or less accuracy with which they represent the literal facts of the written page, are now left for independent judgment as works of art, and nothing has been spared by printer or publisher to insure a favourable sentence. Not to mention beautiful paper, large margins, and tasteful binding, the artist derives immense advantage from the improved printing of the wood-cuts. The prints which originally appeared in the magazine "were printed from electrotype casts taken from the wood blocks, and with the great Speed necessary to insure the punctual publication of a periodical work. The wood blocks themselves have now been printed from for the first time," and it is plain that the skill of the Brothers Dalziel has achieved its usual success. Another less obvious but not less certain advantage to the genuine artist lies in the fact of the pictures being studied after the first impression of the books they illustrate has passed away, —with a general recollection indeed of the written scenes and characters, but not so sharp and fresh but that one may freely estimate and enjoy the pictures uuliampered by the consideration whether they deal with the most striking subjects, or come, up to the reader's own first impressions of the text ; for it by no means follows that the most attractive and stirring incidents of the story furnish the best scenes for illustration. The words so full of meaning will probably be wholly unproductive to the artist, except in so far as he may extract from them the leading characteristics of the dramatis persona, for the proper display of which he must choose an episode fitter perhaps pictorially, but leas material to the author's design. The converse is equally true. Nothing, for instance, is fitter for painting than the human form, yet in detailed verbal description of features nothing is tamer or more vague. And when a novelist begins a description with the words, "it was a scene for a painter," we all know we are coming to a dull page. The reason is obvious. What tells in one case is a well-judged
• London : Smith and Elder,
succession of incidents ; what tells in the other is a multitude of simultaneous incidents ; and so, as successive events are not a proper subject for painting, it happens that the best parts of a story are often incapable of illustration ; and the illustrator is suiposed to have made a bad choice, when in fact he has only succumbed to the inexorable nature of things. Often therefore it is an advantage to the artist to be judged apart from the text, though against this advantage must be set the considera- tion that in a serial publication the illustrations being published contemporaneously with the story, the illustrator oftentimes mate- rially helps the original conception of the story, so that author and artist share not unequally a common credit in its success. Of this Mr. Seymour's " Pickwick " is a well-known and notable example, and Mr. Walker's pew scene from " Philip " (33) -will probably be always associated in people's minds with Mr. Thackemy's hero. The Cornhill series, however, does not furnish very prominent instances of this faculty for seizing and perfecting the idea of a writer. At most the writer's conceptions are skilfully translated into pictorial language. To this extent Mr. Millais has achieved considerable success in his illustrations of Mr. Trollope's stories. The more common-place and feebly fashionable personages of these tales are accurately reproduced in the wood-cuts, and Mr. Millais possesses a special talent for representing the modern young lady, pretty, mid well dressed. (See plates 5 and 63.) His Lady Dumbello, too, is an admirable illustration of -that beautiful inanity, and proofs of quick observation and accurate perception are scattered up and down throughout his work. But there is little that is really worthy of the artist's early fame ; and one of his pictures is simply ridiculous (2), unless indeed it was to add his mite of satire to the mass of unheeded reproofs and jokes already launched at ladies' hoops that he has given us this repre- sentation of superabundant muslin for the question, "Was it not a lie?" Desinit in "crinoline," &c. And was it to stir the reader beyond the point where the novel was likely to leave him that he has thrust Mrs. Dale into the fire-place before the very eyes of her daughter (76) ? Mr. Millais will certainly not be accused of ex- aggerated expression in his faces, nor of devoting too mach attention to accuracy of imitation. His young " swells " have reason to complain of the uncomfortable coats he makes them wear ; they look as thick and as stiff as the buff leather coats of Cromwell's troopers, and have as little flexibility as a schoolboy's jacket which in self-defence he has lined with copy-books. Un- doubtedly one does not look for elaborate and close imitation in book illustration,—but it should be true or suggestive of the truth as far as it goes,—there should be no suggestio falsi.
Mr. Leighton has been fortunate in his author, and his illustra- tions are, with many faults, the most picturesque in the book.
There are faults of drawing, of perspective, and of taste, and, worse than all these, there is complete failure in realization of the heroine. The long-limbed, somewhat morose, and rather dowdy per- son that does duty for B,omola has little of the dignity or beauty of the original. Mr. Leighton has often painted prettiness without dignity —but of the highest feminine beauty he has not shown himself very sensible. He is more at home with Tessa than with Romola, though even Tessa sometimes comes short off (40). Still, on the whole, his illustrations possess a largeness of outline and a sensuous picturesque- ness of general arrangement which make them the most attractive in the "gallery." Nothing could be better than "Team at Home"
07), and in all there is a strong local truth which well plays up to the same quality in the novel. The artist should be cautious in the use of heavy outlines. Duly restrained they are a convenient reserve of power, but always insisted on the trick is betrayed, and becomes offensive.
Mr. Walker is careful and accurate in all his work, but he appears to have been particularly inspired by Miss Thackeray's
"Story of Elizabeth," his first illustration to which is an admirable example of what he can do. The listless figure of the heroine who idly gazes and speculates on the lot of the old crone who pursues her humdrum occupation of onion-peeling with undoubting faith in its necessity and usefulness, nearly realizes the author's pretty victim of many petty woes, who ruefully asks, "Are cooks like ladies ; do they get to hate their lives sometimes ?" The arrangement is natural and effective, and the drawing is good, with just enough elaboration of light and shade for the sort of illustration. Woodcutter and printer have also done their part excellently; the work is free, "loose," and brilliant. Another good specimen of these qualities may here be noticed in a design by Mr. Da Mender.
Mr. Thackeray is as far, as possible from Mr. Walker in all the technical qualifications of an artist. But there is a spirit, an origi- nality, and a power of humorous expression in his illustrations t
would make one regret he had not pursued the art more closely, if lie could have done so without robbing us of anything that his pen has given us. The double gift is rare, and Mr. Sala is not likely to prove a second exception ; between Mr. Sandys and Mr. Paton he has got into unusual company.
There was probably never a time when illustrations for serial publications were demanded of so high a class as at present. The opportunity thus offered to an artist is great. He is encouraged to exercise his powers of invention, of expression, and of composition side by side with the practice of the more technical business of his art, and is the less likely, as some have done, to run aground in his search for a subject, and to have his pos- sibly vast powers of object-painting rendered useless through neglect of culture for his imagination. The artist must of course choose his book carefully ; its author must be a congenial spirit, and one with whom the artist can truly sympathize ; other- wise he will not be stirred to exertion, still less to success ; his work will be flat and spiritless, the work of a man who has no other interest in his subject than such as is supplied by the desire hot to break with an employer,—of one who has signed a bond and must at all hazards perform it. For if the opportunity is great, so also is the snare. Not only is there the pitfall already alluded to, but the risk of exhaustion is to be feared for the artist no less than for the writer, who too unhusbandlike squanders his growing thoughts and wastefully dissipates the immature creatures of his imagination ; and worst of all, there is the temptation to a habit of carelessness which is too easily bred of strength disproportioned to its task, where an artist can satisfy his miscpllaneous public without doing the work "with his might." Carelessness, thatis, not so much of execution as of conception. Great works have seldom been extemporized (though with many the idea once mastered, the execu- tion has been easy and rapid), and no man, whatever his immediate success as a popular illustrator or otherwise, can hope for solid fame unless he devotes his best energies of thought as well as of hand to his mt. These observations are occasioned by no imaginary fear, but by the evidence afforded in recent exhibitions that the most popular of the Con:hill artists has not wholly escaped the infection. Let us hope that he has but wet his shoe, and will not sink
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