A FEW WORDS ON ILLUSTRATIVE ART.
1VRATEVER opinion may be entertained OR the much vexed question of art progression—whether we are inclined to assert that the meridian of high art is past and the glory of its splendour faded and gone, or whether we maintain as stoutly that the precise contrary is the case, there can be but little doubt that illustrative art—by which we understand art as applied towards the representation and rendering, by the pencil and the etching- needle, of the ideal characters and scenes which spring from the author's pen—has never occupied a place so near perfection as it -does at the present moment. Fifty years ago, such a thing as a decent illustration to a book of fiction was rare indeed, if we except the annuals, and there the letter-press, as is well known, was written to suit the illustrations, which were for the most part indifferent engravings of well-known pictures, and the text was made to dove-tail into the print ; but beyond this, illus- tration was all but unknown ; now you may buy at the nearest book-stall at any time a book containing from ten to a dozen wood- cuts by Gilbert, of their kind quite perfect, for a shilling—and to this fact we owe, to a great extent, that increasing love and reverence for art, even among the masses of the people, which has evidenced itself in a manner so marked and so universal of late years as to have become almost worthy of being called a national movement. After the scene, day after day in the picture-galleries at the International Exhibition last year, no one will venture to accuse the English people, down to the lowest ranks among them, of cold indifference to art and beauty; and that they ever were justly accused of such a feeling was due to their ignorance, we maintain, rather than to their want of taste. Fifty years ago, to the common people, a fine work of art was a thing unknown. Now-a-days, books plentifully and beautifully illustrated by some of the first men of the day are freely passed from hand to hand, and lie on every cottage table. Fifty years ago, an artist sketching from nature was a mystery and a wonder-stock to the gaping peasantry who chanced to pass that way. Now, he is an object of the closest interest ; and oftentimes the merest field labourer will let fall some chance word or observation over the painter's shoulder, as he peeps at the rapidly advancing work, which shows a love and a knowledge of the subject which, fifty years ago, might have been looked for in vain in many a drawing-room. Few books which take a hold upon the public mind go long without the artist's aid ; and it is found that, in the libraries established for the poorer classes in various parts of London and the country, the illustrated books get thumbed and dog-eared and worn out long before the others. Many of the humbler visitors terthe International would have enjoyed their visit ten times less had they not schooled their mind to understand and appreciate the merits and beau- ties of art by a long and careful, though perhaps unconscious, course of study under the auspices of John Gilbert and Birket Foster.
The power and faculty of illustration stands by itself, totally apart from the other branches of art. A man may be a grand and earnest painter, yet but a poor illustrator. No one will, we imagine, be bold enough to deny that Millais has produced works of surpassing talent—we had almost said genius—yet he is but a very second-rate illustrator, charming though some of his illustrations be. Take Mr. Trollope's " Orley Farm," for example,
—look carefully and closely at the woodcuts--here and there we have very clever designs, charmingly worked out, as in the one he calls "Never is a long word," where Lady Stavely is endeavouring to elicit from her daughter Madeleine her feelings• towards Pere- grine. (We have not the book before us as we write, and may be wrong as to details ; if so, we must humbly apologize both to author and reader.) Nothing could be more tender and pretty than the blushing, delicate-looking girl, shrinking from exposing her heart even to her own mother ; while the earnest loving look of the mother, bent on securing her child's future happiness, and yet anxious to see her select the man she herself would prefer, is admirable ; it is a subject which, though slight, would paint un- commonly well ; but as we turn over the leaves of this capital novel and glance at the other illustrations, we are bound to confess that they are, many of them, hastily and badly, and even coarsely designed, and utterly fail to carry out the ideas and characters of the author. Lady Mason, for example, in whom the chief interest of the story is centred (or is intended to be centred, we should, perhaps, rather say), is never once even fairly represented (except, perhaps, when the artist has drawn her as she lies in unutterable anguish on her bed in her own room, towards the beginning of the first volume, one of the cleverest bits of drawing, and one of the most forcibly imagined pictures possible; but yet, not even there, quite our idea of Lady Mason); and then again Mr. Millais appears to us to fail in keeping up the individuality and character of the various actors in the story. It is with the greatest difficulty we can trace the slightest resemblance between his various representations of the same person—Lady Mason herself appears with at least half a dozen faces, that have hardly a feature in common. This is obviously a most serious fault in an illustrator who undertakes to picture to the public the various personages and incidents in a work of fiction. Where more than one pencil is employed, perhaps a certain loss of individuality is inevitable ; but -where one hand designs all the illustra- tions, there can be no excuse. And the same error on the part of Mr. Millais is observable in his " Framley-Parsonage" illustrations, although to a somewhat less extent. At the same time we now and then get a touch of such real beauty from Mr. Millais as to go far to make amends for all his shortcomings, which, to speak openly, are very great. Take as an example of his happiest inspirations that perfect scene—perfect as regards author as well as artist—where Lucy Robarts meets Lord Lufton at the back of the old parsonage-house—the best thing, in our opinion, Mr. Millais has ever done on the wood.
Mr. F. Walker and Mr. Watson are two of the most rising illus- trators of the day ; but both of them must beware of that fatal error—carelessness. We have noticed one or two of Mr. Watson's works lately which had been most decidedly " scamped,” to use a technical expression. Of course, the temptation to knock off as many illustrations as possible in the shortest space of time is very great ; but haste and want of care cannot fail to make themselves apparent in the work, and must sooner or later affect the artist's reputation. The only man among the army of workers on the wood who seems able to produce a supply quite without limit, and yet never without displaying the greatest talent, no matter what the subject he employs his pencil upon may be, is John Gilbert—the king of illustrative art. It would be a curious and an interesting thing to have a return made of the actual number of illustrations he gives to the world in the course of a single year —not one of which unknown number is not, in its particular line, as perfect as possible. The best examples of his surprising talents in this respect that occur to us at this moment are his designs to Ainsworth's " Lancashire Witches," and to a little book by the late Captain Marryat, called "The Children of the New Forest," in the latter of which Mr. Gilbert positively surpasses himself, and leaves his other efforts far behind in his representations of the reckless Cavaliers and canting crop-eared Roundheads, and the wild outlaws and deerstealers of the New Forest, with which that stirring tale, the delight of our schoolboy days, abounds. No part of his designs exhibits the slightest marks of carelessness or over-hurried work, and his figures are always full of life and spirit, which is the more remarkable, as we believe he seldom if ever makes use of a model for any drawing he may make for wood-engraving. His composition, too, even in the smallest of his designs, is faultless, and full of charming harmony of line—almost as important an element of a work of art, by the way, as .harmony of colour. As long as Mr. Gilbert can be prevailed upon to lend his pencil to illustrate the conceptions of his author's mind, so long, at least, will illustrative art hold the proud position it now occupies in England,
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