RUSTIC PICTURES BY PIN WELL AND WALKER.*
WHAT is there so depressing to the spirits in the aspect of a gift-hook ? We mean of a volume which is essentially a gift-book, which may be defined as a book always given to another, never purchased for the delight of oneself. Perhaps it is this very quality that causes such volumes to be regarded with suspicion, makes them always strangers in the great world of literature, and prevents their becoming intimate friends and chosen companions. Like Beatrice, when she refuses Don Pedro's offer of marriage, unless she may have another husband for working days," we are apt to feel that editions do luxe are scarcely meant for every-day service, and a book that once comes to be looked upon as not fit for every-day, is perilously likely to be neglected altogether. However, there seems no prospect of any diminution in the number and the sumptuous- ness of the volumes of this kind, which are brought out in antici- pation of Christmas ; and we must, therefore, suppose that they do satisfy some want, however inexplicable, and as Longfellow said of the Devil,— "Work for some good,
By us not understood."
The present volume is a fair type of its class, and will, no doubt, be popular with those for whom it is de- signed. Indeed, it is in some ways a favourable specimen-, for the artists whose pictures form the raison d'etre of the book, are Messrs. Pinwell and Walker, two of the insist talented artists of whom modern England can boast. But before we say the few words in which we shall try to note the
London : George Routledge. 1982.
peculiar character of each of these designers' work, we must enter a firm protest against the manner in which these illustra- tions have been produced. That they have been collected from the various small magazines in which they originally appeared, and stuck upon a great folio sheet of paper, the size of which bears no relation to that of the picture fixed thereon, is stupid enough, but is necessitated by the assumed fact that gift-books must be imposing in appearance, and unwieldy in dimensions. But no necessity of this kind exists to explain the fact that the pictures have been divorced from their original subjects and titles, and that no indication is given of the source whence they have been derived. Messrs. Dalziel, it is true, do not assert that the drawings are new, and, indeed, in the preface call them reproductions ; but explanations where and when they were pro- duced, with what object they were executed, and at what period of the artist's life the drawings were done, are all carefully omitted, and the consequence is that a good half of their in- terest is lost. But far worse remains behind, for not only is the original context missing, but there is interpolated before each drawing a page of most foolish and twaddling verse, or feeble prose. To this stuff—we can really call it no less—no name is attached, nor is any hint given as to its origin. It is even un- mentioned on the title-page. The aim of these clots of prose and rhyme, is to give a sentimental or domestic meaning to each picture, in fact, to render each design something between the Church Catechism and the Family Herald in its effect upon the public morality. Without entering at any length into the subject, it may be pointed out that the designs in many cases suffer immensely from being supposed to illustrate a meaning for which they have no real affinity, and which is in some cases even distinctly opposed to the original intention of the artist. It is worth while dwelling upon this point with a little insistence, as the practice of which we are now speaking has of late years become an habitual one with certain publishers, and tends to the degradation of both literature and art. It encourages a race of men who manufacture books. A few proprietors of magazines or publishers of illustrated works, are induced to lend their old wood-blocks, a couple of hack authors are engaged, one to write a page of prose, another a page of rhyme, to each picture, some general and attractive title is found for the whole production, a gorgeous cover, generally the most expensive element of the book, binds up the whole undigested heap, and the result is proclaimed as a new and delightful gift-book. It may be affirmed, without hesitation, that this special race of bookmaker is a thorough and unmitigated nuisance to the public, and a most hurtful enemy to the real author and artist.
Let us turn to a pleasanter subject,—the relation between the art of Walker and Pinwell. In speaking of this, we must warn our readers against accepting the majority of the Walker designs which they will find in this volume, as good examples of his art. Nearly all the finest specimens of his skill in illus. tration are absent from this book, which chiefly consists of com- paratively early work. The best woodcuts, or, rather, draw- ings for woodcuts, which this artist executed, were those for " The Adventures of Philip ;" and for some stories by Miss Thackeray,—.notably, the one of "The Village on the Cliff." The specimens given in this volume of " Rustic Pictures " are full of merit and suggestion, but they have little of that grace of line and almost pathetic beauty, to which the artist attained in his last work. It is the more necessary to bear this in mind, as in comparison with these, the illustrations by Pinwell are of a marked superiority. The truth is, that most of Pinwell's work on the wood is of a fairly level quality, and owing to his possession of inventiveness and imagination in a degree of which Walker could not boast, his work loses less when the charms of colour and delicate brush-work are subtracted.
The contrast as well as the likeness between the two artists is a very real and a very striking one,—a contrast as old as the difference between the dreamer and the doer. With all his delicate sense of beauty, with all his tenderness of heart, and wide sympathies for whatever was beautiful, tragic, or sug- gestive in modern life, Frederick Walker was at heart a Greek, rather than an Englishman. Strength and beauty of life were his ideals, and it may be doubted whether he ever painted a picture which owed any considerable portion of its beauty to a deeply-felt thought. So it was that, always fine in execution, he was finest when his subject expressed one of those general truths which all ages and peoples have felt since the dawn of the social life. That labour, well and cheerfully done, was a glorious thing, rather to be rejoiced over than mourned for,—that old age and
youth, sorrow and hope, rest and toil, are mingled inextricably in the " Almshouse " of the world,—that "some must laugh, and some must weep,"—these are the key-notes of his greatest pictures; while scarcely less great in their way are the number- less small and highly-finished water-colou'r drawings which insist upon the beauty of a bed of tulips, a red-brick wall, a heap of fish, or some other little portion of natural or artificial fact. None of the shortcomings which are apt to attach to simple realism are felt in his painting, for his sense of beauty was so keen and so unerring that his subject always justified his choice, and it is certain in art, that perfect beauty carries all the best meanings with itself. But having said Walker was a Greek, we must confess that he was, to some extent, a dull GI reek,—dull, that is, in the sense of having little or no imagination. Or rather, his imagination was of a very strictly limited kind, though within its boundaries it worked with great ease and vigour. Thinking quickly over Walker's pictures with which we are acquainted, we cannot remember at this moment one which showed that he had more than the faintest sympathy with poetry, or with any imagina- twe literature ; his mind and his emotions were bounded by the modern life in which he lived, and the work he produced was of an entirely similar kind.. It was poetical in a way, because human life, looked at with an eye which subtracts from it all the ugliness, and adds to it all the beauty of which it has any experience, comes to be poetical in its effect ; but this was only by the way, and was, we imagine, by no means aimed at by the artist himself. If the ordinary notion that genius is healthy in proportion as it accepts and makes the best of the facts of every-day life be a true one,—which, by the way, it certainly is not,—there never was any painter's genius more healthy than Walker's, for he took all his subjects, and all his way of looking at them,.from the people round him. Ho is late nineteenth-century in feeling to the core ; and, indeed, it was this which made Mr. Ruskin write that bitter-sweet letter to the Times cc propos of his pictures.
And this brings us to the consideration of Pinwell, and shows us the great difference between his power and that of Walker, for if the above definition be right, Pinwell was as unhealthy as Walker was the reverse. If ever there were a " dreamer of dreams born out of his due time," it was George Pinwell ; and his art is one of the most peculiar which has marked modern days. As Pre-Raphaelite in execution as Walker himself, and indeed almost more so, he is also what Walker never was, Pre-Raphael- ite in feeling, and has that faint, half-sick straining after beauty which marks the school. Pin well was always thinking about beauty, and Walker was always getting it; therein lies the dif- ference. But Pin well saw and sought for, far more than Walker ever dreamt of as existing. The world of thought to which Kilmeny returned exists in each one of Pinwell's designs ; they are more than lovely pictures, they are stories, to those who care to read them. Very certainly they are morbid in their feeling, and very frequently defective in their method ; but there hangs over them that dimly seen but divine halo that divides Shelley from Southey. They are the works of a poet, to whom even common things have meanings of mystery, and for whom beauty exists. in the working-out of the imagination, rather than in the faithful reproduction of bdautiful things. This leads to some of the designs being bizarre to a degree which offends many worthy people, for it is always an insult to tell your prosaic person that he doesn't understand poetry ; and to show him pictorial poetry and expect him to admire it, is at least an equal offence. The class of critics who go to see Mr. Irving in Hamad and Louis X.4, and never get above depreciatory remarks as to the character of—his legs, exists in painting, as well as acting ; and for these, the short- comings of Mr. Pinwell's art will prevent its having any pleasure for them. But for those who can accept an artist with the limitations that nature has imposed upon him, his attraction will always be very great, and his fame will increase with time.
It will increase, because his designs go to the root of the matter with which they are concerned,—they do not only touch its out- side with deft fingers. The poetry and the power iu them are as real as Edgar Allan Poe's " Raven," and, like that estimable bird, will be seen on earth "nevermore." It was peculiar to the man, and sounded like music heard upon the mountains, mournful, wild, and sweet. When it was concerned with common, every-day life, it imparted an element of strangeness to the most ordinary matters, and seemed to do so in defiance, rather than in obedience, to the artist's will.
We have dwelt rather upon the difference than the similarity
of these artists' minds and work ; but the similarity is rather in technical details, for the discussion of which this is scarcely the place, and the idyllic power of each is too well known to need commenting upon. Both were great men, whose early death (within a year of one another) inflicted a great, and at present irreparable, loss upon English Art. No one has in any way taken their place, and though-it is possible that we may in the future see another Walker, it is quite certain that we shall never see another Pinwell.
Previous page
