The Illustration. of Books. By Joseph Pennell. (T. Fisher Unwin.)—"
In every country save England," writes Mr. Pennell, "illustrators rank with any other artists." Whose fault is that ? Mr. Pennell suggests the critic. "Critics—even the best of them —will tell you that an illustrator is just a little lower than a painter." What the critic does say, and- cannot help saying, is that a great many illustrations are not art at all. And what Mr. Pennell goes on to write after the sentences quoted above, simply justifies him. A very large proportion of the genre pictures, with which many works of fiction are furnished, may be so characterised. A draughtsman scampers through a manuscript or proof-sheet, and embodies his hasty conceptions of the tale in forms which are often absolutely grotesque, and are seldom helpful. This, how- ever, is not quite relevant. Mr. Pennell's book is the work of an expert, addressed to the student, and likely to be very profitable to him. "Likely to be of much use to the young illustrator, and save the art-editor many a pang and many a sorrow." This is the opinion of the art-editor of the Century Magazine, and it would not be easy to find any one better qualified to express a judgment.
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