[Illustration: FROM THE RAPPRESENTAZIONE DI UN MIRACOLO DEL CORPO DI
GESU, 1572. JAC. CHITI.]
[Illustration: FROM THE RAPPRESENTAZIONE DI S. CRISTINA, 1555.]
I pass on to another point as to which I think the Florentine
woodcutters have something to teach us. If we put pictures into our
books, why should not the pictures be framed? A hard single line round
the edge of a woodcut is a poor set-off to it, often conflicting with
the lines in the picture itself, and sometimes insufficiently emphatic
as a frame to make us acquiesce in what seems a mere cutting away a
portion from a larger whole. Our Florentine friends knew better. Here
(pp. xiv-xv), for instance, are two scenes, from some unidentified
romance, which in 1572 and 1555 respectively (by which time they must
have been about fifty and sixty years old) appeared in Florentine
religious chapbooks, with which they have nothing to do. The little
borders are simple enough, but they are sufficiently heavy to carry off
the blacks which the artist (according to what is the true method of
woodcutting) has left in his picture, and we are much less inclined to
grumble at the window being cut in two than we should be if the cut
were made by a simple line instead of quite firmly and with
determination by a frame.
[Illustration: FROM LORENZO DE' MEDICI'S LA NENCIA DA BARBERINO, S.A.]
I have given these two Florentine cuts, much the worse for wear though
they be, with peculiar pleasure, because I take them to be the exact
equivalents of the pictures in our illustrated novels of the present
day of which Miss Sketchley gives several examples in her third paper.
They are good examples of what may be called the diffused
characterization in which our modern illustrators excel. Every single
figure is good and has its own individuality, but there is no attempt
to illustrate a central character at a decisive moment. Decisive
moments, it may be objected, do not occur (except for epicures) at
polite dinner parties, or during the 'mauvais quart d'heure,' which
might very well be the subject of our first picture. But it seems to me
that modern illustrators often deliberately shun decisive moments,
preferring to illustrate their characters in more ordinary moods, and
perhaps the Florentines did this also. Where the illustrator is not a
great artist the discretion is no doubt a wise one. What for instance
could be more charming, more completely successful than this little
picture of a messenger bringing a lady a flower, no doubt with a
pleasing message with it? In our next cut the artist has been much more
ambitious. Preceded by soldiers with their long spears, followed by the
hideously masked 'Battuti' who ministered to the condemned, Ippolito is
being led to execution. As he passes her door, Dianora flings herself
on him in a last embrace. The lady's attitude is good, but the
woodcutter, alas, has made the lover look merely bored. In
book-illustration, as in life, who would avoid failure must know his
limitations.
[Illustration: FROM THE STORIA DI IPPOLITO BUONDELMONTI E DIANORA
BARDI, S.A.]
Whatever shortcomings these Florentine pictures may have in themselves,
or whatever they may lose when examined by eyes only accustomed to
modern work, I hope that it will be conceded that as
character-illustrations they are far from being despicable.
Nevertheless the true home of character-illustration in the fifteenth
century was rather in Germany than in Italy. Inferior to the Italian
craftsmen in delicacy and in producing a general impression of grace
(partly, perhaps, because their work was intended to be printed in
conjunction with far heavier type) the German artists and woodcutters
often showed extraordinary power in rendering facial expression. My
favourite example of this is a little picture from the 'De Claris
Mulieribus' of Boccaccio printed at Ulm in 1473, on one side of which
the Roman general Scipio is shown with uplifted finger bidding the
craven Massinissa put away his Carthaginian wife, while on the other
Sophonisba is watched by a horror-stricken messenger as she drains the
poison her husband sends her. But there is a naivete about the figure
of Scipio which has frequently provoked laughter from audiences at
lantern-lectures, so my readers must look up this illustration for
themselves at the British Museum, or elsewhere. I fall back on a
picture of a card-party from a 'Guldin Spiel' printed at Augsburg in
1472, in which the hesitation of the woman whose turn it is to play,
the rather supercilious interest of her vis-a-vis, and the calm
confidence of the third hand, not only ready to play his best, but sure
that his best will be good enough, are all shown with absolute
simplicity, but in a really masterly manner. Facial expression such as
this in modern work seems entirely confined to children's books and
caricature, but one would sacrifice a good deal of our modern
prettiness for a few more touches of it.
[Illustration: FROM INGOLD'S 'GULDIN SPIEL.' AUGSBURG, 1472.]
The last point to which I would draw attention is that a good deal more
use might be made of quite small illustrations. The full-pagers are, no
doubt, impressive and dignified, but I always seem to see written on
the back of them the artist's contract to supply so many drawings of
such and such size at so many guineas apiece, and to hear him groaning
as he runs through his text trying to pick out the full complement of
subjects. The little sketch is more popular in France than in England,
and there is a suggestion of joyous freedom about it which is very
captivating. Such small pictures did not suit the rather heavy touch of
the German woodcutters; in Italy they were much more popular. At Venice
a whole series of large folio books were illustrated in this way in the
last decade of the fifteenth century, two editions of Malermi's
translation of the Bible, Lives of the Saints, an Italian Livy, the
Decamerone of Boccaccio, the Novels of Masuccio, and other works, all
in the vernacular. At Ferrara, under Venetian influence, an edition of
the Epistles of S. Jerome was printed in 1497, with upwards of one
hundred and eighty such little cuts, many of them illustrating
incidents of monastic life. Both at Venice and Ferrara the cuts are
mainly in outline, and when they are well cut and two or three come
together on a page the effect is delightful. In France the vogue of the
small cut took a very special form. By far the most famous series of
early French illustrated books is that of the Hours of the Blessed
Virgin (with which went other devotions, making fairly complete
prayer-books for lay use), which were at their best for some fifteen
years reckoning from 1488. These Hour-Books usually contained some
fifteen large illustrations, but their most notable features are to be
found in the borders which surround every page. On the outer and lower
margins these borders are as a rule about an inch broad, sometimes
more, so that they can hold four or five little pictures of about an
inch by an inch and a half on the outer margin, and one rather larger
one at the foot of the page. The variety of the pictures designed to
fill these spaces is almost endless. Figures of the Saints and their
emblems and illustrations of the games or occupations suited to each
month fill the margins of the Calendar. To surround the text of the
book there is a long series of pictures of incidents in the life of
Christ, with parallel scenes from the Old Testament, scenes from the
lives of Joseph and Job, representations of the Virtues, the Deadly
Sins being overcome by the contrary graces, the Dance of Death, and for
pleasant relief woodland and pastoral scenes and even grotesques. The
popularity of these prayer-books was enormous, new editions being
printed almost every month, with the result that the illustrations were
soon worn out and had frequently to be replaced. I have often wished,
if only for the sake of small children in sermon time, that our English
prayer-books could be similarly illustrated. An attempt to do this was
made in the middle of the last century, but it was pretentious and
unsuccessful. The great difficulty in the way of a new essay lies in
the popularity of very small prayer-books, with so little margin and
printed on such thin paper as hardly to admit of border cuts. The
difficulty is real, but should not be insuperable, and I hope that some
bold illustrator may soon try his hand afresh.
[Illustration: FROM THE MALERMI BIBLE. VENICE, GIUNTA, 1490.]
[Illustration: FROM A FRENCH BOOK OF HOURS. PARIS, KERVER, 1498.]
I should not be candid if I closed this paper without admitting that my
fifteenth-century friends anticipated modern publishers in one of their
worst faults, the dragging in illustrations where they are not wanted.
In the fifteenth century the same cuts were repeated over and over
again in the same book to serve for different subjects. Modern
publishers are not so simple-hearted as this, but they add to the cost
of their books by unpleasant half-tone reproductions of unnecessary
portraits and views, and I do not think that book-buyers are in the
least grateful to them. Miss Sketchley, I am glad to see, has not
concerned herself with illustrators whose designs require to be
produced by the half-tone process. To condemn this process unreservedly
would be absurd. It gives us illustrations which are really needed for
the understanding of the text when they could hardly be produced in any
other way, and while it does this it must be tolerated. But by
necessitating the use of heavily-loaded paper--unpleasant to the touch,
heavy in the hand, doomed, unless all the chemists are wrong, speedily
to rot--it is the greatest danger to the excellence of our English
book-work which has at present to be faced, while by wearying readers
with endless mechanically produced pictures it is injurious also to the
best interests of artistic illustration.
[Illustration: FROM MR. HOUSMAN'S "A FARM IN FAIRYLAND."